The second leg of our Florida vacation took us to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area which is our old stomping ground. The drive was much smoother than the one a couple of days before. We stayed with Robert's mom and hopefully didn't drive her too crazy. Overall, the kids were good but there were a couple of instances where the behavior went downhill. Anyway, it was good that the kids got to meet many more family members.
Kristine was enamored with my 21 and 22 year-old nieces who took her & Olegs on a couple of outings. One of my nieces has a Jeep Wrangler so she and her boyfriend took the kids for a ride with the top off. They loved it!! I was worried about Olegs having mostly girls around but he actually enjoyed it since they're cute. He got to wear his "man perfume." LOL!
The kids got to swim in a couple of different pools at various places. The weather was pretty warm so they were excited they could swim. One of the days we got to spend some time with Robert's sister and her four children. It was good for all of the kids to get to know each other. In typical kid fashion, they didn't speak to each other at first but by the time the evening was over they were cutting up and having a ball together.
On New Year's Eve, we spent the day at the beach with my sisters. It was the most beautiful day...80 something degrees and the sky was so blue. The kids had an awesome time jumping in the waves. Kristine enjoyed floating on a raft but we had to send Olegs out to get her a couple of times because she went out too far. With the language barrier, I wasn't able to explain my personal rule of always making sure there's someone out in the water farther than me so the sharks will eat them first. LOL! Instead, I just told her that sharks live in the far out water. Don't ask me why I said that. It was a dumb thing to say because of course it caused her to freak out. So she tried to stay in the shallow water and was letting the raft scrape the shells. I had to motion to her to go out a little further to avoid the shells. I'm sure she was so confused by this point...one second I'm telling her to get closer to shore and the next I'm saying go back out. Luckily, it didn't stop her from having fun. The water was ice cold to me but it didn't phase them. The Lord sure blessed us with a beautiful beach day because the next day it began to rain and get cold.
Since we had spent the day at the beach, Rob and I were too pooped for New Year's activities. Yes, we're turning into old fogies. In the old days, I would have had to be out at midnight somewhere celebrating but now I'm just as happy to go to bed early, wake up and kiss my husband at midnight and go back to sleep. The kids asked why we weren't going to a big party in America for New Year's Eve. They told us that in Latvia, they have a big party and all the kids go outside. We fibbed a little and told them that it's not a big deal in America. We did stay up long enough for them to see some festivities on TV but we told them they only celebrate in New York and the rest of the country watches on TV. LOL! They didn't fall for it but they were okay with it since they were tired too.
Our trip back home was pretty uneventful. Traffic was much better and the kids kept busy working in the puzzle books they got for Christmas. That's another thing. They got a ton of presents from the family. We'll have to break it to them that they can't take everything with them. We'll save that for another day.
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