When we found out that Titus was engaged, we knew we would get to that wedding no matter what! And it turned out that “what” ended up happening a lot. First, we had to decided how to get to Florida. Fly or drive? Obviously, flying was expensive. But driving with three kids sounded quite miserable. We finally decided that since we just couldn’t quite swing the cost of flights, we would be driving. The next step was determining when and how we would be driving down. Theo needed to put in for vacation time and get accepted. That finally went through and then we talked and talked about what time to make a 15 hour drive to FL. We finally decided that we would leave in the late afternoon and drive through the night so that the kids could sleep. Then, one week before leaving, the transmission in our van went out. We do have a second vehicle but it is a very tiny car without cruise control and it’s mechanics are not very reliable. We were devastated as this trip and wedding has been in the plans for awhile now. We looked into flights, but couldn’t afford to fly all of us. Then we thought about just sending Theo to the wedding and I would stay home with the kids. We didn’t like that idea very much, either, since this was supposed to be our annual family vacation. Then we looked into a rental car and decided to go with that! We found a rental car company that was fantastic and paid for the smallest car they had…and they upgraded us to a minivan for free! I am SO SO SO SO SO SO thankful and probably owe my sanity to that employee!
This plan to drive through the night worked really well, but it was MISERABLE. The kids did awesome. They played, colored, talked and listened to music for a few hours until we stopped for dinner. Then we put on a movie for them until it got dark out. And then they fell asleep and slept through the entire night. Tera literally fell asleep in Kentucky and woke up in Florida (what a life). Theo and I took turns driving while the other dozed. The other great thing about driving through the night is that we avoided so much traffic! Except for Atlanta. Atlanta even has traffic at 2am.
We stopped at a Bob Evans for breakfast. It was in the low 50s and the Floridians were ALLL talking about how chilly it was, while we were outside dancing in the sunshine with barely a sweater on. LOL. It was under 20 degrees when we left our house in Ohio.
After breakfast we kept on driving, but we couldn’t resist the Florida sunshine and found a park to stop at. It was a little bit chilly but the sunshine and fresh air just felt SO GOOD.
Our first stop was Sebring, FL to visit my Grandpa and my Aunt and Uncle. We recently lost my Grandmother and we knew that we had to see Grandpa and “pay our respects” to him for his loss. My Grandparents were married for 66 years before she passed on, and the grief is very real and raw- for all of us, but especially for Grandpa.
We had the privilege of staying at my Aunt’s house and her hospitality is THE BEST. Not only did she have everything set up for us, but she also couldn’t get enough of baby snuggles. She even watched the kids for us and let Theo and I go kayaking out on their lake!!!
The kids were very very excited to look for alligators!
We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and spend as much time as possible outside, so we also hit up Highland Hammock State Park!
Exploring hollow trees with a flashlight and a stick. And Daddy, of course.
As we were walking along, we were hoping to spot a gator. Theo has long been nicknamed “eagle eyes” and of course he managed to find a 7+ foot gator in the swamp. It was a highlight of our trip!
We were so thankful for Uncle Duane and Aunt Natalie hosting us, feeding us and letting us use all their lake equipment! We are so, so thankful for the ability to stay with family and friends on most of our travels. Yes, it’s not ideal to stay with people when traveling with kids. They might break something or complain about the meal or cry in the middle of the night. But it’s also where relationships get built and it’s also free so there’s that.
We also spent some time with my Grandpa. I absolutely adore this picture.
After two days in Sebring, we headed on to Ft. Myers for the wedding festivities!
Honestly, traveling with kids is not ideal under any circumstances. Staying with people is hard because kids are unpredictable and have the tendency to break things. But staying at a hotel is also very difficult because there is nothing to do and no space to do anything in. As soon as we arrived in Ft. Myers, Theo started helping out with wedding stuff and picking people up from the airport, etc. Being alone with three kids in a hotel room is not my favorite. Nothing on TV. Couldn’t wrangle all three in a pool. Lots of tears were shed.
However, once Daddy was around, we had a BLAST! The Hines family pretty much took over the hotel pool for two days.
Next up was the wedding! That is a blog post all on its own and you can read all about it here. http://www.suzannehines.org/2019/03/18/florida-trip-the-wedding/
After the wedding, we headed to stay at Titus and Marissa’s house (since they were gone on their honeymoon!) to enjoy one last day in Florida. One of my high school teachers also lives in Ft. Myers so we attended church with his family and went to a park afterwards. It’s fun/funny that we both now have three kids right around the same age. Theo and Daniel’s wife Victoria were also there, but we only managed to snap this one picture as we were heading to the parking lot. 5/6 kids were in meltdown mode LOL.
Our final day there we decided that we wanted the kids to see the beach. None of them have ever seen the ocean. We found a great family friendly beach that wasn’t crowded from Spring break.
Tera LOVED it and could have played all day long there!
Kiah was a big fan of the sand and shells and buckets and digging. But he HATED the water and how the waves rushed up to the shore. He FREAKED out if we tried to get him into the water. He also had a hard time with how bright it was at first.
And Ezra was NOT a fan of any of it. It was hot and he immediately got super red and cranky. He didn’t like the ocean waves hitting him and it was just all very bright and hot and sandy everywhere.
We ended up hanging out mostly under this bush so that Ezra could have shade. The verdict on the beach is that we did not enjoy it with little ones. We will stick with state/national parks for now and try again the beach again in a few years when everyone can at least sit up unassissted!
But at least we got some fun pictures!
We wrapped up our time on the beach and decided to grab some lunch on the way back to the house. We stopped at a shack that looked like it might topple over at any minute. Theo whispered to me that he didn’t think anyone inside spoke English. And that’s when I knew that it was going to be GOOD. And it was! Complete with the Mexican coke.
We headed back to the house, showered off all the beach sand, packed the car and started the long drive back to Ohio! We decided to drive through the night again. Like I said…it works so well for helping with the kids, but MAN is it MISERABLE! We made it back to Ohio safely and are proud to say that it looks like we might have brought some warmer weather back with us! You are welcome, Ohio!