The Second Day in Florida

Hint! Don't read this if you want me to have stories to tell you when I get back :-P

I slept on the couch the first night here. It has a hard-wood frame, but there are cushions on all three dimensions so I thought I might be able to sleep on it. My parents got one bed, my brother the only other, and my sister took the aerobed because I had been tired earlier and thought I'd be able to sleep on the couch. I remember watching some SNL before going to bed, including the episode where Ben Affleck hosted and played Keith Olbermann and apparently Obama actually made a guest appearance, but I was hoping to fall asleep long before he would actually be in the show, so I changed the channel to something else, though I forget what.

It turned out falling asleep was a lot harder than I thought. I had two blankets and an extra pillow, but I could not figure out what combination of them was right, and I didn't have my own baby blanket. I tossed and turned most of the night and didn't get a very good sleep.

We were supposed to get up and go see relatives and possibly fish at the beach at something like 8AM or maybe a little later, but I think somehow my parents could tell that none of us were very well rested. They woke me up when they got up because the couch is right near the kitchen and etc., and I said, "Do we have to go now?" And they said that the kids could sleep a while longer but they were going to go out until about 10:30, so I wrapped myself up (wearing only my underwear) in one of the blankets I had, trudged to my mom and dad's INCREDIBLY SOFT BED, and disappeared in the marshmallow-like mattress for the next few hours. Apparently my sister tried to find me in it and could hardly see me poking up between the folds in the mattress and pillows. I remember before going there, though, my mom said something about getting doughnuts, which I was pleased to find when I woke up for real. I had one (Dunkin Donuts), chocolate with sprinkles. My sister pointed out that the box spelled it "HOLIDDAYS" but we concluded it was to match with "DD" for Dunkin Donuts.

We got our sunscreen on and our swimsuits and went to the beach. It was warm outside, but it was windy and the water was a bit cold - probably high sixties - and wind+coldish water is never a very fun combination, so I didn't go in. My dad and his brother fished a lot, and David caught a few whiting fish. He was using shrimp as bait, which he said wasn't a great choice from an economic standpoint, but you got very fresh fish. They also used sand fleas as bait, which were little crab things they caught by skimming the sand in the shallows. David was going to keep the extras by boiling them for 45 seconds and them freezing them. Jessica tried to cast the rod a few times but was not very good at getting it far out.

Richard and David played in the water a lot, but not so much the older kids. It was a very nice day outside, incredibly blue everywhere. My dad chatted up a passing family with the bucket of sand fleas we had collected, it reminded me of how personable he can be if he feels like it. I took a picture of him chatting them up. We buried the youngest David (my cousin, not uncle) in the sand up to his head and he dug himself out and then rinsed himself off with my sister's help. My uncle David showed us how to fit a 13' fishing rod in your truck.... pop the trunk window open and close it lightly on top of the rod and hope it doesn't break.

After that, my parents took us on a tour of the island, I think it's called Hutchinson Island. It wasn't incredibly impressive, but it was nice, I guess. There's all different types of water everywhere - rivers, oceans, bays, inlets, whatever. We were looking for a beach called Avalon but we never found it, and just turned around to go back and maybe find something to eat. We ended up eating at the Marriott which, in this town, is just a RIDICULOUS resort with way too much space and its own golf course and beach and etc. When we showed up it was really busy, and one woman was reserving a number of tables for her party of 15, and my mom yelled at me to grab one table the second the party of four that had been occupying it left it. Even after we sat down, it took about 15 minutes to get a waiter, and ended up taking at least an hour to get our food after that. We came in at about 1:15 and didn't get out until 2:30, which was when we were supposed to meet our family at the pool back at our complex.

So we drove back there after food and showered off the salt and sand, but then we all needed to go to the bathroom, so my siblings and I went to our grandma's apartment to use the bathroom (she lives in the same complex) and then convinced her to walk to the pool with us. Then the kids all went swimming with Richard and young David. We played tag. My mom's camera had a lens error sometime during our swimming after my dad touched it, and my mom asked me to fix it but I couldn't, so I became her official photographer. We tried to throw Richard but it didn't work very well; Ryan could do it best alone. David didn't want to be thrown. We did handstands in the pool. After a while I got a headache and wanted to go back, but my mom made me wait until my dad could drive me even though we lived ten seconds away, so I had to wait for all the kids.

I took a nice long shower when I got back because it helps when I have this type of headache (sun and temperature changes and swimming/chlorine) and my mom and sister yelled at me for using hot water when we had a small tank, which I didn't know. We basically sat around until it was time to go to my uncle David's house for dinner. I can't remember what we did in between, I'm sure we just watched something on TV.

Apparently we stopped at a beach and I took some pictures when we drove to the tip of the island. I also remember unloading my pictures after my shower to clear up my memory card, since I think it's only 256MB.

The sky was really pretty when we drove to David's. We took my grandmom's car because we took her, so that was six people, which is too much for one car. When we showed up my mom made me show Wendy how to do things on her new camera, not against my will, but probably against Wendy's. My mom basically was like "HERE LET JEFF SHOW YOU COOL THINGS." It took a while but I figured out how to do color accent on her camera. I remember House was on TV. When I showed up, the first thing I did was pet their very very very very very fluffy and dark black cat named Scooter under their table for a while, and then Wendy gave me a cat comb to make it better. He rolled on his stomach; it was very cute.

We had dinner of Pompano fish, which my uncle David had said were great for eating earlier in the day and said he was really excited to cook for us. It was pretty good, and we all sat together at the same time, except for baby Lucien, who was sleeping, but cried at the very end of dinner. My sister took care of him, but then after a while Wendy's mom (Cathy?) took care of him instead. The conversation seemed to split in two then between men and women, but as usual, I favored the women. I think my dad and David were talking about fish, which I couldn't take. The women were talking about motherhood which was sort of interesting. Cathy also talked about the years people were born (Wendy, David and I are all year of dragon), and we talked some about music and math and a kid they knew named Leon who was an actuary and wealthy in Hong Kong. At some lull in the conversation we all went to the other room but I forget why.

Oh, we watched the Eagles game earlier and they destroyed the Cowboys. Also, I remember looking for the bread from dinner after dinner was over, and getting a cup of cold water dispensed from INSIDE the refridgerator, which was very strange. I also found out Wendy had a facebook and said I would friend her, which I did today.

When we went back home, I drove because I didn't drink anything, and after that I think we pretty much just watched Family Guy and House and went to bed. I slept with my sister this time.

Oh, my Aunt Jenn stayed in her hotel that day because she was very tired - her kids have tons of energy. Also, I was without sunglasses because I left them in my coat pocket, and I left my coat at David's house.

Peace out.