This Thanksgiving Jake and I went to Florida! It was such a great vacation. This holiday also doubled as our honeymoon. When we were planning the wedding in July we decided to take our honeymoon over Thanksgiving break. I am so glad that we decided to do it when we did! Both Jake and I felt like this trip really strengthened our relationship. I now know with out a doubt that I could never live without Jake (not that I doubted it before).
The trip started with a very long flight. We had a lay over in Atlanta. When we got to our gate in Atlanta we had some time to kill. So we got settled, plugged the computer in, busted out the snacks and started playing a dice game. We came to find out that our gate had changed. It changed to a completely different concourse! Luckily, Jake saw the very small gate change announcement on to
TV screen. So we hurried and packed up all of our stuff, jumped on a tram to the other concourse and finely got to our correct gate.
When we landed we found a very rainy Florida. I was beyond bummed. I had
forewarned Jake that if it rained the whole time we were there, that I would cry. Well, luckily it only rained the first day. Our original plan for Wednesday was to go to Busch Gardens, but with the rain we had to change our plans. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry. It turned out to be a great solution to a rainy day. We learned about the life cycle. Saw an I-Max movie about the air force, learned about
tornadoes, wild fires, and hail storms. We even stood in a hurricane with 78 MPH winds.
We were able to stay with Jake's aunt and uncle. It was really nice to get to stay with them and get to know them a little bit better. Aunt Renee' made sure that we were very well fed every night with ham, roast, yellow rice and lots and lots of cheesecake! We ate like kings and queens all week long. We also had a lot of fun playing pool and swimming in their super sized hot tub!
Thursday was Thanksgiving. We drove up to Mt. Dora to
Jake's grandparents house. It was fun to meet most of
Jake's family. We lounged around most of the afternoon while we waited for the whole family to show up. We had 3 turkeys! One was oven-bakes, one was smoked, and one was
deep fried. I had never tried anything but oven-baked, so it was fun to try some new things. I commented to Jake that there wasn't any jello salads and he reminded me that we weren't in Utah any more ;) Thanksgiving was eaten by the pool. The weather had warmed up really nice for turkey day. After we stuffed ourselves we took a walk down to Lake Dora to try to find some alligators. We think we saw one pop its head out of the water. This my first alligator ever! I had never seen one before!
Friday was a beautiful day. We went to Busch Gardens. Busch Gardens was amazing! I can't believe that there are parks like this! It was a combination of a wild animal park and a roller coaster park. I was pretty nervous on the first roller coaster. I hadn't been on a coaster since my senior year of high school! This roller coaster was one that your feet dangle. I was a bit freaked, but after it was all over I wanted to go on another one! We also went on a roller coaster that did a negative degree drop. This coaster brought you to the very top of the first dive and hung you over the edge. Then, after you had been hanging there for a bit, it dropped you into the biggest dive you can imagine! The last coaster that we road was an old wood coaster. That was the worst ride of the whole day. I felt like my head was going to roll right off of my head! Jake felt the same way. After that we felt like we were done with rides for the rest of the night. So, we just walked around and looked at all the shops.
In between the crazy roller coasters we got to see animals of all kinds. We saw lions (who happened to be mating), elephants, zebras, hippos and of course alligators. We went on a sky tram that gave you an 360 degree view of the whole park and a safari ride that took you along a trail and then stopped on a bridge that "gave way" and sent you down a river. We spent half of the day on our own and the other half with Jake's brother Evan and his girlfriend. It was such a fun, and tiring day! We could have gone back for another day, but we were too tired after our first experience.
Saturday was spent at the beach. Since the weather wasn't really on our side, it was a little bit too cold to get in the water. So we ate our lunch on the beach and enjoyed the view. We also walked the pier and enjoyed the entertainment of some street performers. We grabbed lunch at checkers, which is Jake's favorite fast food restaurant in Florida.... They have some amazing fries!
Sunday was a really relaxed day. We went to the
Hilsborough River Park. This park had it all. They had hiking trails along the river, a swimming pool (emptied for the winter), volleyball nets, and canoes to rent. I told Jake that the next time we are in Florida that we are going to have to go camping at the park.
Unfortunately on Monday we had to get on a plane back to Utah. The flight home felt even longer than the flight there. Now, its back to real life -- school and work :( There's only a week left of classes and then its finals.
Clearwater Beach
It wouldn't be a honeymoon without a kiss on a beach
Checkers! So yummy!
Just goofing off with the camera
Busch Garden's Christmas tree
Jake's heaven on earth
Where the safari bridge "gave way" to the river
The elephants did tricks!
The sky tram at Busch GardensThe alligators were huge!
Sun set at Lake Dora
The park of Jake's youth
And, this is where Jake's love for fishing all began. His first "fishing hole".
Lake Dora with very full Thanksgiving bellies
Cousins
Jake's grandma and the spread of food
The Thanksgiving table
Alligators were every where!
Museum of Science and Industry
The sympathy suit. If only this was how it really worked ;)
