It was an absolutely perfect weather day in Florida as Emily had plans to head down to Sarasota with Grandma Kee. This meant that it was guys’ day at the Hayes house, and I needed a plan for some fun with the boys. The last time we had a guys day we had an amazing day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Since we had not been to the beach in a while, and Emily is not a huge fan of the beach, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get some sand in our toes and hear some crashing waves.
Emily and Kee hit the road at about 9:30 am for Sarasota and we were on our way to Cocoa Beach not long after that. We love the drive to Cocoa Beach because it only takes about 40 minutes and the route the we take winds right past Port Canaveral where we get to see the Disney cruise ships when they are in port. Saturdays and Sundays are normally port days so we were able to see the Disney Fantasy in port getting ready for a seven day sailing. We waved to the lucky souls who were enjoying the Aquaduck and made our way to our favorite beach spot on Cocoa Beach.
The beach was an absolute blast. The weather was perfect and we had such a fun time digging in the sand and building our mound castle. The boys really enjoyed splashing in the huge ocean waves. Hunter was making a game out of how many times he could get tossed around by the healthy Atlantic tide. We got throughly covered with salt and sand, to the point where we were still finding some days after. The wind and waves had taken their toll on us so we agreed that we would head back home for some lunch. I of course forgot my wallet so we had to make it back to the house before we could have lunch, which wasn’t the original plan.
Getting home gave us a chance to shower up and get at least the first layer of sand off of our bodies. Once we were clean we headed to Larry’s Giant Subs for a guys’ afternoon lunch of sandwiches. Sawyer really just wanted Doritos for lunch so he was easily satisfied.
With our nutritious lunch behind us our next stop was one that we had been planning throughout the week. Since our recent obsession with Lego Dimensions on the Xbox, Sawyer has fallen in love with one of our new characters, Peter Venkman. This of course required a lesson in who Peter Venkman was and what movie he was from. I quickly realized that seeing Ghostbusters was a rite of passage that needed to be woven into our guys’ day.
We set the Ecto One GPS to Target, where we were able to secure the last remaining $5 copy of the American classic. It only took us 30 minutes to find a copy of the movie. One of the downfalls of guys’ day, there was no woman of the house to advise us to ask for directions. We paid our five bucks as we man chanted and grunted out of the store and back to the car, like typical cavemen would.
Back at the Hayes lair, we loaded up the movie, made some popcorn, and got our Ghostbusters on! Remind me to preview these movies before I show them to the kids next time. I think PG meant something totally different in the 1980s. Luckily I wasn’t asked to explain any of Peter’s classic lines from the movie.
After the Key Master and the Gate Keeper got together and the movie ended, we decided to play a little Xbox before we ate our guys’ day dinner of Pizza Hut pizza. We crammed our faces full of the family box of pepperoni pizza, breadsticks, and cinnamon sticks. All we needed was a visit from Al Bundy and we would have been set.
We wrapped up the night with a little more Xbox before we reluctantly headed off to bed for rest, and sanity for Dad. The highlight of my day is when both boys said, “We really had a fun time at the beach.” I think it was a successful day, but we sure missed Emily. One thing I often realize is that Emily is really good at remembering to take photos throughout our adventures, me… not so much as displayed by my two photos above!