So two months later I finally have a free moment to try and write this blog on our vacation. I will try to keep it short...but detail-filled...no promises though.
So for any unaware we got to take a magnificent trip in February that started off as Disney world but quickly turned into our "Florida Trip". Because we did so many wonderful things! Let me start from the beginning...
We left our home on Sunday February 8th, we made it as far as Royals/Chiefs stadiums (which is about 40 minutes for us) and Annie asked if we were there yet....its a 23 hour drive. Our first stop was in Maryville Tennessee, we spent the night with Valerie and her family, and although we didn't arrive until 10 o clock at night almost they were glad to have waited up and visited with us until we were ready to settle down for the night. I must say we were all star struck by their beautiful home and had such a great time exploring it! So thank you to Valerie for giving us a great place to stay and letting us feel so unbelievably welcome in your home to where we almost felt it could have been ours as well. Our next stop was Scottsboro Alabama, to the Unclaimed baggage store. It was something we saw on the Travel Channel at Christmas time and saw that it was on our way and thought it would be fun to stop somewhere we saw on tv! So we stopped and saw some wonderful things but in the end it was really more like a glorified thrift store...however, I can now say we've been somewhere that we saw on tv just because we saw it on tv! The second night on the road we stayed with Gabi and her family in Georgia, they also waited up for us late into the evening and visited with us until the late hours of the night and made us feel extremely welcome in their home and so thanks again to them as well.
Finally on our 3rd day on the road we made it to Florida, our first stop was to Cocoa Beach where Aunt Carla lives, we visited with her for a couple of hours and then she took us to the ocean, the very first time the kids ever saw the ocean and as you can see from the vacation pictures we came from the colder weather since we are standing in the sand with the ocean at our backs, in sweat shirts and jeans. But we all had a fantastic time playing in the sand and water, until it was time to hit the road again...however we finally only had a 3 hour drive and we arrived at Disneyworld! We stayed at a resort called Pop Century, there were several buildings of hotel rooms and each building had a different saying on it, the one we happened to drive up beside first said "Don't have a cow man", the kids read this and both looked at each other and said what does that mean?! I guess I'm getting older than I thought!! We got all checked into our hotel and first thing the kids did was put on swim suits and head to the pool, this would become the theme for the next 4 nights. We went with Dan's family, his mom and dad, brother and family and sister and family. Also Jerri's two sisters and their families. I was worried with this many people how we would make sure and be together each and every day but we managed to make it all work out. The first day our little family went to Animal Kingdom, O I have failed to mention until this point that the day before we left on the trip Dan was diagnosed with Pneumonia and Annie woke up puking in the night. So back to Animal Kingdom we were all still feeling the effects of the stomach flu Annie had managed to pass around and Dan seemed to have gotten it the worst but we knew we only had this day to do once so we pushed as hard as we could. We realized VERY quickly that with two kids this just wasn't possible, so we came up with a different approach-half a day at a park of our choice and half a day at the pool at our resort. This became the theme for the next four days where we saw each of the four parks, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot (and Animal Kingdom mentioned before). It was a trip none of us will ever forget and one of those "once in a lifetime" things people talk about. We made some amazing memories with some wonderful family and we were able to see each of them every day, we would go to the park and then meet by the pool in the evenings to share our stories of what we'd done for the day. Dannys favorite park was Hollywood Studios, where we got to see a car stunt show, Annie's favorite never was determined. :-)
The last thing we did on our trip was a stop by the Daytona 500. The racing itself was fantastic and anyone who knows me knows how much I love racing! However one would assume that after 51 years of putting this event on they would have come up with some better solutions! We sat waiting to park for 2 and a half hours, we became friends with all of the people around us when we all went and stood in line for the "wooded bathroom", then we rode a school bus to the race track where we waited out a couple of rain delays and watched the race to half way at which point it was shortened by rain and called off, then we stood in line for 2 hours to get back on a bus to take us to the parking lot and sat in the car for 3 hours waiting for traffic to even move. Once we finally got on the road it was 1115 pm on Sunday Feb 15th, we drove straight through and got home at 730 pm Monday evening!
But minus that one glich in the trip and the initial issue with the stomach flu/pneumonia we had a fantastic time and I spend most days wishing we could all go back. But maybe some day, for now I am thankful that we all got to go as a family and celebrate Jerri's 10 years of remission from cancer and maybe in another 10 years we will celebrate Christys remission!
