Welcome to the South

So we did it, we moved to Pensacola Florida. Ryker and I arrived August 9th at the Pensacola Florida airport. A tiny little plane brought us over, there were maybe 30 seats on that plane, and I’m sure when people saw a tiny baby boarding they cringed a little bit. I can imagine they may have been thinking “Yikes! A baby, and it will probably cry the whole way”. Well that didn't happen, luckily. My little guy slept the entire time, except for like 15 minutes when he ate, he slept for both plane rides, was awake in the airport, ate again on the next plane, and then slept again until we landed, where he promptly had a massive blowout that went all the way up his back.

I was so grateful he waited to have his blow out until we were landing, because I don’t think I could have changed him in that tiny bathroom on the plane, and I wouldn't have had time to change him at our layover in Dallas, TX. Our flight from Salt Lake arrived late and I had just enough time to pee, buy a pretzel breakfast sandwich, and catch the tram that took me to my gate. I got on as one of the very last passengers, good thing I didn't miss the flight. 

When we arrived I had to change the baby, but after that we went to baggage claim, and Mark was there waiting for us. He was so excited to see Ryker after not having seen him for 10 days! I was really happy to see him, and I was happy to be reunited with my stroller. I made the mistake of taking our jogging stroller, it was too big to be checked on at the gate, so they checked it on at the check in station when we first arrived. I'm grateful that I’m pretty strong, because I lugged that thing all over the airport. Ryker is pretty dense these days, at least 14.5 lbs, plus the car seat, so yeah by the end of the trip my arms were dead!

The first thing I noticed, immediately, about the south is the humidity. It hits you like a wet heat, and makes your skin feel sticky. The upside of this is that the Air conditioning in our car, and town home, feels like it's working better than ever, but I think that's because the inside of our car stays dry, and the cool air feels cooler on damp skin.

It's not so bad though, it feels really nice here in the mornings and evenings, but the middle of the day is kind of miserable for now, we found this out after visiting the farmers market around noon last Saturday. It was so hot, and then 20 minutes later, it was pouring rain and flooding the roads! This only lasted about 10 minutes then cleared up.

 The weather at the beach is perfect for this time of day though, I’ll talk about that later on.

The greenery here is incredible. Our little place is a town home, one of two units. There are two town homes built into each building. We are on our own private drive kind of thing, its tucked back behind some big trees, it's kind of like our own little jungle area. The trees here are massive, Mark said that trees grow to mature sizes a lot faster in Florida because of all the water, there are a lot of tall, thick trunked trees here, and we have several in our yard alone. There’s a little wooden path that leads from the parking lot to our front door, it’s really cute, but slippery when wet, which is something we need to fix soon, because we will have guests and because it's dangerous in general, especially since it rains almost daily here. July and August are the rainy seasons. Usually the rain doesn't last long, but some days it rains all day, and pours, the puddles disappear really quickly though.

Our poor cat is aching to go outside. He begs at the door and paws at it, and he sits in the window looking at birds and squirrels. It’s driving him crazy to be stuck inside, but we can't risk letting him out yet, until we can take him to the vet to get flea medication, and heartworm meds. I don't want him to get either. He's also still really favoring his hip on one side, so we need to get that taken care of. Once he's allowed to go outside I think he will be happier. He seems a little depressed, he's not purring as much as usual. The whole move, and new baby etc... Has put him out. I think slowly he's getting used to the baby, and the new place, but if he could go outside it would boost his spirits. He's a very social cat, and has always had cat friends or my mom’s dogs to play with. We have been toying with the idea of adopting a kitten for him as a friend, but we will see how we feel about that once he is able to go play outside. I think he may be okay.

Although we live in a kind of paradise, there are down falls, like the bugs. Yes, we have roaches in our place. I think that's something that comes with the territory. They were here before we moved in, and to be honest it makes me want to gag just thinking about them. They are like the mice of the south (I’m not worried about us having mice with Lincoln). They are disgusting, we have German roaches, which means they only get about half an inch full grown, but it’s still so gross. I'm grateful they don’t fly, and they aren't very smart! I've done some research and I’m planning to buy some roach gel bait to poison the little suckers. I'm hoping this works to get rid of them. Apparently they will eat it, go back to their nest and die, and the other roaches will eat them, and then die too. We will see. In the meantime we are being meticulously clean, and not leaving any food out at all. It's actually really good for us, but still. Roaches are gross, and I have found one in my dish washer with clean dishes in it! I smacked his head off, and his body kept moving. I almost puked it was so gross.

The other bugs I can't stand are mosquitos. One landed on Ryker’s face, and I about had a come apart. Luckily we swatted it away before it got him, but it's only a matter of time... I hate those pesky bugs so much.

Let’s see, the Beaches here are amazing. They are better than I could have imagined. The sand is white, and soft, it doesn't burn your feet, and there are lots of little shell pieces to find in it. The water at this time of year is between 80-86 degrees right now, and it feels like bath water. It's seriously so nice. It’s also very clear.

They have flags they put out to let swimmers know the waters temperament, so far we've had yellow flags and a few red flags. The yellow flags mean the water is a little rough, and to be cautious when swimming, green means the water is mellow and the waves aren't rough, and red means not to get in, the waves are dangerous. A purple flag means a dangerous animal has been spotted in the water that day, you can still swim, but it’s just a warning. We drove down to Perdido Key two days ago, and along the coast down to Orange Beach. It's beautiful there, and the water is nice and calm. We noticed the purple flag and googled it to see what animals had been spotted, I guess hammer head sharks, sting rays and man o wars had been in the water. Man O wars are like giant jelly fish, I think. Anyway, it's a little scary, but you know at least they are alerting people right?

The guy that I sat next to on the plane grew up in Pensacola, I asked him about gators and he said he'd never seen one. He said that I was more likely to see a shark, than a gator and that there were bull sharks, tiger sharks and Makos, but that they lived farther out and usually didn't get close to the beach. I guess some of his friend’s fish for them! Crazy right?!

I definitely miss my family, and wish they were here to see all of this with me, but it has been fun too, and nice to be with mark in our new place. Besides the bugs, the place is actually pretty nice.

 Pensacola is about the size of Springville, but has a lot more shops and stuff, in fact it has a strip mall like the one that is in Orem with Burlington Coat Factory etc... It has a bunch of thrift shops that we need to check out and a Plato’s Closet! Which will be nice, I’m sure. There’s also a Target, that has the cutest baby boy clothes ever, a Wal-Mart, a Sams Club (no Costco though) and a bunch of nice Publix Grocery Stores. The familiar shops and restaurants makes me feel more at home, so does being able to face time my family. I'm so excited to have people come out and enjoy this with us! The beaches are unreal, live bands play, there’s food and drinks right on the beach too. Pensacola Beach was having an actual live concert right on the beach when we went last week, this lady who is a local was doing cover bands, but she was soooo talented. There were a couple of hundred people there sitting in the sand watching her. It was pretty cool.

I guess between the months of June-October baby sea turtles hatch out on certain beaches, we need to find out where these are and see if we can watch them! 

There are also waffle houses on every other corner, they are like the breakfast food version of McDonalds, and they have the quality to prove it! We made the mistake of eating there the day after I got here and I’m surprised we didn't get sick. (Sorry to anyone who likes both restaurant chains, I’m a food snob)

On the other hand, we found an amazing breakfast joint called Another Broken Egg that is so fancy. They have an appetizer section on their breakfast menu! The omelets we got were seriously amazing, and worth the money for sure. Mark got an omelet that had lobster on it! Lobster!!

Speaking of fish, it's free to fish off of the piers here, crazy cool right?! You can also buy a fishing license for like 15 bucks, so that's sweet. There’s also a fish market that is really neat. The day we went it was raining, and a man with an umbrella came and escorted us inside so we wouldn't get wet! When you enter, the first thing you notice is that it's like a large refrigerator, and that it doesn't smell like fish at all, which is a really good sign. There are a bunch of different types of fish on ice, behind glass windows, and you can take a ticket and wait in line for your number to be called to get your order of fish. On the other side of the fresh fish market, is a store that has some grocery items, and some unique sauces and such. I loved it. There were also massive live lobsters in a tank, the biggest I’d ever seen! We bought some crab meat for gumbo that mark made, and it was really good. 

Well that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I’ll keep updating, and hopefully get some pictures soon too. Thanks for reading this long entry.