Wednesday in Jacksonville

Good morning! Hello from Jacksonville Beach, Florida!

Chase, Sadie and I arrived in Florida on Monday evening and I don’t want to jinx myself for our drive back home but the drive was such a shockingly smooth one! I took Chase to preschool on Monday morning while I participated in a focus group to give feedback to his school and I think loading a semi-tired Chase into the car after an active and high-energy morning at school was key.

He didn’t nap for more than 30 minutes on the entire 6+ hour drive but seemed content and I shockingly didn’t even need to break out the DVD player until the last hour. I’m not sure what happened, but the stars aligned and Chase was very into the snacks, books, toys and activities I packed for him. (I’m happy to share some of the specific things I packed that seemed to be a big-time hit with Chase, so let me know if this is of interest!)

Our first full day in Florida included a trip to St. Augustine and Chase loved checking out the rescued sea turtles at Marineland and made fast friends with Rocky, a sea turtle that was hit by a boat and only has vision in his right eye.

One of the volunteers explained that Rocky seems to have an affinity for young children and he swam along the windows to check out Chase which made his day. Chase quickly picked up various rocks off the ground to present to Rocky at the window and he’s been talking about Rocky constantly since our visit!

Wednesday

Wednesday morning began with 1,000 books. Visiting Mae and Pop’s house means Chase has access to a plethora of new-to-him books and we spent the first 45 minutes or so of our morning curled up reading on the couch in our pajamas with Sadie.

(I have no idea why these two have the guiltiest looks on their faces but this picture made me laugh!)

Around 9 a.m., we all headed off to exercise. While my mom went to Jazzercise, I opted for the gym with my dad since they have childcare available. Once Chase was all checked in and settled, my dad and I went through our respective workouts and my upper body strength session looked like this:

After a number of rest days thanks to travel and opting for family fun over fitness, it felt good to get back into the gym on Wednesday morning, move my body and work up a sweat.

We made it back to my parents’ place for a quick lunch before my mom, Chase and I headed off to Target to pick up some goodies for a bridal shower and bachelorette party I’m attending this weekend. Chase was highly entertained by a cake pop and all hopped up on sugar by the time we got home.

I hoped to get Chase down for his nap when we walked through the door but he had other plans and quickly spotted my dad reading a magazine on the patio.

He immediately dragged a blanket out onto the porch, selected a scuba diving magazine and “read” with Pop for 20 minutes which was too cute for me to interrupt. Eventually he settled in his Pack ‘n’ Play but don’t ask me HOW we managed to get him to sleep in a Pack ‘n’ Play after an entire Christmas in Florida where I basically had to co-sleep with our sick child in a big bed… It’s a small miracle.

While Chase slept, I managed to sneak in some work time on the computer as I hung out with my parents.

Before Chase was up for the day, my mom took me through a mini-tutorial to show me the basics surrounding how to use the Instant Pot.

I am the WORST about reading directions on new kitchen gadgets and want everything to be intuitive. Even though I’ve had my Instant Pot for a while now, I’ve been choosing my slow cooker over it time and time again because I’ve been too lazy to teach myself how to use it and read the directions in the box. My mom’s tutorial was fast and helpful (and made me feel a little silly for feeling so intimidated by the Instant Pot – it’s truly no big deal) and we ended up with a delicious Instant Pot dinner of venison with a side of pesto pasta and fruit salad.

As we waited for dinner to cook, we headed out to the beach for a bit so Sadie could run her heart out and splash in the waves.

My sister arrived back in town from a conference in New Jersey yesterday evening and once my brother-in-law picked her up from the airport, they headed over to my parents’ place to join us for the evening. It was so nice to have some time together (we really missed you, Ryan!!) and I was fast asleep a little before 11 p.m.

Today is going to be a little crazy as I try my best to get organized for my upcoming travels, start and finish a craft project for the bride-to-be, knock out a blog-related deadline and hopefully sneak in a last-minute trip out to the beach.

I hope you all have a fantastic Thursday!

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