Sisters Trip 2026

January 22-24 seems like FOREVER ago…I feel like I’ve lived 12 months since then, but it turns out it’s really only been about two weeks haha. I’ve absolutely reached the point of winter where time seems to really slowwwww down and weeks feel like months!

So what a blessing it was to get away for 3 days at the end of January! I flew to beautiful, sunny Ft. Myers Florida and the weather could not have been more perfect for a weekend in Florida!

But, first…let me back up and give you a little history. My husband, Theo, is one of 7 brothers. 5 of the brothers are married and so we wives are the “sisters”. Obviously, we aren’t related by blood, but we are related by marriage and friends by choice! What’s even funnier is that 4/5 of us have only one brother and no sisters in our family of origin! Anyways- we have all joined the Hines family at different points in time, and then over the last 20 years we have been having a lot of kids. The 5 of us have 24 children – with 2 and hopefully 3 on the way! Times together have looked like a lot of chaos and a lot of noise. So two years ago I proposed the idea of getting away as just the five of us- and inviting our mother in law to join us as well! In spring 2024 we went on a little getaway weekend to Red River Gorge. It was the first time in YEARS that none of us were imminently pregnant or nursing. Now that the average age of our kiddos is starting to get a little bit older, we are hoping to make this a bi-annual experience.

This year I proposed that we all fly to Florida in January. It sounded like the perfect getaway. One of our sisters, Marissa, actually lives down there, so even though we rented an Airbnb, we were able to use her van and she went grocery shopping for us and also served as the most excellent tour guide for the two times we actually left the house. Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t able to join this year so it was just 5 of us- four sisters and our mother in law.

Thursday was a travel day, which meant that I needed to take the day off of work. I got all my sub plans set up on Tuesday afternoon!

My SIL Kindrea lives about an hour north of me, and the Cincinnati airport is about an hour south of me. So Kindrea drove down, picked me up around 6:30am and we were off to the Cincinnati airport! We arrived with plenty of time to find parking and get our suitcase checked and get to our gate. It was so nice traveling with someone, because both of us realized that it had been a long time since we had flown anywhere!

My MIL was traveling from MI, and my other SIL was flying in from TN and our SIL Marissa was picking us all up at the airport! My MIL, Martha, was supposed to fly into the airport first, followed about an hour later by Kindrea and I. Our SIL Eryn was flying into the other local airport about an hour after that so Marissa had a busy chauffeur job running around trying to get us all from the right airports at the right time!

We landed in Florida and de-planed right onto the tarmac. It was about noon and 78 degrees and sunny. It was GLORIOUS. HEAVENLY. We were immediately taking off layers and I just wanted to lay down and soak in the entire sun. Sounds dramatic? I know. But I always forget how harsh winter is until I feel those first warm rays of sun.

When we landed, we found out that our MIL flight had been delayed, and from what we could gather, she was currently flying in about an hour after us (instead of an hour before). The airport was a tiny little thing and it had the most disorganized luggage situation we’ve ever witnesses. We finally stopped paying attention to the signs and just stood in between the two luggage carousels until we spotted our suitcase. Marissa picked us up with some Wendy’s and then we parked in the cell phone lot until Martha landed, then scooped her up and were off to the other airport to grab Eryn! Then with all five of us + our luggage we headed the 40 mins to our Airbnb.

It was a darling Airbnb that was great for us.

But the best part? The patio and pool. I literally could not convince myself to do anything except sit out here on this patio. There was even a puzzle going on inside (I LOVE puzzles!), but I could not do a puzzle when the weather was so glorious and I knew I had limited time to soak it in!

We spent the rest of the afternoon on the patio just chatting and catching up, then ordered some Thai takeout for dinner. The food was delicious, except my meal was SO SPICY I could not even stomach a couple bites. I was so disappointed! Thankfully, everyone else shared some of their food with me and I was able to get enough to eat.

Left to Right: Marissa, Eryn, Kindrea, Martha and me!

We all put ourselves to bed by 9 that night.

I woke up around 6:30 and got myself ready for a beautiful sunrise run. Honestly, this is one of my favorite things to do on vacation- wake up early and go for a lung run. I realize how ridiculous that sounds, but I like my downtime to be productive, ok? Haha. It was foggy but the perfect running temps (low 60s) and I was SO HAPPY to be running outside!

Friday morning and afternoon, we literally just hung out and chilled. We read, chatted, some gals did a puzzle, we floated in the pool, had a delicious lunch that we all agreed none of our kids would have been interested in, napped and RELAXED.

I knew I would have two days plus a travel day, so I brought 6 books hahahahaha. #bookmath

Around 4, we finally ventured out of the house to go for a walk on the beach and hopefully catch the sunset. It did not disappoint! We all agreed when traveling to FL and booking our Airbnb, that the beach wasn’t a top priority. None of us cared about swimming or even sitting on the beach, but we all agreed that a sunset walk sounded wonderful!

After our walk, we headed out to a Mexican restaurant- this food was amazing, and the portions were huge! Plus, our meals were delivered by a robot! My FIL generously footed this bill, which is such a treat! (Obviously, he wasn’t there- he just paid for it through his lovely wife :))

We headed back to the Airbnb and went to bed pretty shortly after.

Saturday morning we were all a bit abuzz because of the impending snowstorm about to hit. Kindrea and I needed to get back to Ohio, Martha needed to get back to Michigan and Eryn needed to get back to Tennessee with a layover in Atlanta. One of Eryn’s flights had already been cancelled, and Kindrea and I were on pins and needles. Our flight was booked to leave at 7pm and arrive around 9:30pm in Cincinnati. The big snowstorm was projected to start between 4-7pm and snow about one inch per hour all through the night. After trying to see if we could get an earlier flight, we finally just decided to let it be and hope that our flight would make it in ok.

We still had 6 hours to soak up the Florida weather, and we couldn’t let things that were out of our control affect that! We went for a walk and spent more time lounging about, swimming and enjoying time together. Kindrea and I got our suitcase packed and I showered because I wasn’t sure how long our travel day was going to end up being!

We left the Airbnb for the airport, but took a little field trip to Manatee Park first 🙂 There were lots of manatees in the water, but I really only saw some nostrils and some tail flippers.

Then- we were off to the airport to begin our WILD journey back to Ohio. We got to the airport around 5:15pm, our flight was supposed to leave at 6:54pm. As we were dropping off our luggage, they made an announcement that our plane had just landed and they were going to start boarding as soon as they had de-planed the previous passengers. We got through security, filled up our water bottles and sat down at our gate for about 10 mins before we started boarding. I’ve never boarded a plane so quickly!

The plan was nearly empty- I guess not too many people want to fly INTO a historic snowstorm haha.

We boarded early, and then they announced that we would also be taking off early! We took off by 6:45. Our flight was supposed to land around 9:15, but we somehow managed to land by 8:30. Crazy! The flight was ok, but there was some turbulence and it was very unsettling knowing that there was such a big storm happening right under us.

When we landed in Cincinnati, this is what the flight board looked like: CANCELLED.

I don’t think the airport ever officially closed, but I do know that there were no flights going out of there for the next two days! Pretty sure we were one of the last flights in! When we landed it felt like a little bit of slipping and sliding because there was already about an inch of snow on the ground.

We were so thankful to be safely back in Ohio, but we still had an hour drive to my house and then Kindrea had to go an hour beyond that to her house! Thankfully, it was on the highway pretty much the whole way, but we were both highly alert and going incredibly slow. The roads were deteriorating so quickly! I’m SO thankful I was with Kindrea, otherwise I probably would have freaked out and had a little meltdown trying to get home in a snowstorm! Kindrea dropped me off around 10:30pm and then headed off to her house- making it safely around midnight. I was SO glad to be home before we got 13 inches dumped on us the next day!

It was a LOVELY sisters trip and I’m so glad that we all got to go. Shout out to all the husbands for holding down the fort with all the kids at home. I know Theo had an incredibly busy weekend juggling a board meeting and getting everyone to their basketball games!