More Florida

The kids and I just returned from our fantastic 10-day trip to Florida. It is in the mid-60s here (beautiful for this time of year) but Luke keeps saying it feels cold :)

While in Florida, we had a visit with my great friend Carla and her daughter Abby (we went on a dolphin cruise and the kids were absolutely amazed by the dolphins jumping out of the water next to the boat), we went to the beach three times (including one on Sanibel Island), swam in the pool, visited my Auntie Anne and Uncle Lou on Marco Island (where Luke and Andie had a blast running through the water playground), hung out with Chris, Lauren & Andie for a couple of days, and had an early birthday cake for Anna. 

Most importantly, Luke and Anna spent some quality time with their Grammy and Grampa, as well as their Uncle Chris, Aunt Lauren, and cousin Andie.

Our trip home was a bit of a gong show. Since the flight from Ft. Myers to Atlanta was late, we had only 5 minutes to make our connection. After disembarking the plane and waiting for the stroller at the gate, we were down to about 5 seconds. Since Luke was still groggy from a nap, he wasn't up for running to the next gate. Which means that I had to run, carrying Luke, Anna, and 3 carry-ons (a kind woman ran with us carrying the folded up stroller) from gate A6 to A24. And I mean I RAN, darting around people and apologizing over my shoulder. We JUST made it (they were waiting for us), and were the last people on board. When Luke discovered that someone was sitting in the window seat (I thought I'd purchased the window...oops) he freaked out and refused to get into the middle seat. Mind you, I'm still carrying all the stuff and Anna, sweating, heart pounding, and everyone was looking at us, since we were holding up take off. 

I asked the young woman if she'd mind trading her window seat for the aisle seat, to which she replied "if I have to." I'm not sure if I gave her a dirty look, but hopefully I wasn't too bitchy (it was her seat after all, and she obviously doesn't have kids). Sensing the stress, the flight attendant offered her a free sandwich if she'd swap with us. Apparently she was really hungry because she was actually quite friendly in her aisle seat for the rest of the flight. 

Of course the kiddos not only didn't sleep a wink during the 4-hour trip to SLC, but they were both hyper with moments of whiny. But, as I suspected would happen, we made it... though our suitcase didn't. That was ok, because it showed up on our front step this morning. I think it was delivered around 5:30 am...the same time the kids woke up, since they're still on east coast time. Awesome.

So, another solo plane trip under my belt. And it was worth it.