Post #39: And It’s Not Over Yet

So I’d love to jump right in and start telling you about our recent European trip with six year-old grandson Cooper, but I feel compelled to first finish the report of our Fiji family’s summer trip to Florida, which I have been inexplicably delayed in completing. You may recall that I left off in blog post #38 with the detailed, both fun-filled and exhausting, visit to Orlando theme parks. But we still had almost another week in Florida of planned and spontaneous activities to go.

Leaving our Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort on Saturday, June 18, we headed directly back to Nana and Papa’s Palm Beach Gardens home to regroup for extended family connections. Since we had encouraged Stacy’s cousin Michael to bring his daughters, 5 year-old Maddie and 18 month-old Kelsey, from Charleston, SC to Florida for the weekend to meet their cousin Cooper, I thought we should make the most of their visit. After a brief pit-stop at our house, we proceeded for an afternoon visit to my sister’s home in Boca Raton for the first meeting of the cousins. The patio swimming pool offered an ideal play area for the two active five year-olds to instantly get to know each other.

So having the initial introduction on Saturday, everyone was looking forward to plans at our house on Sunday, aka Father’s Day, and secondarily Jesse’s and my 51st anniversary. Once again the patio pool provided an optimal party atmosphere for the children and the grown-ups, grandparents Beryl, Jesse, Carol and David, parents Stacy, Jason, Michael and Karen, and cousin Marissa. While the adults interacted, imbibing beer and Jason-prepared Mimosas, the kids were in constant water motion, but certainly still under our watchful eyes. At Marissa’s suggestion and not to disrupt the party atmosphere by changing venues for lunch, we ordered in to our house from our club. So Stacy got her wish, as Cooper got to meet his American cousins, and a good time was had by all. And I was personally delighted to host the family at our new Florida home.

Nothing was scheduled on Monday to give us some breathing space after the first week’s busy plans. Jason wasn’t feeling great and Jesse was having golf withdrawal, so Stacy booked movie tickets for the remaining three of us to see the new Buzz Lightyear movie. Not actually on my must-see list, but any movie with my grandson is worthwhile. Stacy, Cooper and I left early to do some shopping at the nearby mall. Realizing their visit was soon drawing to an end and wanting to prepare Cooper, I mentioned that we would sadly be saying goodbye in a few days.

Looking to his mom, Cooper asked, “But Mom, is it two weeks yet? You said we’d be here for two weeks!” I was glad to hear that Cooper was having such a good time that he didn’t want to leave so soon. I was also both surprised that Cooper had such a good sense of time and glad to hear his voiced concern, as I had felt the same way when Stacy had made their shorter-than-I-had-hoped-for visit plans. Stacy tried to explain to Cooper that their whole trip would be two weeks away from home because there was lots of traveling time on each end.

“But Mom, you said two weeks!” insisted Cooper repeatedly. Eventually Cooper was distracted by the opportunity to pick another Nana-sponsored gift, this time a toy boomerang surfer named Aussie Alice from a swim shop. And then, of course, followed by the animated movie complete with obligatory popcorn and soda. Even Nana could get into the kid-oriented but contemporary Lightyear plot.

When we arrived home later that afternoon, Jason wasn’t feeling any better and Jesse was out playing golf. Jesse phoned as he rounded the course behind our house to suggest Cooper come see him take a golf shot. This looked like fun to Cooper, so I casually said, “Right now you’re too young to play on a regular course, but you could play miniature golf sometime.” I spoke too soon …

“Good idea,” said Stacy. “Let’s go to miniature golf.”

“Seriously? You mean now?” I asked. “It’s already late afternoon.” Essentially my downtime. But Stacy seemed to pick up on this idea immediately. Me and my big mouth.

“I don’t know where there is mini golf near us,” I told Stacy, “but if you really want to go now, you can look it up.” And she did. So Nana reluctantly obliged and we went to a fairly close, but unfortunately rather bland mini golf course, that is, without the usual cute decorative elements. The good news was that the course was empty so we had the place to ourselves. With beginner’s luck, Cooper had great success on the first green. But the bad news, his initial competency did not perpetuate, and Cooper became totally frustrated with full-blown tantrums about his wayward putting despite his inexperience with mini golf. He would not calm down, no matter how much we tried to convince him that golf requires a lot of practice for anyone, and he could take as many re-dos as he wanted, and there was no need to keep score.

Competitive Cooper repeatedly asked after each hole, “Did I win that one?” Less strokes or not, I lost when I agreed to late afternoon miniature golf with a nearly six year-old perfectionist. No photos of this activity. I had no desire to record Cooper’s frustration.

With Jason feeling no better by Monday evening, he took a home Covid-19 test, and it was unfortunately positive. Stacy immediately banned Jason from their cabana guest house and our common dining table. He primarily self-isolated in our extra guest room and wore a mask in proximity to the rest of us.

Tuesday’s plan was the long-awaited Everglades tour. One down, Jason would not be joining us. Originally our friends were supposed to come but they backed off in case any of the rest of our family might be Covid carriers. And then there were four, for the airboat ride. We didn’t feel a need to cancel as the entire tour would be outside in a windy boat. In fact, the windy-ness fortunately counteracted the heat and humidity, which I had been a concern of mine. The tour did not disappoint. Our knowledgeable guide swiftly maneuvered the airboat through the high grassy waterways to known alligator areas during our 90 minute Everglades experience. We saw big old territorial Fred in his favorite locale, a nest being fiercely guarded by a mother alligator, and several young alligators.

Wednesday morning was earmarked for obtaining official State of Florida documentation of Cooper’s Covid-19 vaccine which he had received immediately after their arrival. Directly after the CVS appointment, we had attempted to obtain the document at the closest Florida Health Department office in Jupiter, FL, but were informed that we had to go to the West Palm Beach office for the paperwork. Stacy had emphasized that this was one of the most important tasks to be accomplished during their U.S. visit to ensure she had proof of vaccination for any future requirements in Fiji. Concerned about getting a run-around at the second health department office, I made an executive decision to call in advance to confirm our ability to fulfill this mission. The woman on the phone was quite helpful for a government employee, efficiently locating the health department record of Cooper’s vaccine and confirming the ability to obtained a copy in person at the West Palm office. So we left Cooper with Papa to grandfatherly entertain him at pool or playground.

With a cautious degree of confidence, Stacy and I went to the WPB location of the Florida Health Department, found the appropriate government office for the request, signed in, waited to be called, requested official documentation of Cooper's Covid-19 vaccine, and … happily, mission accomplished!

Our family, minus still-ailing Jason, filled in Wednesday afternoon with fun activities at nearby Juno Beach. Along the expansive Atlantic Ocean beach Cooper could try out his recently acquired, boomerang surfer toy which, surprisingly as promised, surfed her way back to the shore after being repeatedly flung into the waves. Cooper was delighted.

We also visited the roped-off, beach nesting area of local terns and plovers where we could even see baby birds. Another unexpected delight. We enjoyably continued our nature exploration at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, the recently renovated turtle rescue facility, which also includes some attractive large shark aquariums, kid-friendly interactive exhibits, and of course, the obligatory gift shop. To expedite our departure, as Cooper was being overwhelmed by way-too-many tempting offerings, Nana suggested for purchase a small (for packing), reasonably-priced toy submarine. A good choice, we all agreed.

Not that any of us wanted Jason to be sick but his Covid illness inadvertently fulfilled Cooper’s and my wish, for the Fiji family to be with us in Florida for a full two weeks. Stacy arranged to postpone their departure from Thursday to Sunday. Despite his state of illness, chef Jason surprisingly managed to prepare some wonderful, restaurant quality meals for us, from scratch or reformulating leftovers.

So we had extra days to find more Cooper activities in addition to the always available swimming pool and playground play, especially appreciated when Stacy needed to be Cooper-free for some remote work and grandparents were in charge.

On Friday Nana gladly took Cooper and Stacy to nearby, well-established Busch Wildlife Sanctuary which supportively houses and publicly displays locally rescued animals which cannot be rehabilitated for return to the wild. Their extensive animal collection includes Florida panthers, bears, otters, fox, deer, turtles, indigenous snakes, and of course a resident alligator. Among their many breeds of birds is even a Cooper’s hawk.

Then we lucked out because Jurassic Quest, a large traveling dinosaur exhibit, was being held in West Palm Beach during their weekend extension. I bought tickets for Saturday for the four still-healthy family members. An extensive and amazing exhibit had been installed at the South Florida Fairgrounds Expo Center with enormous lifelike dinosaur replicas. But even more fun and alluring for Cooper were the various dino-themed rides and play areas such as meeting animated dinosaurs, riding fearsome T-rexes, digging for fossils, driving a mini Jurassic jeep, and bouncing through large inflatable dino habitats.

Jurassic Quest was certainly a fitting thematic conclusion to Cooper’s family vacation whose location was originally chosen for Nana and Papa’s proximity to Universal Orlando’s Jurassic World and also included seeing the newly released Jurassic World Dominion film.

We celebrated the last night of the Fiji family’s fun-filled vacation and Jason’s recovery, with confirming Covid-negative test, at a balmy dinner on the patio of a well-located seafood restaurant along the Jupiter Inlet with sunset views of the Jupiter lighthouse. The nearby town of Jupiter coincidence to our last name continues to be a frequent talking point.

So now that I have finally chronicled the full extent of our family’s both planned and spontaneously orchestrated Florida vacation of last June, I hope to soon create posts about our more recent family sojourn with our six-year old grandson in France and Spain. Preview: that trip should probably be subtitled the Playground Tour of Europe. Do stay tuned, s’il vous plait.