Florida Vacation Days 1 & 2: The DRIVE

First of all, I feel like I need to apologize to family, friends, my girls, and myself for not posting more often! I've been so busy with my photography business and also definitely enjoying my family that I just haven't found enough time as I'd like to WRITE about it. But a ginormous trip to Disney World is the perfect reason to jump back on the blogging wagon in a big, fun way! So without further ado, here's the first in a long series of posts with many, many photos! :)

We started out our journey around 4:00 am on April 12. Everything was going smoothly: Brad had almost everything packed into the Rondo the night before, we got the rest of our things packed in, woke the girls, and they each went potty with no complaints. When I bought Natalie into the car, Mollie was excitedly waiting there, WIDE awake, talking about Dis-en-ee-wall, as she calls it. It was adorable. So, we set off on the highway. AND THEN...we were about 20 miles down the road and I realized that I didn't pack the tickets. I'd left them out on the counter as soon as I got them in the mail, but then things got set on top and they never made it into the car! So, I was so embarrassed and felt terrible for wasting time, but we turned around and got the tickets. I'd have to say that was the LONGEST trip we've ever made from Moore to OKC. After that, things went great! A couple of hours later, I realized another mistake that I'd made (go ME, right?! Ugh), but we got that figured out, and luckily that only cost us a few dollars and ZERO extra time on the road.

We did stop at a really nice Holiday Inn on that first night. We didn't have time to swim or anything, basically just hang out a bit to unwind and get some rest in our comfy beds, Brad with Natalie and me with Mollie. I'll just say it's hard to say who had it better - Natalie is big enough to just go to sleep, but Mollie still thinks it's great fun to be in the bed with another person, so she pinched and poked me, but all in all, she snuggled up close, and fell asleep, and that's pretty sweet in itself.

We got into Orlando Friday, but we couldn't check into our house until Saturday. Al & Deb flew in with Caleb while Eric, Lisa, & Aubrey drove from Ohio. The Hilton that Lisa found beforehand for all of us was sooooooooooooo incredibly nice! After all that time in the car, I didn't want to leave! The rooms were gorgeous, the pools (yes, PLURAL, poolS) were gorgeous, and the weather was amazing. We ate dinner by the pool and then let the girls play in the water before bed. They had a blast. Mollie surprised us by getting right into the water in the zero-entry pool with no hesitation, and by the end of the evening, she was laying in the water, splashing around and playing! I'm super excited for pool time for us this summer - last year, she was way too scaredy to even play in the baby pool happily. We had a super great stay there, and after warm baths for the girlies, Mollie had a crazy spell of running and yelling and basically losing her little mind. So we put her to bed (this time in Brad's bed), and she was asleep within minutes. SO funny how little kids get when they are exhausted and how quickly they can go from CA-RA-ZY to ASLEEP. I think Natalie was having a little trouble relaxing since she was excited about going to Universal the next morning, but we all finally did get some good rest!

The entire trip from OKC to Orland took . . . wait for it . . . drumroll . . . 23.5 hours. Yeahhhhh. Good times. OK but seriously, it really wasn't that bad, and we most certainly saved over $1000 vs flying & renting a car in Orlando! So no regrets here! During what I'll refer to as our Big, Fat, Florida Trip, I started using Instagram to busy myself and document our trip. Here's my "phone dump" from the two days that we spent on the road, ending at the Orlando Hilton.



Up next: Day 3: Universal Islands of Adventure!