Family Vacation

A few weeks ago we took a family vacation to Florida. This was no ordinary family vacation but a much anticipated, extended family trip that we had been planning and talking about for over a year. We had a group of 11. Our group included the five of us plus Paul's brother's family and Paul's parents. A total of 6 adults and 5 children, ages 4 and under. In an effort to maintain sanity and friendliness we started out with a few rules. Rule # 1 we were not traveling together. Each family had to get to Florida and get home from Florida by themselves. Rule # 2 each family would have separate hotel rooms, we were not cramming us all together in a hotel room for a week. We ended up keeping rule number one which I think worked out well and we ended up breaking rule number two which I think also worked out well. Thanks to some fancy maneuvering of the system I was able to get us four nights in the presidential suite at The Fountains, a resort included in our timeshare. (Yes, we have a timeshare. It's a long silly story that we never knew how to tell you about. I figure by now maybe you've figured it out anyway.) The presidential suite was a three bedroom, three bath suite with and indoor and outdoor kitchen, a dining area and two living rooms. It was bigger than our town home in Palatine and possibly bigger than Janet and Gregg's house in Morton. It was huge and amazing and allowed us all our own space with plenty of room for the kids to play. Despite the hugeness we ended up sharing a room with our kids so we didn't have to put them in the room leading to our beautiful patio and thus making it useless in the evenings when we would be most apt to enjoy it. It was an experience that I'm glad we've had now. The kids thought it was fun and of course took forever to fall asleep each night, but they did eventually fall asleep and it ended up being totally fine.

The view from our suite.

Our vacation wasn't planned intentionally as a Disney vacation but once you get to Orlando you feel like you must go visit the life size mouse and his gang. We spent one day at Universal's Islands of Adventure, one day relaxing at our hotel and one day at Magic Kingdom. Overall we had a great time with only a few major issues. Like Jack's insane meltdown at the entrance to Islands of Adventure or the five minutes of panic when we legitimately had no idea where Schaeffer was. That was terrifying, but the Lord answered our panicked prayers quickly and I found him before too long walking with a park person. I think the ordeal still gives Paul nightmares though. Magic Kingdom wasn't my first choice of places to go with so many small children but we ended up having a great time. We had been telling the boys we were going to meet Mickey and see where he lives and really talking it up so they would be excited. Of course when we actually met Mickey and Minnie everyone got scared and clung to Paul and I. Still they now think it was fun.

After a few days in Orlando we drove across the state to Panama City Beach for two nights. We had found a beach house big enough for all of us (see, we shared the whole time). It had five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The best part wasn't the house, but it's location. It really was right on the beach. The white, squeaky sand was at our backdoor with an amazing sandbar for us to play on in the ocean. For me this was my favorite time. We spent almost every moment we could out on the beach and in the water. Jack and Kyle played their hearts out and loved every moment of it. The twins were free to dig and play in sand without worry of getting dirty or having me stop them. They were a little afraid of the water at first but they quickly adjusted and enjoyed splashing at the shoreline, running on the sandbar and jumping with the waves while Paul and I held them. Sadly, not everyone could enjoy the beach. Miss Hayden had been sick most of the week and Nicole ended up taking her to the ER the afternoon we arrived in Panama City. So their beach time was a bit limited. After a day and a half of beach time we had to pack up and start the long drive home. That long drive home is always the hardest, but the kids were troopers and did well for the most part. All in all, it was a great vacation and I'm glad we got to share it with Paul's family.