Spring Break

Amanda and Alaina are only with us for spring break every other year, so we try to plan a nice family vacation for this time that we have together. Two years ago, we went to Hawaii. This year, we talked about going out west but eventually decided that it would just be too much with the little ones. We also considered a cruise, but those are very expensive during spring break time and very expensive times 6 people equals way too expensive! We decided that we would head to Florida and spend some time enjoying the beach, take the kids to Sea World and Busch Gardens (we got 5 day unlimited admission passes to both parks), do some swimming and visit with my grandpa. Nice, easy and low-key. Now, I know the obvious question is...why not Disney too??? Well, Disney is nearly $100 per person, per day for one park for everyone except Avery. Since Amanda and Alaina have been to Disney at least 5 times, Nicholas and Avery wouldn't remember it, and I had no desire to hang out with a million other people who had the same idea for spring break, we decided against it. Orlando is an easy drive for us--only about 7 hours--so in a few years we can take the kids to Disney at a time that will be less busy.

Monday morning, April 6, we got up early (it wasn't bright yet at 5 am!), loaded everyone into the mini van and headed south. We planned to leave really early so that the children would sleep a portion of the way there and our plan worked well. Everyone woke up around 8:00, we had breakfast, got the little ones dressed, watched a movie and we were there! The only gliche was that Keith realized that he forgot he wallet when we were about 3 hours from home. This ended up being a real issue because the hotel reservation was in his name, and you can't check into a hotel without a photo id! What an ordeal that was! Fortunately for us, our neighbor was also off from school and was able to go over to our house and fax the hotel a copy of Keith driver's license. Almost as soon as we got our things to our room, a huge storm blew in it got super cold and then started raining really hard. So, rather than going over to Sea World as we'd planned, we got some dinner and then we out shopping for some sweatshirts. Welcome to Florida!

The next day we got up and headed out to this breakfast place that Keith spotted somewhere, and the plan was to go to Sea World after breakfast. It was only about 3 miles from our hotel and our hotel backed up to Sea World's parking lot, so we figured we'd have lots of time at the park that day. Wrong. It took us nearly 1.5 hours to get back to our hotel because of heavy traffic and some kind of accident that we never actually saw but just assumed happened. It was sooooo very frustrating! We finally made it to Sea World and had a nice afternoon in the park. We got to see the dolphin show and the sharks. Nicholas loved it (he's really into sharks lately)!

Wednesday was our Busch Gardens day, which meant we had to drive to Tampa. Again, traffic was really bad and it ended up taking a longer than expected amount of time to get there. We spent the morning doing all of the little kid things for Nicholas--we rode the train that went around the free-roaming animals (zebras, rhino, giraffes, etc) and then walked through the rest of the park where we saw tigers, hippos, gorillas, and lots more that I can't even remember. I was actually really impressed with Busch Gardens. It was a really neat combination of a zoo and an amusement park, and it is very kid friendly. In addition to the animals, they have these two huge kid play places with areas for getting wet and areas for climbing and jumping. I can't offer a description that would do it justice so I'll stop, but trust me, it's cool! Once nap time rolled around, Nicholas, Avery and I packed up and headed out to visit my grandpa, leaving Keith and the older girls to spend the rest of the day enjoying the roller coasters. Grandpa Douglas lives just outside Tampa and provided a very restful and relaxing afternoon for us! We had a really nice visit, and I was sad when it came time to get back in the car to pick everyone up and drive back to Orlando.

Thursday was one of the days I was most excited about--Daytona Beach day!!! Keith chose this beach because you can drive out on it and set up camp right next to your car. Very nice with kids, as a hike across the beach with all of our stuff would not have been fun! Avery mostly hung out in her sun tent while Nicholas played and played in the sand. Nicholas absolutely loved the beach. He could dig and pour water everywhere and make sandcastles to kick down and bury stuff...my boy was in his glory! That evening, we went back to Sea World for a few hours to see more sharks and the Shamu Rocks show. It was so much less crowded this time and that made me so much happier to be there :)

Keith decided that he wanted to go back to Busch Gardens on Friday, so we headed out early again that morning. It was a beautiful day and we were able to do a few things at the park that we couldn't fit in on Wednesday. We left around nap time again and drove back to visit with my grandpa one more time. The kids went swimming in his pool and then grandpa ordered in Mama's pizza. It was so yummy...I wish Mama would bring her pizza to Charlotte! Saturday morning we all went swimming in the pool at the hotel and then we packed up and checked out.

Our drive back to Charlotte didn't go as smoothly as our drive to Orlando. There was a ton of traffic through Florida and Georgia, and GA made it worse with construction zones that were 30 miles long every ten miles. UGH! I was so happy when we finally arrived at home. Being so busy with two little kids and away from my house full of helpful baby stuff was tough! Still, we had a really nice time and made some great memories and that's what really matters.