Leaving Florida, Bound for the Arch

 The past two years we've driven home from Florida in one day.  They've been long, grueling days.  This year we decided to just do it in two days for a variety of reasons.  I have enough hotel points from my work travels to get us a hotel for free, so there's no real extra cost.  But we still wanted to get an early start this morning so we could drive the majority of the way today.  Here Meghan and the kids shuffle out of Grandpa and Grandma Williams' house as we begin our trip.

The day went really well.  We only stopped a few times, including a rest stop in Metropolis, IL, the "Hometown of Superman", where Joshua showed off his muscles.  We made it to St. Louis and are staying in a Hampton Inn tonight.  We got Imo's Pizza for dinner and enjoyed it in our hotel room before bed.  We'll have just a short drive tomorrow to make it back to KC.

Alligators and Destin

Today we went into Destin. We were hoping we could go to the beach, but it rained in the morning. We went to Fudpucker's instead. This is similar to Joe's Crab Shack, but with the addition of live alligators. The food is not amazing, but it is fun for the kids.

There are a variety of opportunities to engage with alligators and become a little bit less wealthy in the process, but the one we like to do is feed the alligators. This is a hit with the kids and is pretty reasonable. Plus Joshua has been asking about fishing a lot. This isn't really fishing, but it does involve a fishing pole, so we're halfway there.

We had a good time, and by the time we were done with all that, our table was ready and we also ate.

After lunch, it was getting pretty late so we really needed to get back so the kids could nap, but the sun came out and I really wanted to try to get some beach pictures. We stopped by the beach really quickly and got a few photos. They aren't quite as good as I hoped they would be, but considering how tired they were and that we took it in high sun instead of the "golden hour", they came out okay. My only disappointment for this trip was not as much beach time as I wanted, but the weather just refused to coordinate with Jason's arrival.

On our way back from Destin, we stopped by to pick up crab cakes so we could all have a nice dinner at my parents' house. Hannah actually loves crab cakes, which is sort of funny because she hardly eats anything, but is willing to make an exception if it's extremely expensive I guess. Clara is less of a fa n so you can see her pouting over dinner in this picture. We had a fun last day in Destin and plan to leave early tomorrow.

Daddy's Back!

 Joshua has been having rough nights lately. He has a very bad cough and recently has also been crying about ear pain. So I decided to take him to the doctor today. We obviously don't have a doctor here, so I just took him to CVS. That's not the best because it's first-come-first-served so the wait can be awhile. We had about a 40-minute wait. He did pretty well just by looking at the musical cards and then drawing. He has an outer ear infection and we got some ear drops so hopefully he will be feeling better soon.

My kids generally are very adaptable. They don't really seem to mind when we go on these vacations and they don't ask questions when summer comes and they stop going to school or anything like that. They just pretty much take it one day at a time and don't seem to mind if today is completely different in every way than yesterday. Even so, I am a little surprised that they haven't mentioned Jason since we left. Until last night anyway, when Joshua really wanted him when he woke up with ear pain. Luckily for him, he didn't have long to wait because Jason flew in tonight from a work trip in Chicago.

We were hoping it would work out that Jason would be have a work trip this week because he can choose to fly back to Florida at no cost to us since his company is paying for a flight and they don't mind where as long as the prices are similar. Luckily, it worked out just as we hoped. Once they saw him, the kids were really elated that he was here and I was pretty happy myself.

Rainy Day

Today my dad took a vacation day and was able to spend some time with us. We were hoping to be able to do something outside, but unfortunately it rained a lot of the day. The bad thing about this area is there really isn't much to do with little kids indoors. So we ultimately decided to go to Chick-Fil-A. The kids had a fun time playing in the indoor playground.

We all enjoyed the yummy food and a special dessert with Grandpa.

A Day at the Pool

Today we took advantage of the nice day and went to the pool. There really aren't any pubic pools in Destin or near my mom so we went to the base pool. It reminded me of the pools from my childhood, but the kids still loved it because all they really care about is that they can jump off the edge. They actually are not huge fan of the new zero-depth entry trend because they are basically like, "Why would you remove a jumpable edge?!". They had a lot of fun and it was a nice afternoon.

After dinner, we went to the park near my parents' house. It was a good night for Joshua because we rode bikes (or in his case, a scooter) there, which always makes him happy AND he learned to do the pole for the first time ever. He was super proud as he pretty much thought this was the funnest thing to do at the park ever.

A Day at the Beach

Today we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to the beach.  Even though I prefer the beaches of Destin, the kids are small so prefer no waves so we went to a beach near my parents' home which is in a protected bay, so has no real surf. This was perfect for the kids and they had a great time. They really liked playing with Grandpa's boogie board too. We had a fun time.

Niceville Spray Park: Take Two

 My original plan was to be in Orlando this weekend, but since we didn't go because Joshua was sick, we were here for the weekend. So we decided to check out the spray park again. Clara was totally pumped because she had really wanted to play on the non-water side and today we got to.

 Hannah was also really excited about it. Joshua, though, wanted nothing to do with anything except the water.

 It was hard because the girls wanted nothing to do with the water and I can't be in two places at once. But we worked out a compromise where Joshua got some water time.

 And then we played at the playground some more, which this time he was happier to do that since he had gotten to play in the splash area awhile.

This time we made it home before the rain started. I got the kids umbrellas at Walmart earlier in the trip, which they were super excited about. Maybe a little too excited about because Clara's got a tiny rip in it from being played with so much, but I think even if we have to replace it once we get home, she got $6 worth of fun out of it. Anyway, Joshua was excited to play with his umbrella in the rain for a little bit (he will have you know that it is "cool, not pretty").

Picnic at the Shore

Today I had hoped to go to the beach, but Joshua woke up with a fever and feeling awful. So we decided to stay home. My parents got a kiddie pool for the kids to play in, so the girls had a lot of fun with that.

Later on, Joshua rallied after some advil and also had a good time playing out there.

That night for dinner, we had a picnic in the park and also got to play at the playground. Joshua still wasn't feeling great so his heart wasn't exactly in it. But we still had a nice time by the water. The kids were kind of mad I didn't bring the swimming stuff as there is a beach area at this particular park, but the conversation was ended when a brief but strong storm came through at the end of our meal.

Niceville Spray Park: Take One

Today was our first full day in Florida and my mom and I decided to take the kids to the spray park. This is a really nice park they have in Niceville that has a water area and then also a normal playground. The kids had a really fun time here, though our time was cut short by a pop-up storm. So my mom and I also got super wet even though we were not planning on it. I wish we'd had longer before the rain because Clara especially had really wanted to play at the park. We'll have to go back another day.

Finally in Florida

Today we checked out of our hotel in Athens and drove the rest of the way down to Florida, which was about five hours, so not long. However, being on the road yesterday and not sleeping well at the hotel last night made me, not exactly sick, but not feeling the best I've ever felt so I stopped a couple times for beverages and what not, which is not like me. So it made the drive feel very long since each stop took 15-20 min since it takes awhile to get all the kids unstrapped and strapped since I can't leave them in the car at their age. It went fine until we were about 30 minutes away and then they were just over being in the car (I totally felt them as I also was kind of over it, yet one of the four of us decided to handle that by continuing to drive whereas the other three threw tantrums all at the same time. It was not delightful and really the only part of the whole trip where I really would have rather been driving alone). On the plus side, the last hour or two of the drive down is not on interstate and goes through a national forest which previously had no cell reception whatsoever. This year, they fixed that, and I had GPS, through roaming, the whole way. That definitely made that part of the drive easier because there are several turns you have to make and I had them on paper if I needed them, but it was way easier to have my phone tell me than to have to look.

Once we arrived in Florida, the kids were super pumped to play outside for awhile so we didn't really go anywhere or do anything today other than hang out at my parents' home.