Kid-Free Key West

After dropping the girls off with Grandma and Grandpa at the farm, CK and I headed to Key West. First, he told me he planned to stop at a special place for lunch on the way down. We flew to Chalet Suzanne, which is this amazing little place in the middle of nowhere! It was a destination restaurant serving fine food that many stopped at while traveling before the interstates were put in and it has an interesting history and has been in the same family for over 80 years. The restaurant is very eccentric and interesting but has also seen better times. Our waitress was very friendly and obviously trying as hard as she could to do a great job. Other than one other couple, we were the only people there for lunch which was a little sad since it's a really great place! They are known for their Romaine Soup, which is a spinach and mushroom-based soup that was sent on the Apollo space flights to the moon! I must confess it sounded odd, but had to try it. It was absolutely incredible and one of the most delicious soups I've ever had! After lunch, we walked around a bit before continuing to Key West. The hotel/restaurant has a grass strip, where CK landed and it was a little precarious flying out since the grass seemed to be a little too tall and there was some sort of hazard at the far end of the runway. But, we made it out safely and landed in Key West before we knew it!

The few days in Key West seemed to fly by and we had a great time walking around, visiting the "Southern Most Point of the U.S." and eating a lot of key lime pie. We ended up going to one of favorite restaurants, Blue Heaven several times and enjoyed a slice of their amazing key lime pie each time. We ended up taking an entire key lime pie back to CK's parents and it survived the trip perfectly! One night we went to Latitudes to eat dinner while watching the sunset. Latitudes is on a private island so we took a water taxi out to the restaurant and ended up having a great table inside. The food was great and watching the sunset was really magical! We ate at Pepe's and CK told me stories of his past visits to the restaurant while he worked for Senator Connie Mack. One our last full day in Key West, we returned to our hotel pool after lunch with the plan of relaxing, reading and swimming, however, it ended up raining pretty solidly for the entire afternoon. After about an hour CK gave up and returned to our room, but I stayed under the umbrella and enjoyed the rain falling all around me. Although it was very wet, it stayed warm so it was still very relaxing. We had such a fun time and the girls had a great time hanging out on the farm with their Grandma and Grandpa. Most evenings when we called to talk, they were too busy eating ice cream to talk! We were pretty sure we could have stayed gone for months and wouldn't have been missed.

On our way!!

Chalet Suzanne

The Restaurant

The Baron hanging out on the grass strip of Chalet Suzanne

Arriving at Key West

The frog fountain at our hotel - The Gardens

Olivia Street

CK at the southern most point of the U.S.

Me at the same spot

Lunch again, at our favorite place Blue Heaven

And this is why it's our favorite!

A fantastic store!

After a fun day of sightseeing

Now to dinner

Watching the sunset at Latitudes

Enjoying a fantastic meal

Love the Key West charm

Off to breakfast

Breakfast at Pepe's. Yum!

Testing out Key Lime Pies

Off to dinner on our final night

CK

Our hotel is such a lovely paradise

Back at the farm

A little slice of Heaven!

Our Little Bookworm...

In packing for our week in Florida, I packed a few of Sofia's dinosaur books and other favorites and only included one Magic Treehouse book, thinking it would take her the entire trip to get through the short chapter book. Instead, she started it in Meeting on Sunday morning and read through the entire book within the hour! Then, she re-read it over and over and had it in front of her a lot of the time. While we were in Key West, her Grandma bought her the 4th book since she knew we have the 2nd and 3rd at home. Sofia read through that, although she made it clear that she plans to start over and read them from the beginning once we are back home. I couldn't believe how quickly she read the 1st book and am so proud of how much she enjoys reading.

Can't get enough of her book!

Silver Springs

On Monday morning we decided to go to Silver Springs which is an old time amusement park that CK went to often from the time he can remember. He first took me there just after we were married and I loved it! During that visit we held a small alligator (it had it's mouth closed so it couldn't open it and bite) and had our picture taken. It was so interesting to hold and touch. Also at that time the park included glass bottom boat rides through the river created by the natural springs as well as giraffes and a petting zoo. There was a great little museum that talked about the long history of the area and cute concession stands and gift shops. It was really a cool amusement park from back in the day. In the 1930s the original Tarzan movies were made underwater near one of the springs and some of the props are still at the bottom. Since the water is so clear, it's really fun to see it all from the boat.

However, times have unfortunately changed for Silver Springs. Instead of visiting this cute, low-key amusement park, people go to Disney World and Sea World in Orlando and it was a little sad visiting it in it's current state. There were very few people there and we were told at the ticket office that the only thing operating now are the glass bottom boats. Everything else is closed down until the State of Florida takes the area over as a state park. We bought our boat tickets and walked through the park, amazed how little activity there was.

Sofia was really hoping to be able to hold a small alligator and was sad when we told her they don't have him anymore. We took the boat ride and Sofia really loved it! Olivia had just woken up from a nap and took a bit to get involved in looking down at all the fish and watching the birds. The boat tour was exactly what I remembered from our previous trip and the tour guide was an older African American man who has probably been giving tours hundreds of times. His Florida accent was so thick that I actually had a hard time understanding him and Sofia couldn't understand him at all! It was great!

After our boat trip, we tried to buy ice cream but there was only one concession stand open and their ice cream area was broken so the girls got ice cream sticks which melted quickly in the Florida heat. We made a pressed "Silver Springs" penny, which I sort of collect and it was bittersweet knowing it will be so different the next time we return. We visited the gift shop and Sofia bought a turtle stuffed animal while Olivia picked out a lamb. I tried to convince them to buy cute mermaid dolls, but they didn't change their minds. Everything was on sale.

We left Silver Springs and headed to visit the girls' Great Grandma.

Silver Springs

On the glass bottom boat

Olivia with her Papa...still waking up

Olivia and her Papa

Sofia and "Rosy" her stuffed cow looking for fish

The view....very beautiful

Watching the fish below

Looking at the spring

My girls and me

Next to the glass bottom boats

Our girls!

Olivia is done with the pictures...

Saying "Goodbye" to Silver Springs.....

Visiting Great Grandma

After our visit to Silver Springs, we stopped by to visit the girls' Great Grandma, who is amazing at 91! She's slow to get around and needs a walker to walk from place to place, but Great Grandma is sharp for her age. When we arrived, Diane was there and had given her a shower and straightened up for her. It was great to see Diane and Sofia gave her a big hug. She's always been drawn to Diane. Sofia found a book in Great Grandma's kid-friendly area and decided to read to her. It was so cute and Great Grandma loved it. I tried to get a picture of Olivia sitting on Great Grandma's lap, but she didn't want to sit on her lap. Instead, she slowly warmed up to Great Grandma and decided to "read" to her as well (in her own way, of course).

We visited with Great Grandma and listened to her stories and her telling of the birthday party held for her 91st birthday in May. It was great to hear about it and see how excited she was by all the friends and attention. After a while we said our goodbyes and headed back to the farm. It was great to see her and have the girls spend some time with her.

Sofia reading Pocahontas to Great Grandma

Love this picture!

The girls with Diane and Great Grandma

Olivia "reads" to Great Grandma

Great Grandma and Sofia

Olivia's First Cub Ride!

Yesterday Olivia took her very first Cub ride! She sat upfront with me and wanted to push all the buttons and turn all the knobs, but otherwise loved her first flight! I really had to watch her reach while we flew but she was completely comfortable and loved looking down on everything (especially the horses). CK flew us over to Orange Lake and around the area before we landed back at the farm. I though Olivia might fall asleep like Sofia did on her first flight, but she stayed awake and really seemed interested in it all.

After landing, Sofia really wanted to go for a flight with CK but the Cub wouldn't crank for some reason, so the flight had to wait until another day. Both CK and Sofia were bummed and it really was the perfect afternoon for a flight.

All smiles before take-off

There we go

Flying!

Sofia and her Papa

Why won't it crank??

Grandpa and his girl