Letter to Kent & Jesse

Dear Kent and Jesse,

We are missing you terribly while we are in Florida and you are home in Iowa.

We missed you on the plane ride here. (We got to see the sun setting at however many thousand feet high. It was pretty cool!)
Well, actually, you probably didn't want to ride on the plane and get in late and then still have to wait another hour and a half until your luggage got here...by that time it was after midnight...

...and we missed you while we froze yesterday in our thin sweatshirts at the flea market, and then again while we picked tangerines and oranges. The tangerine trees are totally loaded with fruit, but it's not very good because they are so seedy. However, the fresh orange juice totally made up for the not-so-great tangerines!


Today we had a great day at Busch Gardens in Tampa...but again we wished you were here with us!

One of our favorite things (or actually 4 of our favorite things) was the jungle "animals" that walked the sidewalks around the Jungle section of Busch Gardens. The "animals" were really men or women on stilts that were dressed to look like either a frog, birds, or some sort of spidery creature. They were really, really fun. And Meredith was totally taken with them...she would have spent the whole time right there, I think, had I let her.


The spidery guy was on stilts that were so tall, he could walk right over everyone. He would weave his way around people so effortlessly, you forgot that he was on such high stilts. Meredith loved to stand there and get his attention so that he would walk right over her while she stood there.


Then there was the bird that liked to get in your face.


And the other bird that would eat your head...


And finally, the tree frog that would jump up and down on his stilts...and maybe take your visor and try it on his head for style!


Then there were the 2 places in the park where kids could climb in and on and around all sorts of things. Forget about using Wii Fit for me - my legs got a great workout climbing on and through everything, trying to keep up with Mer!

Yes, it does look like she's giving me a "Hurry up, Mommy!" look right there!

We also loved seeing all the animals.

Like giraffes,

(don't ya love the roller coaster in the background?)

and Clydesdales,

and elephants, (who, incidentally, like to eat apples and sweet potatoes...)


and flamingos everywhere,



and even a ginormous butterfly,


and so many other animals, it's too many to even count.

All in all, a great but exhausting day.

Give Jesse hugs and kisses from us and tell him that we'll be home before you know it!

Theresa & Mer


P.S. Kent, thank you so much for letting us bring the ipod. I know that it's yours and mine to share, so we are grateful that you let us bring it along. It has come in handy a lot for both Meredith and I!