Searching For Sunshine in the Sunshine State

This morning the boys and went searching for sunshine. We had studied the radar map, and the weather people promised us a couple of hours of dry weather before the storms set in.

We decided to go on a discovery journey through our neighborhood, and we sure found lots of interesting sites on our way. We went on our favorite route, which goes through an area that seems to have been built around a couple of farms, which means that there are more trees and lots of unique sites in our urban city area.

This area also borders the Indian reservation, which makes it even more unique in many ways. My boys are always excited when they see something with a siren on, but nothing beats a police car or ambulance from the Indian reservation, as these have the picture of an Indian chief on the side of the cars.

A rare chimney was found, and of course it was overgrown by bougainvillea.

Florida is one of the most dangerous states for people riding bikes, but it sure did not seem to bother this guy.

We discovered this perfect spot to relax on a sunny day in South Florida in the shade of a mango tree.

We found a few rays of sunshine once in a while, but mostly we enjoyed the cloudiness of the day as it did dim the heat a bit. The boys loved these "stairs", and of course they had to climb them.

Emmett Shai always loves to ride in his stroller, and he seems to be very comfortable sleeping there as well.

Many beautiful tropical flowers were found, and we searched for wildlife along the way.

As we approached the playground, the wind started to blow hard, and it did not take me long to realize that rain was imminent.

We headed for a nearby strip mall, and we just made it under cover before the rain started. Instead of exploring our neighborhood, we went to explore Publix. We found some sweet peaches on sale, but other than that we enjoyed the Saturday food sampling, got lots of coupons, and of course the boys got their free cookies.

When we finished our round in Publix it was still raining, so we set for the nearby Kohls, where we could walk under the roof all the way. We did not make any purchases, but we did search the clearance sales.

It was still raining when we got tired of walking arond in the store, so we armed ourselves with the umbrella and the raincoat for the stroller. At this point we had given up the idea of going to the playground, and we instead managed to get ourselves to Burger King. This BK has a big playhouse, so the boys did burn offf a lot of energy, before we left to go home two hours later.

We never really seemed to find sunshine, but we are not complaining as we need the rain. We did manage to walk home in dry weather though, while we continued to find lots of fantastic sights to discover.

Along our way we discovered a tree, which were overgrown with air plants. Air plants do not need water to grow, as they simply live off the humidity in the air.

The boys spotted this pigeon bathing in one of the many puddles on the streets.

The palm trees around here are loaded with seeds. I have not had any luck growing a palm tree yet, but we might make a few more attempts this year.

We spotted a mango tree with mangoes on, which is a rare sight as mango season ended about a month ago. The boys and I have three mango trees growing from pits, and so far they seem to be doing really well.

Less than fifteen minutes after returning home, the rain reached our house, but at this point we were all safe and dry. The boys were tired, but it was the good kind of tired, as their little legs had played for two hours at the playground and walked a total of four miles today without any complaints.

How has your Saturday been? Have you had summer weather?