We Went Back to Florida

Yes, for the third year in a row, we took the whole family back to Florida, our most favorite state.

Although being in the car for so long is not ideal, I really do enjoy the drive down and back. This year, we headed out through WI, IL, KY, and into Nashville, TN, where we stayed out first night. We continued on into GA and FL from there.
On the way home, we changed things up a bit and came home through Tallahassee, FL, into AL, MS, AR, and MO, where we stopped for the night. Then we headed into IA and back home again.
It was fun to hit 12 states in one trip!

As usual, we enjoyed lots of sunshine, swimming pools, the ocean, and mini golf.

Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Surprisingly, we have some different plans for next year. We haven't made any permanent plans just yet, but likely we'll be going someplace new!
I LOVE family vacations!!
I am so glad that the boys are old enough to travel well, and I can't imagine taking a trip without them.

Spring Break Trip

I have never been on a spring break trip. Peter got to go to Arizona one year and Los Angeles once for track in college, but I have never been on a trip in the spring, and I really wanted to go.

After getting over the initial shock that Peter was losing his job earlier this year, I had asked him if we could try to plan a trip, if the timing worked out. Peter's last day at Thomson Reuters was March 7 (and we knew this for a long time). Brady and Logan's spring break from school was from March 7- March 16--perfect timing for a trip, see?
After Peter accepted the job at Prime Therapeutic, he was told that he could start on Monday, March 17--giving him a week off between jobs to spend with his family--awesome!!

So, using our beloved time share, we began looking at "last call" trips to see what would be available at a low cost. Florida is kind of our "go-to" trip destination, but since we've been there a lot lately and will be going back later this year, we kept an open mind. Plus, we were hoping to take an airplane on this trip, and flying to FL in March with 5 passengers would have cost us a few limbs.

So, let's be honest. If not traveling to FL, we wanted to choose the next warmest weather location that was available through "last call". Las Vegas it was--again!
Airplane tickets to Las Vegas were approximately $250 per person cheaper than to FL--that made it a total no brainer, so I went ahead and booked the hotel, flight, and rental car immediately. To give you an idea what a great deal the "last call" trips are, we paid $269 for 7 nights! Our resort was the same place we stayed 2 years ago, complete with a full kitchen, washer/dryer, 5 pools/hot tubs, free mini golf and fitness center, etc.

Peter and I talked about the trip every night after putting the boys to bed. We decided that it would be completely awesome if we made the entire trip a surprise--especially since this would be their first time on an airplane (and believe me, they ask often).

It was hard work keeping the secret, and it almost got spoiled a few times, but we managed to pull it off.

I had already done about 95% of the packing by Saturday morning, but I needed to finish it up completely, so Peter took the boys out for breakfast to kick off their spring break (they knew that Daddy would be home all week before starting his new job).
While they were away, I completed the packing and loaded up the van.
Uncle Mark came over next (to drive us to the airport), and we told the boys that we were going to Nana and Papa's house for the day.

On the way to the airport, no one noticed that we were heading toward the airport until Logan spotted the light rail--he LOVES the light rail!
I told the boys that we had a surprise for them and Logan started immediately yelling "we're riding the light rail, we're riding on the light rail."  Brady was quiet, not really sure what was going on. When I told them that we were at the airport and that we were going to be getting on a plane, they were speechless. Brady gave me the biggest hug he's ever given and said thank you a million times :).

When they found out about the 7 night trip to Las Vegas, they flipped out even more.
I am SO glad that we were able to sneak in a trip before Peter's new job started and that we were able to pull off the surprise for the boys too--it was really fun!

While we were away, we were able to ride a real train at the Nevada State Railroad Museum, drive to California (the boy's first time) to Death Valley National Park, visit the Pinball hall of fame, play at several parks, visit Valley of Fire State Park, and see the Hoover Dam.
The weather was gorgeous, with highs in the 70s almost every day, no rain, and LOTS of wonderful sunshine!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures.

We LOVE palm trees!

Nevada State Railroad Museum and train ride

Yes, it was warm enough to swim several times!

Hiking up a big mountain at Exploration Peak park

82 degrees at the Death Valley visitors center

Town Square Park

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Dinner in the resort. We only ate out twice and did our own cooking the rest of the time.

Beehives at Valley of Fire

Hoover Dam

Relaxing by the pool

Myrtle Beach

As you know, our family took a trip to Myrtle Beach, SC a couple of weeks ago. The reason for our trip was to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. The reason we chose Myrtle Beach (instead of the Black Hills, SD, where we honeymooned and planned to celebrate 10 years) was because we were offered an amazing resort at an amazing price, which we could hardly pass up.

The highlights of the trip included:
The drive
Swimming in the 4 pools at the hotel
The hot tub
Mini Golf
The Ocean
The lazy river
Playing our Ticket to Ride board game everyday
and
Watching the helicopters and airplanes fly over the resort

Here are a few of my favorite pictures.


Lagoon Pool (our window is the one right of the yellow umbrella, behind the boys)

 



Playing Ticket to Ride



Ready to go swimming

Waiting for the shuttle to take us across the street to the ocean.

 

Playing with big leaves.

 



Palm trees outside our door.

 



Unlimited Mini Golf

 



Snack at Chapin Park

 



The boys' first Krispy Kreme donuts

 



Lazy River

 



Late night mini golf in pjs

 



Daddy with his boys at the ocean

 



Marshall loved being buried in the sand!

Playing in the sand
 



Jumping into the pool by the ocean.

Over sized hot tub

Jumping in!

Daddy making lunch for us

 



Marshall's cherry vanilla ice cream
 



Ice Cream Shoppe

 



Lazy River with Mommy

Travel Tidbits

We returned from our 3rd big vacation in the past year on Saturday night. The trip was 8 days long, which included 4 days of travel and 4 days at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The driving days were long, but very interesting, so I wanted to share a few tidbits about those days alone.
We traveled through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Here is what we saw and found interesting...

- Toll roads are expensive and annoying (as much as $4 we paid at some)

- Bob the Builder was played on the DVD player at least 5 times through--and it's not a short movie.

- Charleston, WV is beautiful, and a place that both Peter and I thought looked like a great place to live.

- I hate when kids eat in the car--we never normally do, except on vacation, and even then it's dry cereal only. Yuck!

- In North Carolina, along the roads we traveled, there are groups of extremely run down mobile homes (from around 1960-1970) where people live. It was actually very sad.

- In South Carolina, there are tons of billboards for canned collard greens, vidalia onions, and other assorted southern canned foods.

- Illinois was our least favorite state by far. I can't stand Chicago traffic or the speedy and unsafe drivers.

- Nexus 7 tablets saved the day many times, especially with the ability to charge them while driving.

- Marshall still loves to page through little books to pass the time.

- We spotted every license plate except Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Idaho, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

- Palm trees are my favorite by far

- I LOVE being a time share owner and can't wait until we decide to upgrade a little more.

- We love doing road trips and we're going again in 4 months.

- Peter and I agree that it would be ideal to live within a days drive to the ocean (ideally south, but anywhere really).

- Different fast food places and grocery stores, including: Bojangles chicken and biscuits, Waffle House, Red Burrito, Chick Fil-A, Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly, Publix...

- The Smokey Mountains--they were the best in the fall through Tennessee, but pretty great last week as well, in Virginia and West Virginia.

- Amish people that we came across in MN, VA, and WV.

Our longest days of travel were from Farmington, MN to Gallipolis, OH and back. This route was 846 miles and 13 hours (this did not include the hour lost on the first day or gained on the last day). We left home at 5:30AM on Saturday and arrived in Gallipolis around 9PM EST. On the way home, we left Gallipolis at 5:30 AM EST and arrived home at 8PM-- we stopped only 4 times on the way home, for gas/food/potty.