Home after a nearly perfect week in Siesta Key, FL for C’s senior spring break. This might have been the easiest spring break we’ve ever had. In nearly every way you can assess it, things went as well, or even better, as we could have hoped for.
We were on one of the B Team breaks for C’s class. The largest group trip was to a resort in Cancun. After doing the huge, overseas, resort trip two years ago with M’s class, C was not interested in all the drama that came with it. Plus she’s less social than M, so did not feel the need to be in the midst of the big gathering.[1]
There were somewhere between 40–50 of her classmates in Siesta, roughly 30 of those in our loose group that stayed in a series of resorts and condos that were all clustered together in the center of the Key. Three of C’s friends stayed with us. Or, rather, we had two rooms at the Sarasota Surf and Racquet Club, one for S, L, and I, and the other for C and her friends. I have to admit this arrangement made me nervous in the weeks leading up to the trip. C’s room was not only separate from ours, but in a completely different building.
C and her roommates did great. As far as we know, there weren’t any incidents, they didn’t annoy any of their neighbors, and no one got arrested. Seems like a success.
There was one bummer for the week, but it wasn’t related to C or her friends. L was all fired up that she would be running around close to normal since she was in a walking boot rather than a cast. Her first night trying to hang with friends quashed those thoughts. Turns out when you don’t put any weight on your foot for five weeks, you aren’t immediately able to walk normally again. Plus strolling around in an aircast is not comfortable at all, at least at first. She was too slow and sore and ended up coming home early upset because she couldn’t keep up with the group. She largely spent the rest of the week with us. I felt sorry for her but she kept insisting she was fine, and told us her perfect break is getting up early, reading all day, and then going to bed early. I think some of that was deflecting, but it is true she’s not really into the party scene yet. Fortunately one of her best friends from middle school who goes to Bishop Chatard was just down the beach and insisted L come out with her a couple nights.
That was an interesting aspect of our week. While there was a decent number of Cathedral families there, Siesta Key is where Chatard’s seniors almost all come each year, staying right in same area we were. There wasn’t a ton of interaction among the seniors that we saw, but the younger kids were definitely crossing lines. And we saw tons of St P’s families.
Speaking of St P’s, early in the week I saw this older dude, shaved head, sitting near us without his shirt on, showing off his impressive tattoos. I pointed him out to L and said “Hey, that looks like Mr. H!” the principal at St P’s the first four or five years we had kids there. There were always rumors that he had a bunch of tattoos from when he lived in Japan, and that he always wore long sleeved shirts so the kids didn’t see them. Making this comparison funnier was that the dude was vaping.
Well, next day we got a text from another St P’s/CHS parent that said “OMG! I just saw Mr. H on the beach and he was vaping!” It was him!
Turned out he was staying in our complex with one of his kids and some grandkids. He walked around all week without a shirt on and we caught him vaping any time the little ones weren’t around. Later someone said he stays there every year. Kind of crazy to pick a spring break spot where you know tons of families from the school you used to run always go. Especially since we didn’t see him interact with a single person outside his family.
The weather was nearly perfect all week. It only rained once, and that was a downpour Saturday night just after we returned from dinner. Otherwise hot, sunny, and breezy every day. Just what you want from spring break.
Most nights we ended up hosting a dinner in our room for C, her roommates, and then any friends who were tagging along. There was a Taco Tuesday dinner on the beach for most of the CHS families at the complex next door.
Our only big outing was Wednesday when most of the CHS crew went on a sunset cruise together. Here’s where there was an obvious difference between C’s trip and M’s. In the Dominican Republic two years ago, kids were getting WASTED on the afternoon booze cruise. The drinking age there is 18, and the kids were openly killing rum punch as soon as the bartender handed it to them. S had to help a couple kids out who were in really bad shape.
But in Florida the kids obviously couldn’t drink openly, and you weren’t allowed to bring anything onto the boat. We did end up buying C and her roommates a round of daiquiris, as did most of the other parents. A bartender told us they hadn’t sold this many daiquiris in weeks, which made all us parents laugh out loud. There was a line of parents buying 4–5 drinks each and no questioning about where they were going. Our kids all behaved. Only a few of them had more than one drink, but several got on the boat with quite a few in them from the beach. But there were no incidents.
Late in the two hour cruise S, L and I were downstairs where it was less crowded. C came down to check in and got a text from a friend upstairs that the bartenders were carding kids. S ran up to check and it turned out they were just taking the drinks from kids who couldn’t produce an ID. Again, hilarious. They sold drinks and made tips for 90 minutes and then in the last half hour made kids dump them out before we got back to the dock. Fair enough.
C had a drink and wasn’t being very careful about hiding it. The downstairs bartender came over and asked for her ID. Again, when C couldn’t show her one, the bartender politely took the drink and that was that. Seems like they were chill because the kids were being chill.
The last time we went to Siesta Key the police were pretty hardcore on the beach. We know a couple Indy kids who got arrested that year. We only saw one group of kids get hassled last week, and those were idiot sophomores from the other Catholic school who had a case of beer sitting in the midst of their circle in broad daylight. The deputies hassled them for a while, then took the beer and told the kids to disperse. As far as we know no kids were arrested in our little area all week.
The travel part of the week was about as easy as you could imagine this time of year. We flew out of Indy in the afternoon and there were no lines. I had to wait less than five minutes to pick up our rental in Sarasota. We also had an afternoon return flight. When I walked by the rental counter after turning in our van, there were lines similar to our visit three years ago, when people were stuck waiting for hours and we eventually bailed and ordered an Uber. There was literally no one in front of us to drop bags or in the TSA Pre line. Our flight was delayed 15 minutes, but we ended up landing right on time. I’m a little nervous that this means our next trip will be plagued with issues.
We missed some big weather at home. Wednesday there were tornado warnings in Indy. After our sunset cruise we had the girls back to our room for an evening snack and many of them were either getting texts or calls from their parents back home, who were all in their basements. That was followed by massive rain, which continued into the weekend. We ended up getting over 6” of rain in our part of town over four days. No issues at our house. The sump pump kept pumping and if the power went off, it was only briefly. Just some limbs down in the yard to throw into the trash dumpster. Everything is super green, though, and trees and plants are starting to bud/flower.
So pretty awesome we are going to have hard freezes the next two nights.
One of the best things about the week is that we got to spend time with the parents of one of M’s best friends, who we hung with in the Dominican two years ago. Their middle daughter and C are casual friends, so we don’t get to see them as much as we did with the older sisters. We tried to avoid what was going on in the world while we were relaxing, but they have the same perspective on things as we do, and also have three daughters, so the dad and I especially spent a lot of time talking about the state of things and what it means for our girls as they become adults. The dad also drives a Rivian, so we talked about cool cars, too. It’s a shame their third daughter is two years younger than L and we won’t get to travel with them again in their senior years.
We always enjoy going to Publix when in Florida. We did make three trips there over the course of the week. That was even with ordering some stuff ahead of time, that we picked up on our way to the resort Friday, and having an Instacart order from Costco get delivered that night as well. That all went fairly well. Some of the fruit and vegetables were crap, a big reason I’m usually fine going to the store on my own. All our bread was also moldy in about a day. We figured they take the stuff off the shelf that’s about to expire and save it for delivery orders.
We didn’t spend a ton of time in the car, but did have to run girls somewhere, pick up food, etc each day. On our drive from the airport we found a cool, old school hip hop and R&B station. It played almost exclusively songs from the ‘90s. We kept it glued to that station and enjoyed it throughout the week. Despite spending just a little time in the car, we managed to hear “Poison,” “Hey Ya!” and “Don’t Walk Away” four times each. Not that I’m complaining.
So we survived the middle kid’s spring break. She and her friends lean to the Good Kid side of the spectrum, but you never know when you go away, there are lots of kids around, and alcohol is involved. We are thankful they all respected us and their parents enough to keep the nonsense to a minimum.
The seniors have just five weeks of classes left, with two shorter weeks in there because of Easter. Prom, National Honor Society, graduation activities, and grad party season are all right around the corner. The next two-plus months are going to be busy, but fly by quickly.
- Since Covid our spring breaks have been: Anna Maria, Siesta Key, Punta Caña, Anna Maria, Siesta Key. We are NOT going to the DR again next year, but will likely be out of the country. ↩
