Spring Break in Cocoa Beach

Last week Finn and I traveled to Florida for a week at the beach. We had a nice balance of relaxing, cooking gourmet food, walking on the beach, swimming in the pool, and seeing the local sights.

Finn is going to be a little fish. He loved his first experience in a pool. By the end of the trip he was splashing away and didn't cry one bit when I quickly took him underwater with me. The sand on the beach was mesmerizing as well as all the other treasures buried in it (scratchy, dried seaweed, sticks, shells....). Of course, he had to try the requisite mouthful of sand. One sampling was all it took to quickly realize that it didn't taste very good. Not much later though I found him "chewing" away on a tiny shell. Thankfully I noticed that before he attempted to swallow.

What else did we do?
-We tracked down a group of manatees at the locks
-Combed the beach for sea beans, shells, Portuguese man-o-war, blue buttons, etc....
-Peered into the night sky for the returning Endeavor space shuttle. Although the clouds obscured our view, we did hear the sonic boom as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere
-Took an airboat tour on the St. John's River. Finn was so cooperative with wearing his ear protection.
-Ventured to the Cape Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. We are sure he said "apple" three times while we stopped to have a snack.
-Endured the strong winds at Jetty Park. Finn leaned forward to the edge of his stroller in excitement when he spotted a feral black cat and then subsequently for a small group of shorebirds skittering down the walk.

Despite being in a total "mom only phase", Finn warmed up to the new setting and had a great time with grandma and yaya. He refined his wave, learned to drink from a straw and became very determined that he would learn to snap his fingers like yaya. The adults were not the only ones that ate well. Finn discovered a few new favorites; quinoa, garbanzo beans and navy beans.

After all our fun in the sun, returning home to 10 inches of fresh snow was a bit of a shocker. Thankfully Spring is here so snow in the valley won't last long.