Day 1: First Flight
Day 2: Just Hanging Out
Day 3: Disney Fun
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Kennedy Space Center
Day 6: The Zoo

Wednesday, day seven, started early for me. I was determined to get a good boarding group for the flight home, so I was up, huddled in the bathroom with the tablet ready on the Southwest page at 6:45am. When I tried to check in at 7am, 24hrs before our flight, it didn’t work and I realized our flight was at 7:15am. Sigh. Most days Lex is up by then so my original plan had been to check in from the lobby while having breakfast with Lex, but he chose to sleep in and so I was perched in the bathroom. Anyway, I checked in right at 7:15 and go the A group for boarding! Yay!

Our original plan had been to hang out with Alan’s family on Wednesday morning and then slowly make our way back to Orlando for the night. However, things didn’t work out with his family so we just checked out of the hotel, stopped at Target for snacks and water, and headed south again. We decided to take the coastal route instead of the highway so we could see the water and maybe stop for lunch in a nice little town. I was thinking St. Augustine’s would be a nice place to stop, but we didn’t have much of a plan and when we got there it was crowded and we just kept rolling through.

I let the kids play with the camera in the car and they took tons of pictures like these.

We ended up stopping a little south of St. Augustines at a beach front restaurant. The restaurant was nice (except for the smokers!?! I don’t miss that in VT!!), the food was good, and the view was beautiful. After lunch we took off our shoes and hung out on the beach for awhile. It was cold and windy, but otherwise fun. :)

Back in the parking lot we had to dig out the suitcases and get the kids de-sanded and into dry clothes. Then we hit the road again. By this point we were tired so we headed for the highway, direct to Orlando.

Did I mention on our Disney day (Day 3: Disney Fun) that at the very end Mike pointed out “the best Disney gift shop” and I quietly told him to shush as I was tired and not in the mood for a gift shop at that time? Later that night Eve asked me why we didn’t go to the gift shop. “Mommy, I was saving all my money to buy something at Disney,” she tells me. Later in the week Lex also asked why we didn’t go to the Disney gift shop. They do have good ears and good memories!

Since we had one more night in Orlando we decided to go back to Downtown Disney for the gift shop and maybe dinner. We got there and the place was packed. And we were tired. We hung out for awhile, took lots of pictures, had our brains saturated with piped in Disney music, braved the gift shops, and then took off! Exhausted!

We were thinking about meeting up with Mike and family for a final dinner, but they were still sick and busy, and we were exhausted and cranky, so instead we just headed to the hotel. Alan took the kids to the pool while I repacked from “hotel packing” to “airplane packing.” Then we had left-overs, granola bars, and fruit and cookies from the lobby for dinner. Early to bed in preparation for an early trip home!

Day 8: Heading Home