Florida 2015

About a month ago we took our annual Florida beach vacation.  We usually go in May but since I just had the babies that didn't work out.  My family goes again in August without my little family so we just decided to go with them then.  

It was quite the decision for me to go.  Lonnie DID NOT want to go at all but said that he would if I wanted him to.  I didn't really want to drive the 10 hours with 3 month old babies and Blakely without Lonnie.  But in the end I decided to just suck it up and do it.  He was going to have to do some major last minute trading of days off and that is nearly impossible for him.  I like to save him doing that for emergencies or when we REALLY need it.  I was just going to skip it altogether but we were going to stop in Alabama to see my brother and he had not met the babies.  Also, my grandmother goes and stays in the condo with me and she loves that time with my kids.  In the end I decided it was worth it to go for those reasons.  

My Grand had a great time being around the babies and Blakely.  She doesn't go to the beach so she spent a lot of time in the chair next to the babies who were on the floor.  She made them smile a lot and they started giggling on the trip.  She took a lot of pictures of them too.  Sidenote...My almost 80 year old grandmother had the best cell phone of all of us (me, my mom, my aunt, my cousin, Casey and Grand...I am the youngest by 25 years!).  The camera was amaze and I was constantly borrowing her phone because I had a crappy 4 (I got a new 6 the week we got back because seriously....)

But let me tell you, we will be flying next year!  The babies (and Blakely) did really well but it is a crazy amount of stress planning and preparing for meltdowns and I just don't care to drive that far with 3 kids again.  

Matt and the babes all have the same hairstyle!  

I was so happy to see my brother.  He is doing so well (fingers crossed) and he loves seeing Blakely.  I wish we had more days with him but we just stopped there on Friday night, hung out with him, then went to breakfast with him the next morning and then left town.  Too short!  But we did have a good time.  

chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert at breakfast because, why not?

Once we got to the beach Blakely was all kinds of excited.  She wanted to go play in the sand first thing.  I promised her we would but I like to get unpacked and situated first.  Finally it was time to let her go run free.  And boy did she.  She did cartwheels and forward rolls and jumps all over the sand.  We just went down before dark to put our toes in the water but it was hard to get her to come up and get ready for bed.  She loved it.  

The girl can do a cartwheel like a pro.  I took this from our balcony so not great but you get the idea.  

We usually go to dinner every night but since we had the babies we stayed in a some too.  Although they really did awesome when we went out!  

We played cards and games and Blakely fell asleep on the couch almost every night.  She NEVER does this at home so I kept taking pictures and sending them to Lonnie because I thought it was so cute. 

The babies did really good for being completely out of their environment.  I rented 2 pack n plays and that helped so much (so clean!  so easy!).  They slept well and napped well and we really started falling into a routine while there.  They played on the floor mostly or in someone's lap.  

I had a good time.  Vacationing with kids is just parenting in a different location but I did have a lot of help even though Lonnie wasn't with me.  My mom and my Grand would watch the babies while I took Blakely to the beach and then Jenni would would watch them some when I took B to the pool.  It was nice to have some fun time with her.  Honestly, I haven't had that much fun in the ocean since I was a kid.  The water was perfect and not too rough. I taught her how to body surf and how to jump over the waves so they wouldn't splash her.  We fell a lot and got knocked over a lot but it was oh so much fun.  I literally can't wait to take her to the beach again.  

It was also nice to get some time with the babies and let my family take Blakely to the beach.  I took naps with them and got to sleep in with them some too! 

It rained the first full day we were there and Blakely was so disappointed to not get to go play outside.  I decided to take her shopping and let her pick out some "treasures".  I took her to one of the little beach stores and she picked a ton of, well, crap!  But I let her and she had a ball doing it.  

I did take the babies to the beach one evening.  Only to get a picture and to say that I did.  This was the first ocean Blakely had her toes in and I wanted the same kind of picture with the babies.  They hated it of course.  It was too bright for them and they were hungry.  So I quickly snapped a few and got the heck back inside!  

I dreaded the drive home the entire time.  We weren't stopping and it is a 10+ hour drive with babies.  But we did it and it wasn't awful.  It was hard but it wasn't totally traumatizing!  One of the babes was in the third row with Blake and she was very helpful in putting a pacifier back in or dangling a toy for them.  My mom rode on the second row with the other baby and did the same thing.  I drove the whole time.  I am weird and won't let anyone else drive me (or the kids really).  

We missed Lonnie a lot!  He was off the following week so it was really like 2 weeks of vacation for us.  

Vegas

Lonnie had some time off at the beginning of December and we wanted to plan a little getaway for just the three of us.  I really just let him plan the thing because I didn't care where we went.  I preferred a direct flight or a short drive somewhere but that was about it.  

He decided on Vegas.  Ha!  

If I am being totally honest I wasn't that thrilled with the idea of taking a 3 year old to Vegas.  But once I started doing some searching around I realized there were quite a few things we could do with Blakely and quite a few Christmas-y things we could do as well.  So I didn't complain as we were only going to be there for 3 full days ;)  

Blakely was great on the flight out there.  She slept most of the way.  We stayed at the Palaz.zo for the first time and really liked it.  We had a suite and it was FANTASTIC.  I wish I would have taken pictures of it.  It was split level with the king bed and a large sitting area up top and then down three steps was the "living" area with a huge sectional and the fold out that B slept on.  Blakely would have been happy just to play with her babies in our room the entire time.  I worried about her sleeping in the same "room" with us but she did fine.  Went to sleep great each night and even took great naps with me everyday.  She was really a dream on this trip and I was so relieved because she had been quite naughty the weeks leading up to the trip.  

The first full day was spent walking around and letting Blakely take in the lights of Vegas.  We bought a new umbrella stroller (J.eep brand and hello love it) because our other one pretty much died on our last trip.  When we went to Denver in March I swore I wasn't taking B to walk around a city without a stroller again anytime soon.  I could just picture her getting lost in Vegas and I knew a stroller would save my sanity.  It did.  She still walked quite a bit but the stroller was so very helpful because even when she was walking she wanted to be pushing her baby in the stroller.  

We took a gondola ride at The Ven.etian and she thought that was fun.  Our driver sang songs to her and I think she wanted to go again.  

I had read that the Cosmopolitan turned their swimming area into an ice skating rink and I knew B would love trying that so the next day we took her there.  Obviously I couldn't ice skate (darn) so Lonnie had to be the one to skate with her.   He hasn't skated in a million years so I let him get his bearings before sending her out there.  

Basically she looks adorable...

She thought it was fun and the girls there tried to teach her the best way to stay on her feet. She did okay but Lonnie had to keep her upright.  She didn't want to stop but after about 20-30 minutes I could tell this was not going well for Lonnie.  The position he was in, slightly bent over at the waist and holding all of her weight most of the time, was not looking good for his already injured back (see this post).  I tried to get him to stop and let the girls who worked there take B out but they were just holding her hand and not really giving a shit if she cracked her head or her arm so we weren't okay with that.  He pushed on.

When we were done we went and had dinner and then came back out there to the fire pits they had set up.  They had Christmas music playing and you could get hot chocolate at the bar and stuff for s'mores.  We roasted about 20 (Mommy LOVES them) and sipped hot chocolate by the fire.  

The best part was that it wasn't actually cold...ha!  Then they made it snow and B was fired up about that.  She ran around and jumped up and down trying to catch it yelling, "Snow!  Mommy, it's SNOW!"  

The next day we took her to the indoor theme park at Ci.rcus Circ.us.  She has never ridden any rides before.  I know!  I can't believe it either.  We have meant to take her to the fair each year but something has always come up.  I was so looking forward to Disney in March because I knew she would love to ride rides (and, well, princesses).  Since that is cancelled  I was excited to see how she liked this little theme park.  For an indoor theme park it was pretty great.  They even have some big rides.  They had about 8 rides that she could ride and that was really plenty.  Lonnie or I rode many of them with her first and then tested out one by herself.  

She was so excited and picked out her airplane with care.  About halfway through the ride I could tell the change on her face.  She was getting a little scared and made eye contact with me.  I told her she was doing great! and wasn't it fun! and it was almost over!  I think she got a little freaked out because she wasn't sure when it would stop.  I was so proud of her because she didn't cry and I could tell she was trying so hard to be brave.  It was just one of those mommy moments for me and I could have cried I was so proud of her.  Or maybe I am just pregnant and overly emotional.  

We stayed for a few hours and then went back to the hotel to crash.  And I am talking a 3 hour nap.  Glory.  

On our last day we went to old downtown Vegas.  It was fun and Lonnie and I had never checked that out before.  It is more of the old timey major lights and flashiness that you think of when you think of Vegas.  We had fun walking around and and then had dinner.  Blakely did so well at our dinners in Vegas.  I was worried about it because she is in a stage where she doesn't want to listen to anything we say.  But really she did well and I was impressed.  We even did a couple of fancier places and didn't have to leave early.  By the end of dinner I was ready to go lay down.  I was hurting and worn out and knew I was going to have to travel the next day with Blakely by myself.  So we went to bed at like 730.  Wild Vegas nights I tell ya.  

Blakely and I came home together and Lonnie stayed for a few extra days.  She did well traveling with me although she didn't sleep on the way home.  3+ hour flight with a sleepy toddler who wants to get up and pee every 15 minutes.  Exhausting.  She didn't whine though so I can't complain much.  

On the way home I asked her her favorite part of the trip.  She said the taxi rides.  LOL!  We didn't take a car seat this time since we didn't rent a car.  Also I knew we wouldn't use taxis much...mainly to and from the airport which was quite close to our hotel.  She thought she was so big to not have a car seat.  Lonnie and I stressed the entire ride.  What do y'all do? I didn't want to take a car seat because then what would we do with it once we got to our destination?  The only place we went was the Cosmo and we couldn't lug it around the entire time.  But I really wanted to take it.  It was just weird.  She only had about 4 rides without a seat but still.  Stressful.  Interested to see what everyone else does in this situation.  

She looks scared to death here but she really was thrilled.  

All in all I am glad we made the trip.  We were able to have some fun family time together and since we can't go to Disney this was our last big trip as a family of three!  Eeeeek!