Florida

This past weekend Josh and I went to Florida to see his family and to celebrate his nephew’s 4th birthday. We spent Saturday in his hometown and then drove to Orlando on Sunday morning. We spent Sunday at SeaWorld and Monday at Disneyworld. Sunday night when we were all eating dinner, Josh and his dad were talking about the plan for the next day and how long the park was open. They kept talking about how we were going to Magic Kingdom, and finally I had to ask if that was the actual Disneyworld. I am definitely not from Florida...

It turned out that I actually didn’t make it to Magic Kingdom the next day. My eyes finally revolted after the past two nights of 4-5 hours of sleep and then spending all day Saturday walking around in the sun and the wind at SeaWorld. My eyes were getting red, itchy, and dry by the evening, and when I woke up the next morning, they were all red and crusty (lovely, I know). I knew they wouldn’t be able to handle another full day of being outside, so I spent the day in the hotel while everyone else went to the park. It turns out I may not have missed much, since the kids hadn't gotten much sleep the past few nights either, so it sounded like everyone was kind of cranky. Regardless, I really missed being able to spend the day with them and hated wasting a perfect 75-degree vacation day cooped up in the hotel.

I spent a lot of this weekend and the previous weekend thinking about generations of family. Josh’s siblings both have kids, and a handful of my older cousins have kids already, and it’s nice that those kids will be able to spend many years with their grandparents. I’m definitely in no rush to have babies, but in a way I wish I were because then my kids would be able to spend more time with their grandparents and even their great grandparents. I have wonderful memories of how fun my grandparents were when I was younger, and I would hate for my kids to miss out on similar memories if their grandparents are older and less able to play with them.

It’s hard to see my extended family members age, and there were times when I was at home last weekend that I wanted to freeze that exact instant in time and preserve it for my maybe-eventual kids. I suppose time seems more precious now because of my grandmother passing away last spring. I certainly had several years with her, but many of them weren’t her best. I guess I fear that the same thing will happen to my children, but I want them to know my parents as the funny, energetic, loving people that they are now.