Josh here–My favorite day of our trip to Florida was the day we rented a boat. We started off by having breakfast before heading off to get our boat. We got to the boat rental place and after getting settled with our boat we cast off. It took a long time to get out of the no wake zone because we had to go around the edge of the key we were on. Once we got into the wake zone, dad hit the gas and we went off to our first snorkel destination. T

his place didn’t have much, it was mostly medium sized fish but there were only a few of those. The most interesting thing we saw was a stingray that dad found that was partially buried under the sand. We then had lunch and ate ceazar wraps, popcorn, and soda.

The next place we snorkelled at was much more interesting. In divots across the sandy bottom there was coral and tons of fish. There were all sorts of colors and sizes of fish and they were everywhere. After a couple of hours it was getting close to when we needed to return the boat so we hopped back on the boat.

While we were driving back mom, Halle, and I got to take a turn driving the boat. I really liked driving the boat so I drove us most of the way back. It was a ton of fun and I almost hit a few birds that were on the water because I was going so fast. I got to drive us under a bridge before handing the controls back to dad so he could get us through the narrow channel. Once we got the boat back we drove home and while mom and dad had a date night while us kids had pizza rolls and watched tv. This was definitely my favorite day of the trip and I hope to do something like it again someday.

Back to Tara for Date Night. Rusty and I rode bikes to the Square Grouper. It is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the Keys. And it had potential. But everything was a little over spiced, over sauced, etc. Decent, but not quite the decadent experience I was going for. After dinner we rode our cruiser bikes along some pretty rutty trails. It was lots of fun! Then back to Venture Out for Pickleball. We had to dig through the disgusting lost and found full of wet towels and swimsuits in order to find some rackets and balls we could use. It was a fun time to connect on the trip. And I’m pretty sure pizza rolls and screen time for the kids was just what the dr ordered.