Trip to Florida

I am determined to blog about things that I want to remember one day, even though they seem like so long ago and not that important.

Justin knew about a year ago that in October of this year he would be attending a conference in Orlando.  When the twins were a few months old, he asked me if I wanted to go with him.  Um, YEAH!!!  But what about our kids?  So Justin called his dad and step-mom and they were willing to come and fill in so we could get away.

We left on Friday, September 30th and came back on Wednesday night, October 5th.  I have to admit, for about a month before we left the thought of this trip was the only thing keeping me sane.  So much of my day was spent trying to keep the kids from crying that I really felt like I would lose it if I didn't get away.

People told me that after a day or two I would really miss my kids.  Confession - I never felt like I missed them.  Everyday we were gone I thought about how glad I was to be away from them and to actually have time to myself.  Seriously - every stay-at-home mom should be able to have a getaway from their kids.  A stay-at-home mom with 3 kids under 3 and the oldest with development and behavior problems NEEDS a getaway.

But, back to our trip.  When we arrived in Orlando we decided to visit the Orlando LDS temple, since it had been over 5 years since we had been there.

We didn't stay long because we were tired, it was late, we needed to check in at our resort, get some dinner, run to the store; but we were glad we went.

On Saturday we had breakfast with Justin's brother and his family before we headed to Universal's Islands of Adventure.  We enjoyed going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and drinking some butterbeer (although it wasn't as good as I had imagined it would taste).

After we were tired of walking around the park, we headed back to our resort to soak in the hot tub (necessary after walking around all day) before meeting up with Justin's brother and his wife for dinner, dessert and talking.

Sunday morning we left the resort and met up with some of our friends from Tallahassee and then Tampa to have breakfast with them and their kids.

After breakfast, we headed to Epcot to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival (however, for us it should have just been called the Food Festival).  Again we met up with Justin's brother and sister-in-law as well as her dad and sister.  We tried some great food and again walked around until our feet ached.  After Epcot, we headed over to the hotel we were staying in for the conference.

Once the conference began, Justin was busy with conference stuff pretty much the whole time, however I had my days free to do whatever.  I slept in until whenever I decided to get up.  I went to the gym a couple times (oh gym, how I have missed you!  Did you know that unless Jacob or I were sick I went to the gym 5 days a week from the time Jacob was 3 months old until the embryo transfer for the twins?).  

On Monday I was able to meet up with a good friend from BYU who recently moved to the Orlando area for a couple hours, then I met up with my sister-in-law for pedicures and chatting.  I made it back to the hotel just in time to meet up with Justin and everyone at the conference and their guests headed to Universal Studios where a portion of the park was blocked off just for us (nice!).

On Tuesday I drove to Tampa and met up with a handful of my co-workers from USF.  We chatted for a while and I stayed a bit longer than I thought I would which put me rushing back so that Justin and I could meet up with his brother and sister-in-law for a visit at our hotel.

On Wednesday we had a chance to meet up with Justin's step-sister and her kids just before we returned our rental car and checked in at the airport.

There were only 2 negatives from our trip - the amount of money we spent (it costs a lot to go to amusement parks - good thing we didn't have to pay for a place to stay or Justin's airfare).  And I got a little cold that had me almost totally hoarse for a day or so.  Justin said the money we spent was a small price to pay for me to get some sanity back!

We are really grateful we got to see so many friends and family members while we were vacationing.  We are also super-super grateful that family was willing to watch our kids, they were really ready for us to come home when we did!