the great american road trip take 3 - vero beach

Rico woke me up with a half gallon of fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice - icing on the cake is that Yoda didn't wake me up at all. All three kids enjoyed sleeping in, while I sipped OJ and Rico went for an early morning ocean swim with his buddies.

After croissants at a local sweet shop, we walked back to our resort, and headed to the beach. It was only steps from our door, and we spent most of the day there. Punk spent hours rolling in the turquoise surf. Kooka was his willing accomplice for most of the day, but the big waves coaxed her to shore where she spent some time building sand castles.

While Yoda napped, Punk, Kooka and I, took a stroll to Kilwin's chocolate shop, where Punk and I had chocolate covered pretzels (white chocolate for him, salted milk chocolate for me), and Kooka had caramel covered, chocolate drizzled marshmallows.

At 6, we were off to dinner at Frank and Sharon's house - which is the whole reason we took this trip in the first place. Frank lives here in Vero Beach and is one of Rico's oldest friends (as well as one of Yoda's godfathers). He invited over a dozen of his childhood friends for a reunion dinner. There is not much that can rival Frank's Italian cooking, (ask Yoda - she ate half a pound of pasta, and Kooka would eat a dozen meatballs if we let her), except seeing Rico re-connect with his friends.

Punk and Kooka spent the evening in Frank and Sharon's pool - only stopping for macaroni and meatballs, eggplant parm, and cake - which Frank had specially made to look like the stoop in Flushing NY, where all of the kids used to play.

We fell asleep late (after one more moonlit walk on the beach).

(Sorry about the writing - it is disjointed and I know it. Blogging and roadtripping with a toddler is a daunting task - one that doesn't leave me much time to process my thoughts, let alone my sentences.)