1800 miles in 2 weeks across 4 states...our summer oblication

We spent almost two weeks in June visiting our families in Florida. I nicknamed it an "oblication" since it was combination vacation and obligation trip to see everyone. David starts four years of dental school at the University of Kentucky August 1, so we drove down before he's in school for 11 months of the year with limited breaks.

For our family members who have only visited during the winter, this is what Kentucky and Tennessee look like during the spring and summer—plenty of beautiful green mountains!

We left on a Sunday and drove part of the way, stopping in Macon, Georgia overnight. On Monday morning, I watched one of my former University of Tennessee students, Samantha Smith, on air as a weather forecaster for Channel 41 in Macon. She is working on her degree in meteorology and will have a great career!

It took about 10 and a half hours total to reach my parent's house in Alachua, so not a bad drive. We spent the next 10 days visiting our families and friends and sharing many great conversations and meals. Here are some photo highlights from our trip.

I was very excited to see my nephew Judson again since he is almost 10 months old. He is crawling and laughing and a very loveable child. (About 90 percent of the photos I took on the trip are of Judson and his cuteness!)

He loves to play on the computer while sitting on Grandpa's lap.

Grandma steals some sugar. 

We made Judson into a little Kentucky Wildcat.

We also visited David's family in Winter Haven and Lake Alfred and saw his extended family and even met some new little cousins.

David's aunts, uncles and cousins on his mom's side came over for BBQ night.

David's mom has redesigned her kitchen, and it looks great!

Yummy pizza from the Pizza Connection in Auburndale, Florida, courtesy of David's dad.

David's aunt made a delicious pineapple upside down cake.

There is always time to play Angry Birds. David and his sister, Allison, are addicted to this game on their phones!

We saw some beautiful sunsets in Florida. I'll write another post about them and share more photos.

While in Polk County, we traveled to Dinosaur World in Plant City, Florida to meet up with some friends from college. They brought some delicious Publix subs, and we had a picnic while their kids enjoyed the dinosaurs. The outing represented my love/hate relationship with Florida—love seeing family and friends and eating Publix subs but hate the heat and humidity! (Ironically, while we were in Florida, Publix announced it will open stores in Knoxville. I'm hoping they move on up to Lexington, too!)

We had a great trip, but we're happy to be home again in Kentucky. Sammie and Cash had a wonderful lady named Miss Maria who came over and checked in on them while we were gone. I talked to her several times during our trip, and she said they were doing fine but missed us. We missed them too!

Cash spends hours sunning himself on the floor.

Sammie spent a lot of time sleeping on Dad's chair upstairs. It was coated in a thick layer of hair when we returned.