National Lampoon's Aafedt Vacation

David, Fuzz, Reese and I headed to Naples, FL to visit my grandparents the past week.  We booked the earliest flight (7:15am) out so the kids could at least get a nap in once we got there.  Fuzz was so excited about getting to ride an airplane he could barely stand himself.  We had been telling him all week we were going on an airplane to get to grandma/grandpas.  Luckily for us, the plan was on time and we boarded.  Fuzz stared out the window and could barely sit still he was so excited to take off.  Thanks to a fairly empty plane, a nap by Reese, and the ingenious invention of the portable DVD player, we had a very smooth flight down.

We got there and Fuzz was so excited to see Grandma (not to be confused with Gaga who is my mom).  He immediately wanted to get in the pool when we got there so we did.  Even though it was about 65 air temperature.  He had been so excited about it, I bit the bullet and got in with him.  It didn't phase him a bit, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't feel limbs for about 20 minutes after we got out.


Unfortunately, the weather was not the greatest and actually was only about 15-20 degrees colder in Mpls.  The first morning we were there, Fuzz, Reese and I headed to a little park in my grandparents neighborhood.  It had two swings that both kids fell in love with.  We ended up spending quite a deal of time here to burn some energy in the morning.  On the walk there, we got to cross a bridge overlooking some water and Fuzz made friends with a Ducky that he looked for the remainder of our time there.  Both kids sat in the swings for about 20 minutes just loving being pushed "up higher to the sky mama" as Fuzz said.  

The next day, David went golfing with Grandpa at their club.  David shot an 84 which had Grandpa bragging to all his friends he had brought a "ringer" to play with him.  While they were golfing, Fuzz, Reese and I found Fuzz's new heaven...a train depot.  It was attached to the train museum and had 5-6 working trains that were all interactive.  They also had a riding train outside which we/Fuzz rode (not exaggerating) 10 times.  Fuzz had an absolute blast and it was a good way to see some of Naples too on our drive there.

The second major outing we did was to the Naples zoo. This zoo was awesome...so much to do and so kid friendly.  About every quarter mile or so, they had a park for the kids to play on and we hit every single one of those.  Fuzz's favorite animal was the monkeys and I think that was my favorite attraction too...they were about 10 of them we could see swinging ALL over the place and making so much noise.  We even saw them get fed.  I think Fuzz's other favorite animal was the leopard...he kept saying, "here kitty."  It was circling around us so we got to see it up close and personal and Fuzz stared at it for a good 5 minutes.  We also saw a ton of other animals and got him a stuffed alligator to remember the trip.  Reese, skipping her morning nap, just chilled in the back pack and again, loved watching her brother run around.

Finally, towards the end of the week, we got some pseudo nice weather (just so you don't think I'm making it up...the average temp while we were there was low 60's).  The first and one of only two days we hit 70, we got up and immediately went to the pool.  Keep in mind, David and I rock/paper/scissors for the 5 times we took Fuzz to the pool and froze our a**es off previously.  This time around, we were all excited to go.  We had an absolute blast that day and even brought lunch over and ate that by the pool.  We didn't even need a life jacket with Fuzz because he loved his noodle.  And the best part was he was tall enough for the shallow end so he just tooled around there when he was sick of the noodle.  He also had a blast jumping off the side.  

After Reese woke up from her morning nap, we brought her over to the pool too.  We had bought a flotation device for her to sit in and she loved it too. She could see exactly what her brother was doing and splash to her little hearts content.  We literally were at the pool that day from 9:30am-1.

The last day we were there, we headed to the beach.  This was Fuzz's first time on an ocean (technically Gulf) type beach and obviously Reese's too.  Fuzz immediately put his feet in the sand. We took him down to the ocean and even though it was freezing, Fuzz went all the way up to his waist before deciding to run out.  We taught him how to run from the waves so he did that for awhile before he spotted some pelicans.  He yelled, "NEMO" and chased them around...hence the sequence of pictures below.  Reese wasn't sure what to think...she played in the sand for awhile, of course ate some too and even crawled around in it.  It was so fun to watch Fuzz just run around.  We even ate lunch next to the beach where Fuzz made friends with another duck (might have been a turkey, hard to tell...it was HUGE for a duck).

Luckily for us, the plane ride home was empty as well...so David and I each took a kid and had a row to ourself.  After about an hour, both kids were asleep and slept the rest of the way home.  

Both kids had a blast getting to spend time with my grandparents.  Grandma took Fuzz on a ton of rides on her walker and Grandpa taught him how to press the button on his car to make the trunk/doors open and close.  It was great for all of us to spend some good time with them since they are only in MN for 1/2 the year (Reese was 4.5 months when they left and now motoring around).  It was also a lot of fun to introduce Fuzz to the things I love about Naples and have since I was little.   We were definitely sad to go...