Florida Trip: Day 4

Saturday morning, March 4th, I planned to try out speed work to see how my legs were recovering and if I was back in business for faster runs as well as easy runs. My grandma gave me directions to the local high school and I ran there planning to run 800 repeats on the track. Unfortunately all the entrances to the track were padlocked and there was a police car in the parking lot so I wasn't about to hop the fence. I was really hoping to get my speed work in on the track because the wind was intense and that way I'd only have 1/4 of each repeat into the wind instead of running entire repeats into the wind. I headed out to run them on the road and surprisingly they weren't quite as bad as I feared, nothing like the terrible speed workout I had for my last speed workout. When I got back everyone else was up and my grandma suggested we hit up a nearby playground that was within walking distance from their condo and somewhat on the way to the beach. Then we'd head to the beach and she'd head back to run some errands. I didn't end up taking any pictures at the playground but it was so cute watching the kids. Elise followed Carter around everywhere he went and wanted to play what he played. They played for quite a while before we headed to the beach.

Carter was so excited to go to the beach again and went right down to the edge of the water to play in the sand. Elise was more cautious and found her sweet spot sitting up by Ty way far away from the water. She had absolutely no interest in being anywhere near the water after her experience the day before. Carter was a smidge more cautious as well but still ran down into the waves playing with me. Carter loved running down into the waves and pretending we were the PJ Masks. We would then run back toward the sand, trying to beat the waves. Anytime I went down further into the water he would get worried and tell me to be careful. The water was a bit chilly but I had taken my coverup off so I decided to go down in further and would get hit above the belly button by waves. It was so much fun running back toward Carter in the higher water. He would watch me in awe, telling me how strong I was to be able to run through the "tall water". When Carter took a break from the water he and Elise worked together playing in the sand.

 

 

 

 

Elise wanted to sit like her daddy.

Both kids took great naps after all the fun at the beach. When they woke up we went shopping for some souvenirs. Jeremy and Thomas had gone to the airport and picked our car up for us so we wouldn't have to pay parking while we were away. that gave us some extra money so we told the kids they could pick out something special to remember the trip by. Carter picked out a stuffed shark and Elise really had no interest in anything we showed her. She'd initially act interested but then when I'd hand it over to her, she'd throw it on the ground. I really wanted to get her a stuffed manatee like one I'd had when I was a kid, but we couldn't find anything she and I liked. While we were shopping we saw a group of teenagers. Two of the girls were wearing thong bikini bottoms and t-shirts. We ended up going down the escalators behind them and Carter yelled out, "Why are those girls walking around with no pants or underwear?!" It was hilarious. Later he asked me why their mommies would let them go out like that. When we got back with the shark which Carter had named Sharky, all the sudden Elise was in love with it. She called it Fishy and carried it all over my grandparents' condo. She even wanted to nap with it. Initially Carter wanted it too and it caused some problems. Ty and I decided we'd go back and get Elise a matching shark but Carter decided he would share it with Elise. Which eventually just meant he pretty much gave it to her. She now takes "Fishy" for walks in her baby stroller all over the house. Carter is such a sweet big brother!