Christmas week in Florida

It seems like ages ago, but just a few weeks ago we were able to get away for a few days to my parents' new condo in Destin, Florida. We flew down super early on Tuesday morning after Christmas and met up my with my parents, sisters and brother-in-law who were all there already. 

It took about two seconds after walking in the front door for Joseph to notice the Christmas train set... the new addition to the "under the tree" fun! It was a really cute remoted controlled train with lots of interactive things, like lights that would turn on when the train passed, songs playing at the train station, etc.

Joseph needed Grandpa to show him how it worked for a few minutes before he had it all figured out. During most of the trip, we could find Joseph hanging out in this corner, trying to convince everyone to play with him!

Such a big kid! 

We also had Christmas with my family, so Joseph opened up a bunch of new gifts. Jen gave him this great magnet set with posts and balls, Ashley and Mikael gave him his first Legos set and train puzzles, and Grandpa and Grandma (whom he now refers to as Mimi and Papa) gave him a Cars 2 remote control car set, Thomas PJs, and a Thomas phone, among other things.

After opening gifts, we headed down to the beach to play in the sand for a bit. The weather was beautiful but a little chilly, so we didn't stay down for too long.

Uncle Mikael helped Joseph build sand castles. After watching Mikael fill buckets and dump them over, Joseph decided to give it a try. Except his aim was a little off, and he dumped the whole bucket right down his sweater!

It definitely caught him off-guard, but Mikael brushed him off and got him going again.

Pretty soon Joseph was an old pro at scooping sand with his shovel and filling the little buckets and cups we had lying around.

After dinner and bathtime, Joseph stole Grandpa's hat and headed over to the trains to sneak in a few more minutes of playtime. We caught him in the act looking too cute!

The next day we spent some time shopping at the after Christmas sales at the outlet mall, and Grandpa, Grandma and Jen took Joseph to the mall to ride a train that drives around the stores. He had ridden the train when we were last down in April, but immediately freaked out and hated the experience. This time, he loved it! We met up with them inside Bass Pro Shops, where Joseph couldn't get enough of the huge fish in the aquarium.

We had a great lunch at Dewey Destin's on the bay where Joseph got to watch hundreds of seagulls fight for food. We spent the rest of the day hanging out back by the condo, letting Joseph nap and play with all of his new toys.

Thursday was the last day with everyone as a group, so we took advantage of another beautiful day and headed over to The Track, a small arcade, amusement and mini-golf park. Joseph made sure to ride on the train with Daddy and Grandpa.

I promise that every time the train stopped, he'd ask for more, even though he doesn't look like he's enjoying it much in the pictures. It's really hard to get this kid to smile while he's taking everything in!

 After a quick trip on the swings by himself, he dragged Grandpa over to the little carousel for a ride. Again, no smiles caught on camera, but he definitely seemed to enjoy it!

This time he was big enough to fly on the airplanes by himself as well! Of course, he's so little it was really hard to get a good shot of him, as most of the time you'd just see the very top of his head sticking out above the plane.

 The person working the ride dipped the planes down at one point, so we could at least see him and that once again, he was calm and just taking it all in.

We then headed over to the mini-golf course, where Joseph quickly figured out the object of the game was to have the balls end up in the hole. So he became our impartial helper! We realized that there wasn't going to be any point in even trying to keep score, as Joseph would chase down each ball as it was hit, pick it up and drop it in the hole.

 Approaching carefully from the side - check out the determination on his face!

After a few holes, he figured out that it would be fun to actually hit the ball before running to grab it. Uncle Mikael was great at showing him the perfect technique.

This hole had a little hidden ramp that you were supposed to hit the ball down, which would take the ball to another playing green slightly below. Joseph was great at making sure everyone's ball made it safely down the ramp.

At the next hole, we filled his pockets (and overalls) with all of the balls. He decided the best way to shake them loose would be to jump, even though he still hadn't mastered jumping yet.

 Watching him shake, shimmy and squirm to get ball after ball to fall out of his pants legs was too funny!

Friday we took my mom and dad to the airport, while Ashley and Mikael got on the road to head back home early. Jennifer, her boyfriend Elliot, Joe, Joseph and I grabbed some lunch and then headed to a nearby park where Joe and Elliot were going to play disc golf. Jen, Joseph and I played on the playground and then headed back to the condo for nap time. We hung out for the rest of the day, and Joe and I managed to spend some time in the hot tub after getting a run in. Saturday we packed up my parents' car with their dogs and made the normally 12 hour drive back to St. Louis. We got out of Destin a little later than anticipated, and between stops for the dogs and stops for Joseph, the trip took just over 14 hours. We managed to pull in to my parents' house about 20 minutes before the ball dropped on the New Year!

It was definitely a quick, whirlwind trip, but fun to get away for a few days, especially since the weather was so nice. Joseph definitely became a seasoned traveler in 2011!