When I left off, we had completed our time in Key West and headed back to Fort Lauderdale, where we were supposed to spend the night and leave the next day. Instead, our trip was extended due to Southwest, and we had four additional days to stay in Florida. There are worse places to be stuck, and we were lucky because we have family there to stay with! But first, as planned, we headed to dinner with Dave’s parents and his sister had arrived with her husband and two of her kids, so we were excited to see everyone!
Our friend who used to live in Kansas has a restaurant in Surfside, FL, which we love and always visit when we are there, so that’s where we went for dinner. There were 11 of us and we ordered a ton of food!
After we ate, we took a walk at the beach. My nephew kept saying he wanted to see some really nice palm trees, while my sister in law was nervous because it was so dark. We had fun taking pictures in the dark with our amazing phone cameras!
That night, we stayed in the hotel in Fort Lauderdale, and in the morning, Dave took Zachary to the airport for his planned youth group trip to NYC. He flew with a group from FL and he was excited to go. While at the airport, Dave went to the Southwest counter and they gave him $200 vouchers for each of us, no questions asked. And Southwest was already set to cover our expenses for the extra days in FL.
We checked out of the hotel and went to meet up with Dave’s sister and family at their hotel in Delray – back where we’d started our trip (at the Air BnB). They had an ocean view room!
My nephew said I should take his picture:
And a family selfie:
We hung out at the hotel pool for a bit and had lunch there (pizza and salads) and then we went to my parents’ house. If you remember, we hadn’t stayed with them for the beginning of the trip because Simon had recently had Covid. Now, with the extra days, we were back and staying with them this time. I felt like we were repeating everything from the week prior, although we hadn’t stayed with them before! With only four of us, it was a little easier for my parents, because they didn’t need to set up an extra air mattress!
That night, we had dinner with one of Gabbie’s friends from her Israel trip who was also in FL while we were there. They wouldn’t have seen each other if we’d flown home that day as planned.
The next morning (Thursday) was our first extra day. Dave and I went to buy some groceries and we stopped at Starbucks – thanks Southwest for reimbursing us.
The weather was warm again, so it was back to the pool! I am not sure we did anything exciting that day because I didn’t take pictures. I do know that we went back to Carvel that night and had milkshakes.
The next morning (Friday) we walked to the clubhouse area and played some shuffle board again and got my mom to join in this time too.
Then Simon and my dad took to the basketball court and Simon kept making baskets! I was surprised because he says he’s not good at basketball!
We went to Starbucks again after that, and later that day, it was back to Dave’s parents’ apartment for a repeat of the previous Friday night – Saturday night stay with them. This time we had a bit more room without Zachary. I did get these photos of Zachary learning at his convention!
Saturday night was New Year’s Eve and Simon made a big plan to stay up until midnight. First, him and Grandpa went out to get a movie. They got The War With Grandpa, which I hear was pretty bad! But I spent my evening binge reading Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez, which would be my 300th book for the year. I was interrupted twice – first, for fireworks! Which Simon insisted were all part of his plan.
And we went out for ice cream.
Everyone stayed up until midnight besides Dave and his dad.
Since our flight home was later in the day, we still had time to spend on our last day in Florida, so we went to Hollywood Beach. We usually go there every year and hadn’t this time yet! We like to rent a surrey and get silly while riding on the promenade there.
Saw another iguana!
Dave’s parents came along too and relaxed a bit. Dave’s father also hopped on the surrey for a bit.
The Chiefs were playing at the time so we were all wearing Chiefs shirts and whenever we saw someone else wearing one we said “Go Chiefs!”
After the beach, we got lunch and food to bring home with us, and went to the airport. We were on the same flight as a friend of ours and her baby, so we sat together and I tried to help her with all of her things! I sat across from her and ended up with a guy who didn’t understand that his arm needed to go on his side of the arm rest – annoying. Meanwhile, Zachary flew home from NY and his friend’s dad brought him home, so he was there already when we arrived. On time – just four days late!
That concludes our winter break trip to Florida! Hope you enjoyed following along!