Florida!

A few weeks ago Mya and I were able to go visit my sister and her family in Florida for a week! There was a lot of worry before we left hoping not to get sick since she has a new baby and travelling with just Mya. Luckily, the plane rides went good! Our first flight to Chicago Mya slept part of the way and did really well! The next flight to Orlando, Mya and I sat next to this guy. After a little into the flight, he pulled out Monsters vs. Aliens for Mya to watch on the flight. He was so nice! She ended up falling asleep half way through and slept until just before we landed.

Mya loves playing games and one game she likes to play is sort of like cops and robbers, except she just shoots you with her finger. I found myself a couple of times in the airport or on the plane ride home stopping myself from saying, "Mya, we don't shoot people in the airport/plane" or "put your gun away right now". I had to just ignore it and try to distract her to do something else. "Gun" and "Shoot" are not words you can say on an airplane.
I seriously think Mya's two favorite things about Florida were swimming and baby Porter. Every day Mya wanted to wear her swim suit and even sometimes at night after we'd get ready for bed she'd cry because she wanted to go swimming again. She got really brave by the end of the trip around the water. The last time we went swimming, there were a couple of times that she jumped in the water (right by me) when I wasn't looking and I noticed from the corner of my eye. One I noticed she had just gone under the water and the other time I noticed as she was in mid-air, head first into the water and the only way I could catch her without her getting hurt with the wall right there was to make her do a summersault into and partly under the water. She definitely gets this fearless trait from her dad!

We went to the beach one day for a little bit. I thought Mya would love it! She did not like it at first! She hated the sand...she cried when I made her walk in it. The weird thing is, it's like powder down there so it didn't hurt her feet at all. Then she was scared of the water. It took a good half hour before she decided she wanted to play in the water...as long as I held her. But she did have a lot of fun after that.


Another day we went to Alice Lake to see an alligator. Mya loved seeing it and kept doing her monkeys teasing Mr. Alligator song as she watched it.
We saw turtles, too, and Mya liked those. After we left my sister was explaining to her daughter how alligators can bite your hand off so you can't pet them. Mya was listening pretty carefully I guess because after that she talked about how they'll bite your hand off. That night my sister asked her if the alligator bit her hand off, and after thinking about it, she got the saddest look on her face and said it did and showed us how the alligator bit her hand off. After that, if you ever brought up the alligator, she got the same sad look on her face and showed with her little actions how the alligator bit her hand off! Poor thing! She's going to be scarred for life and have a vague memory of an alligator biting her hand off when she was little! So funny though!

Mya loved baby Porter! Whenever he'd be crying, she'd give Rebecca binki's, burp cloths, blankets, books, toys, and anything else she could think of that would help Porter to be happy. She loved helping take care of him! I'm so excited! She never got jealous when I held Porter and always just wanted to help out. That'll be so good for when we have our baby!


It was such a fun week and very relaxing. It was fun to look outside her windows and see squirrels running around everywhere and walking down her sidewalks and watching little lizards dart across the sidewalk in front of you. Mya loved all of the animals she saw down there! We loved hanging out with Rebecca's family. Mya still talks about them and asks where they are and we have to go through everyone saying they're either at their house or school.

We really missed Justin that week! The last night before we left, Mya listened to Justin talk to her on the phone and after we hung up and I turned out the lights to go to bed, she cried for her daddy! It was nice to be able to tell her that tomorrow she would get to see him.

The plane rides home went good too. Mya never pooped on the planes (one of my biggest worries about the flights) and slept the entire flight home from Dallas to Salt Lake. I explained to Mya when we got to the Dallas airport how we had to go on only one more airplane and then we would see Daddy! She was so excited and when we got on that last plane, as soon as we sat down, she started yelling so loud: "DAD! YAY! DAD!!!!" and giving me high fives. When she saw Justin, she was so excited and he had a balloon for her. It was so nice to be home that night cuddling with him! It was such a fun trip and thanks Rebecca for doing so much for us while we were there and making sure we got to experience a part of Florida.