While I am beyond sad this period of our lives is over, I am also BEYOND grateful these trips ever happened! After my Mammy and Papa Fry moved home to Michigan for good, my family was "homeless" for our yearly SB trip to Florida. What were we going to do?! Ends up, we hooked up with the next best thing to family, more "family." Aunt Joan, Uncle Bill and my 8th cousins Jordan, Spencer, and Emma became our new Florida buddies. Not only did we get to see them every Sunday at church but also on this super special trip that happened once a year! As a kid, it was just about the the coolest thing ever!
We, or at least my family, ended up being pretty stuck in a rut. I think we went a total of four different places over the MANY years we Spring Breaked together... Nope, make that 5. One random place where about the only memory I have of it was sitting in the hot tub and then quickly running and jumping in the FREEZING pool and then quickly getting out and sprinting back to the pool. Those were the days;)
Sun Viking Inn was also pretty cool... although my family's room smelled like a very "nice" shrimp dinner. mmm. The water slide was dabomb.com and playing Bingo with the old folks, as well as the lovely ocean view, were great too:)
After a year at both of those hotels we found Tropical Palms. A getaway like no other... right in the heart of Florida, aka, Orlando. This campground was a swell place with tons of Cabana type cottages as well as camping space. My family hauled our fun little pop-up camper down there for a couple of years before we decided to Cabana it up like the Hofers had ever so smartly been doing. The basketball courts were quite the highlight here as well as the amazing strawberry smoothies and the "tanning." Most of us were at the age where coming back tan from Florida and showing off your tan to all your school friends was all the rage, but none of us actually wanted to put the time into the laying out this required. So INSTEAD, we would lay out on our last day and spray tanning oil on ourselves every three minutes. We were the coolest. After one too many years at Tropical Palms and one too many trips to "Old Town"... we decided to finally move on.
We went back to hoteling it up, this time in the Tampa Bay area. This was a nice little place with the biggest "beach" area ever... more like a little square of sand that didn't even go down to the ocean... haha. It really wasn't bad though AND, I saw a dolphin! Can't get much better than that! We only stayed here half the time since we just had to get back to Tropical Palms once last time! haha... good old T.P!
My senior year of high school we headed to Sarasota to another campground type place, similar to T.P. Sun n' Fun. The pool and pool area were much bigger... so this made us quite happy. Although the "basketball court" did lack quite a bit, so the boys still had a complaint or two. I quite enjoyed watching early morning pool aerobics for everyone over 70 years old that wintered there:)
My freshman year of college I got lucky and was able to fly into Florida during my Easter break to spend yet another year with the Hofer+Smith combo. Actually I only flew back from Florida to IL, but I've already been WAY too detailed in this post, sooo, moving on...
Last year I sadly could not attended the Florida gathering. It was quite the tragic thing to say the least. Both Jordan and I had waved goodbye to this era. This year I lucked out once more and worked things out to fly down to the wonderful sunshiny state. Both Spencer and Jordan couldn't make it, but we had an Ashley Connors with us, so that was fun:) Emma was able to spend her last SB with the Smiths, and well... this concludes thee era of Hofers & Smiths + Florida. I truly enjoyed each and every year in the sun and fun with a truly amazing family. God has blessed me with such great "aunts" and "uncles" and "cousins"... Not only am I blessed with the ones linked by blood, I am also blessed with the ones linked by God. <3
P.S. My mom actually was present on all these trips, despite her lacking in group photos. She just always had to be the "taker" it seems. Below is an actual FULL group photo. Hi mom:)
Thee end.
