Florida Trip -- Spring Break 2022 (Notes from Aubrie)
We’re in Orlando, from the 5th to the 13th, in part due to Dad’s McDonalds work convention. We caught a delayed flight late afternoon on Tuesday and ended up getting in at one in the morning. It was ridiculous!
We crashed at our hotel and slept in the next morning. Dad had to get up early for his work convention, leaving him with roughly five hours’ sleep. Mom had scheduled the three oldest an appointment at the Orlando Temple at noon, so she kept the younger kids occupied at a nearby park while the three of us headed in for the most chaotic and hilarious temple baptism appointment of our lives.
Hallie and I were both on our periods, for one thing (no elaboration will be given to spare both of us embarrassment), and for another, there was no organization whatsoever to any of the goings-on. Something went wrong with every baptism. We had an old lady baptized for a male’s name, Hallie accidentally baptized for all my names and her own, the old guy unable to fit the entirety of the full names under his microscope, and Robbie inquired of as to whether or not he knew Hallie’s last name despite having just told them she was his sister. Some family after us was kind enough to let me do two of their family names since Robbie had baptized Hallie for all of mine. To top it off, we got into the confirmation room, Robbie was confirmed for about thirty male names, and Hallie and I were confirmed for none because somehow ours had already been done. It seemed my presence was not needed at the temple that day. We laughed our heads off telling Mom about it afterward, though, and she’d provided some delicious smoothies for us too.
We drove to a nearby natural hot springs location, where we swam around for a few hours before heading back to the hotel. Dad picked up Blake and Hallie with a surprise: free tickets to Hollywood Studios! I was so jealous… until I found out Robbie’s and my surprise the next night…
Mom told Robbie and me that we could walk around on the nearby street called International Drive since it had a bunch of entertainment. We wandered in the direction of the Ferris Wheel we could see from our hotel and found a fair, plus the rollercoaster-type drop tower that carries seat-belted passengers up like 400 feet then drops them abruptly. It was the tallest one in the world, and a 14-year-old kid had died falling off it 2 weeks earlier since his seatbelt wasn’t fastened properly. There was a memorial near it for him; Robbie and I read a couple of the memoirs to him. There was also another tower that was 450 feet tall, except it was just multiple swing sets that swung in circles higher and higher. It cost $12 per person. Robbie and I decided it was worth it. The craziest part is they didn’t even check our seatbelts!! Robbie found the seatbelt at the last second. It’s scary to think what might’ve happened if he hadn’t! Why weren’t the workers on high alert after what happened 2 weeks ago? But it was SO FUN. Such a thrill to be that high in the air. Afterward, we went back to the hotel. Hallie and Blake’d had a blast at Hollywood Studios; they especially loved Star Wars land and the drunk guys asking them to sing into mikes on the shuttle back afterward.
The next day (Thursday), we drove to this place called “Wild Florida”. Dad still wasn’t with us at this point. It was an open showing tour, kinda like Yellowstone, where you drove your car through the park right by the wild animals. There were birds, cows, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, emus, deer, gazelle, gators, and longhorns. It was so cool! It started seriously raining and thundering at some point during it and most of us got soaking wet. I love rain like that though. We also went to a few shows at the zoo itself. We watched the feeding of the gators; they lunged out of the water and snapped chicken off a wire run over them. One guy got into the pool with their biggest gator called Crusher. It was insane. He was so careful but daring with him, getting him to open his mouth and lunge from side to side. If he’d made one mistake, Crusher could’ve easily killed him. He also almost put his head inside the gator’s jaws. It was crazy watching him.
After Wild Florida, Mom took us to Le Grande, a Cuban restaurant she’d been to before. It was so delicious. Rice and beans and steak and chicken and fries and alfajores and jarritas. We were all freezing though because we were still wet from the downpour.
Once we got home, Robbie and I found out we were going with Dad for free to a concert with Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, and Jennifer Hudson!! We’d never been to a concert before. It was incredible. The lighting, the volume, the crowd, the singing, the inspiration—-all of it was stunning. Robbie and I also had our first glimpse of the drinking and alcohol world. They must’ve spent a hundred thousand dollars on alcohol for the convention. There were so many drunk people. Dad, Robbie, and I all agreed we liked Imagine Dragons the best. They had this stage-rocking energy, their songs were perfect for energy inspiration, and we knew their songs the best. Bruno was a close second though. He’s such a good dancer and he really knows how to entertain a crowd. Jennifer’s performance was a bit rough. We knew none of her songs, the lights weren’t working during it, and she had this angry feminist attitude that really wasn’t working for her. She had a killer voice, but, as Dad so aptly put it, “she’s a talented screamer”. Her vibrato and belting literally shook the stage. The whole concert was such a neat experience.
Friday morning we got up earlier and drove to the beach house we were staying at. After watching a rocket launch on TV (with better planning we could have seen up close in person but Mom & Dad decided last-second to scrap plans to go to Tampa since everyone was having to hold luggage on their laps in our rental car). We went straight to the beach for several hours then came home and unpacked everything. A lot of us were severely sunburned that first day. Especially me. I didn’t know butt cancer was a thing, but that is the only way the excruciating pain on my buttocks can be explained. I look like a radish from behind. We ended the night with IC and a devotional from Dad that he told us would be a nightly tradition, given by one of us each night. Dad & Mom shared for their devotional more about the blessings they've felt from serving full-time missions.
Saturday morning we went to the beach again. I laboriously and meticulously bathed myself in sunscreen. Then we drove a little less than an hour to another beach where we hung out with the Dangerfields for hours.
Their mother Crystal is Mom’s old friend from the stake she grew up in. Her oldest daughter Hailey is Robbie’s age, and the second oldest Kaiden is Hallie’s age. Right before we left, someone spotted a dolphin about ten feet out from the beach. We all rushed to the edge of the waves to see it better. It was gorgeous. It crested and blew water out of its spout, then dove and resurfaced again. Robbie and Hailey swam out to try and get to it but it was much faster than them and swam off. So neat.
Afterward we went to some nice Cuban restaurant—I can’t even remember the name I’m so tired (Mo-Bay Grill, I remembered later)—and they had delicious food.
Our family made a pact to not eat any place we had in Utah, which we broke once to eat at Wendy’s. Then we said goodbye to the Dangerfields and drove back to our beach house. Clara and Lucas were put to bed, the rest of us showered, ate more IC, and after Robbie gave us a devotional based on an object lesson, we watched an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small” (ACGAS) and crashed hard.
Sunday morning we woke up earlier so we could leave at nine to catch a ten o’clock ward sacrament meeting. Mom and Dad realized we were gonna get there like twenty minutes late and were probably gonna miss the sacrament. Mom said we should go anyway. Lo and behold a miracle—the sacrament was at the end of the meeting, after they’d shut down the Zoom! Pretty cool.
After church we drove another two hours to meet a family whose mother Jeannette Schissler been Mom’s friend since they were like four years old. Their two oldest were adopted twins, Ileana and Isaiah. Isaiah was really into costume designing and he showed us pictures of costumes and outfits he’d put together. It was really cool. Ileana was also really fun to talk to. We ate lunch on the lawn with their family , then walked around one of the oldest settlements in North America, settled by the Spaniards from the 1500’s. We walked through this one Catholic Church that’d been there since 1595, more than four centuries ago. Also at one point there were these guys charging people to hold their snakes and Lucas ran straight up to one guy holding this python, whacked it on the nose, it snapped at him, and he screamed and ran away to Mom, much to everyone’s shock.
Then the Schisslers had to leave for a church event, so we said goodbye then drove to check out a nearby lighthouse. Us girls spent a while browsing and then purchasing a bunch of jewelry on sale from the gift shop while the boys watched, enthralled, from a nearby park bench. Piling back into the car laden with jewelry, we drove the two hours back home.
Robbie and Dad prepared hamburgers, Hallie made brownies, and Mom made fries, green beans, and a salad. It was so good. Then we sat around the table and I wrote down below our predictions for where we think we’ll all be in five years.
Family’s Predictions For Where We’ll Be in 5 Years:
Aubrie (22)
• applying to graduate schools
• seriously dating someone
• mission: Madison, Wisconsin/Peru/Africa/San Francisco, California/Argentina
• content writer for something
Robbie (20)
• mission: Seattle, Vietnamese speaking/Taiwan/Thailand/
• last year playing baseball for SUV, second year there
• going on a mission will teach him how to keep his room clean
• joined a frat
Hallie (18)
• playing volleyball at SUU/Dixie State
• pooping every day -Dad
• paints and draws after practice every day
Blake (16)
• driving our beat up van
• going on lots of dates, all the girls like him
• his visor down, hair sticking straight up
• playing baseball and soccer simultaneously
• Ames robotics team
Clara (13)
• one year into braces
• hip hop and jazz
• still taking piano lessons
Lucas (8)
• getting baptized
• pee-wee baseball, football
Blake gave a quick devotional, then we watched another episode of ACGAS before going to bed.
Monday morning we all stayed in bed late and watched TV, then headed to the beach. I think we’d all assumed we’d gotten the worst of our sunburns so nobody really paid attention to their sunscreen or how much time they were spending in the sun. Needless to say, it was the worst day of sunburn yet. Even Hallie, who had self-proclaimed herself “un-sunburnable” and “not needing sunscreen”, ended the day with a tomato-red face. After we finished at the beach, Mom did my makeup and I took out the braids she’d put in my hair the night before so she could take pictures of me at the beach for my senior graduation pictures. They turned out great, despite my awful sunburn and red eyes.
Tuesday morning we got up early at 6:30 to rush down to the beach and catch the sunrise. It. Was. Gorgeous. First there was nothing, then there was this tiny pinprick of gold just barely above the horizon, and it spread like wildfire, lighting up the whole sky. We took tons of pics against the sunlit horizon and among the waves, including ones with me, Hallie, and Clara in poses like high kicks, jumps, backbends, dips, and pirouettes.
For dinner, we drove to this place called Sunset Seafood & Grill. It was this expensive restaurant that opened outside on a dock over the water, with a beautiful view of the sunset over the beach. The food was incredible but so so expensive. All of us kids felt bad for how expensive the meal was. During the meal, Robbie spotted a dolphin cresting a few yards out from the dock. We all stood up to watch it resurface a few more times. They’re such beautiful animals. We fed the scraps of our dinner to the catfish in the water. Then we ran down to the pier, held some planks, and ran back for some bananas and yogurt Dad had brought. Dad had a call at 9:30, after which he took Clara and Lucas on a go-karting and mini-golfing date and the rest of us went thrifting. Florida has great thrift stores. We met back at the house for lunch and went again to the beach. We boogie boarded and played whiffle ball together. Lucas was gettin’ down low and catching. We met the rest of the family for pizza at Pizza Vola later. Dad told us about the huge black snake that had scared the heck out of him slithering from under the outside shower. Then we walked home for Hallie’s devotional centered around Matthew 5:16, yet more ice cream, and another episode of ACGAS.
I had the devotional that night; I talked about the importance of families and how I’d valued my time with my family more this last year knowing how little of it left I have. I read a quote from Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk: “We have each other, and we have Him. Do not deny us the chance to have you.” He was referring to suicide with this statement but i related it to one’s own family. Time with your family is precious, which I’ve realized more this past year, and I should do my best to not deny them the chance to have me while they still can, as should everyone else. We also had, yet again, more ice cream. For the fourth night in a row. And Hallie made brownies. I think everyone’s swimsuits were a little tight today XD The kids were put to bed and we watched the last episode of ACGAS.
Wednesday morning Hallie, Robbie, Mom, Dad, and me rose early one last time to watch the sunrise come up over the beach. This time there were clouds all over the horizon, and the sun burned slowly through them. Then we went back to the house and packed up everything because the cleaners were gonna show up at 10 and Dad had a work call at 9:30. Then all of us except Dad walked to these three souvenir shops and just looked around until Dad finished his call and came to pick us up with the rental car. We drove about an hour to this dock where we got to ride on an air boat through the Everglades! It was SO COOL. We saw a bunch of alligators, cows, and birds and there were trees everywhere in the water. Our guide was a lot of fun too. Then we drove to another Cuban food restaurant, got lunch, then went to the airport. We dropped off the rental car, got on our almost-five-hour flight, and got picked up by Karla at the airport and finally made it home.
Such a fun trip. Now we're all experiencing jet lag though and still trying to get two hours behind. BUT. it was AMAZING. The end!!!!
