Officially today is the 96th day of social distancing/the worldwide corona virus pandemic comes to Tennessee. However, it is also summer and we trying to have a good summer, while also being cautious. Such is life for the past several months.
Last week my brother randomly asked if the kids and I wanted to pop down to Florida with him for the weekend. This is a trip we try to do once or twice a year to visit our sister's family. Unfortunately we didn't make it down at all last year, and with the corona virus pandemic, I think we all have kind of hit a wall and were craving family time.
Since we are all healthy, I threw caution to the wind (after making sure Daniel was okay with us traipsing about the country in 2020) and we made the trip south to Tallahassee with my brother. Our experience was that traveling during a pandemic wasn't too bad. Though we did have an issue finding open bathrooms for the kids. Fast food restaurants were generally open only for drive through, so we had to hunt for gas stations. Once we even stopped at a Whole Foods (we did buy apples so we weren't just using them for their clean bathroom!).
As for the weekend, we surprised my niece and nephew and the kids all had a blast being together non stop. We took a boat out to Dog Island (a repeat of a trip we did a couple of years ago where we were temporarily stranded and a storm rolled in!). This time, our outing was a little more low key, and the kids had a ton of fun swimming in the Gulf.
Though it was not completely without mishaps. Papa (my brother-in-law's dad) started to take off while we were all on the beach. We were dumbfounded that he might leave us again (like two years ago), but it turns out he was just going to help someone whose boat had drifted away from the island with a young girl on board.
The second mishap was running aground a sandbar on the way back to Carabelle. We missed the channel and couldn't tell it was shallow because the water was so choppy. Thankfully we weren't stuck, but it was a surprise to grind suddenly to a halt.
After boating, we went and grabbed seafood. If you know my brother, you know he needs his raw oyster fix whenever we go to Florida. Jack surprised us as the only kid that tried a raw oyster. He was not a fan. Levi's face sums up how the other kids felt about this delicacy!
Back in Tallahassee, the kids had fun doing kid things: bouncy house, trampoline, playing Uno, playing video games, playing tornado... We also went swimming at a neighbor's pool and then the kids did their semi-annual talent show with their Uncle Mark.
I love seeing them all cut loose with the dancing and being silly. I didn't catch this on my video, but my niece, Izzy, is really funny as the emcee. She always has off the cuff jokes that keep us laughing.
Our trip home was uneventful. It was a quick trip, but every time we made a pit stop we were reminded of the pandemic via everyone wearing masks. Our experience while traveling was that every person we encountered was super polite and kind (like extra). Looking forward to seeing family a couple more times as the summer progresses.
