Florida

So much has happened since our trip to Florida, that it seems like it was a year ago.  In reality, it was almost 2 months ago, which for me, is forever ago to be blogging about it now.  Nonetheless, it was absolutely a blog-worthy event, so here we go...

Our very good friend, Rob decided to get married in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  It was so hard for us to decide whether to go or not, because, well traveling to Florida is not cheap, but Rob is such a good friend to both of us and has been Matt's best friend for many years.  Originally we thought that it would be pretty much impossible to work out, but then Matt got a promotion at work, (yay!) and we decided to splurge on this trip as a celebration.  It ended up being such a hard time financially to go, because we were trying to buy a house as well... but we are so glad that we were able to be there for Rob's big day!

We arranged for Sydney and Cooper to stay with Nana and Papa, the Walch's, and my parents, during our trip.  They loved hanging out and having sleepovers with some of their favorite people, and I don't think they even missed us!  We missed them though.  It was our first time being away from them for more than one night, so it was kind of weird to not have to be taking care of them.  But we didn't have to worry too much, because we knew they were in good hands.

Before we left, we borrowed and bought, the book The Hunger Games to be able to read on the flight.  We thought it would be fun for us to read the book at the same time, so we bought a copy and borrowed one from Jana.  When we picked up Jana's copy they talked us into taking the second book as well, just in case we finished the book quickly.  It really did make the flight go by so much faster!

We left on Friday (Sept 9th) right after I was done teaching school, and got in pretty late Florida time.  When we got to the airport, Rob, Bryce and a bunch of guys were there to pick us up.  Little did we know, that they were planning to go straight to the bachelor party, so they were planning on sending me in a car by myself to find the hotel, and taking Matt with them.  I remember looking at Matt like, "Really, you're going to send me off by myself in a place where I've never been?"  Rob must have seen that look, and he put the hotel address into his GPS and handed it to me.  I was a little freaked out, but managed to find it just fine.  It's funny how much I've begun to rely on Matt to take care of things like that.  When I got to the hotel, it was a little scary... not going to lie.  Picture a little motel that is on an episode of CSI.  The big glass window with curtains covering it.  Literally 4 locks on the door.  Creepy stairways.  When I pulled into the parking lot, I immediately locked the doors on the car, as I watched some creepy guy walking by himself.  I carried the suitcases up to the room, pulled the curtains closed, making sure to not leave any gaps for the man by himself to see me in a room by myself, and quickly locked all 4 locks on the door.  Luckily, I had my copy of The Hunger Games with me, so I got into some pajamas and read.  It really was so nice to just sit and read all by myself.  I haven't done that for many years.  It made me miss reading, which I'm sure someday I'll have a little more time for.  I finished the book just as Matt was dropped off, which was perfect timing.  On a side note:  I absolutely LOVED the book, and would highly recommend it!  I was pretty glad that we had brought the second book along so I could get started on it right away.  There is definitely an advantage to reading a trilogy after all the books have been published :)

Saturday was the day of Rob and Dani's wedding.  We had the morning to ourselves, and were supposed to meet for pictures at 3:00 which would be followed by the wedding and reception.  Instead of a nice, relaxing morning at the beach, Matt and I went on a wild goose chase looking for an outlet mall to buy clothes for the wedding.  Matt had forgotten to throw those clothes in the top of the suitcase while I was at work and we had no clothes for the wedding.  Luckily I had packed my skirt, so I just needed a shirt and Matt's pants were provided, but he had to find a white, long sleeved shirt with NO pockets.  We ended up being ready just in time for pictures.  Rob and the groomsmen went out to the airport to take some pictures in front of and inside his uncle's airplane. I had fun, as the only girl there, watching them take pictures, and taking a few myself.  This was my favorite one:

The wedding got started late, because the one before theirs ran long.  But it ended up being so nice because the weather was a bit cooler.  I had quite a hard time adjusting to the humidity of Florida!  It reminded me of indoor pools, but add sunshine and heat.  The wedding was beautiful.  I loved the flowers and that it was right on the beach.  It will most likely be the only beach wedding I'll ever attend, so it was pretty fun!  I'm so happy for Rob and Dani.  Rob is such a great guy and totally deserves a great girl.

After the ceremony, we took a few pictures on the beach.  My first time setting foot on a beach of the Atlantic Ocean :)

Matt, Bryce, and Rob have a picture just like this from their high school graduation. Yes, they wanted to recreate it.  Both pictures are some of my favorites of them.

The reception was a blast.  Food was delicious, cake beautiful and yummy, and tons of fun and crazy dancing.  They brought a lot of props, like funny hats, necklaces, masks, and everyone put those on while dancing.  I'm sure it made for some fun and cute pictures.

The next morning, we woke up super early and drove down to Orlando with Bryce and Jessica.  Matt had free tickets to Universal Studios that he got from Comcast, so we decided to take advantage since we were so close to it for the wedding.  We went to the Islands of Adventure theme park.  It was a lot of fun.  My favorite part by far was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  The butter-beer was delish!  And the rides were fun.  We ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks tavern.  We had fun walking through Honeydukes, where we bought a chocolate frog- our only souvenir from the trip.  It was an expensive chocolate frog, but the kids loved it when we showed it to them and ate it at home.  When we walked through Seuss Landing, I couldn't help but wish Sydney and Cooper were with us.  I knew they would love that part!  All of our waits were super short (like 5-15 minutes) so we were able to go through the entire park twice, and it didn't even take all day.  It was a fun day, and I'm so glad Matt had those free tickets.  Totally made the trip more eventful.  (Oh and I didn't get any pictures that day... all of them are on Bryce and Jessica's camera... maybe someday I'll get copies)

It was funny how it actually felt cooler there in the "snow covered" buildings...

After Islands of Adventure, we went to dinner outside of the park, since it's way cheaper, at a little local mexican place.  The tacos there were so yummy.  Then we got some dessert at Whole Foods and went to the book store to buy Catching Fire for Matt... we were flying through those books!

LOVED this book too

On Monday, Matt and I had plans to try to go to the beach or take the shuttle to Disney World, and hang out at the entrance, so I could SEE it :)  But, unfortunately our cards were not working, and we were out of cash since we had used up our budget buying clothes for the wedding and paying for gas to get to the outlet mall.  So we hung out at the hotel all day and read.  We spent a few hours at the pool, and a lot in the room.  We walked down the street for a late breakfast/early lunch and dinner, trying to be VERY frugal so we would have enough cash to take a cab to the airport the next morning.  Luckily we had a really good book to read to occupy our time.  And sadly, I still have never even put a toe in the Atlantic Ocean which I hear is very warm compared to the Pacific.  Another positive?  Matt's dad got us a super nice hotel in Orlando, so we weren't in a creepy CSI one anymore.  It actually was quite enjoyable.  Thanks Kenin!

We had to be up really early Tuesday morning to make our flight for home.  We took a cab to the airport and the cab driver had the air conditioning on full blast, in the pitch black morning mind you.  The vent that was pointing at me was broken, and not able to close, so it began a very long, cold day.  I just sat there watching the ticker waiting to have to say, "stop, we'll walk the rest of the way" because we only had so much cash to give the driver.  It was quite the nerve wracking drive.  When we got to the airport we found out that our plane was delayed, because the crew had to rest, and we would miss our connecting flight in Phoenix.  This delay added 5 hours to our total travel time, and would have at least allowed us to sleep for another hour had we known about it.  And, I had already finished Catching Fire, since the day before had been a lazy reading day.  So I walked around the freezing cold airport reading magazines that I couldn't buy waiting for our plane, while Matt read Catching Fire.  Matt figured out that he could get a trial version of Mockingjay, the 3rd book, on his phone, so we were actually able to read some of the chapters during our flight.  We had to switch off, him reading while I looked at Sky Mall and vice versa.  Needless to say, it felt like a much longer flight, since I was cold and unable to read the whole time.  And did you know, that they charge you $10 for a blanket?  Ridiculous.  They don't even consider giving it to you for free even though they ruined your entire day from a delayed flight.  

When we landed in Phoenix, we ran to our gate for our connecting flight to SLC.  The plane was still there and we had hope that we could be home in less than 2 hours!  However, they had already closed the gate and wouldn't let us on the plane.  So we sat there and watched our plane take off without us and wondered what we were going to do for the next 4 hours with no money.  At this point, I starting calling our trip "Florida, a.k.a. the trip where everything went wrong."  Between having to find a creepy motel by myself, leaving clothes at home, running out of money, being stuck at a hotel, and delayed flights, it really was feeling that way.  Matt figured out how to get our cards working, and I called Stacie to see if she wanted to make a drive to the airport to meet for lunch.  And guess what... she did!  It was pretty much the highlight of the entire trip for me to see her and squeeze Graham's chubs.  He is so darling and I'm so glad I got to meet him!  So our 4 hour layover in Phoenix turned out to be just the ticket to ending our vacation on a good note.  Oh and I got to go outside in the hot Phoenix weather to warm up :)

When we FINALLY, after 14 hours of traveling, made it home we headed over to Jana's to pick up the kids.  It was so good to see the kids, even though they weren't all that excited to see us, because it meant we would take them away from the Walch's house.  I had missed them so much, but was glad that they had a good time while we were away.

Florida, a.k.a. the trip where everything went wrong, turned out to be quite the adventure for Matt and me.  It was such a blast though!  I'm so glad I got to spend that time with Matt and take a break from our daily responsibilities.  Fun memories for sure.

P.S.  It took me an entire week to finish the last half of Mockingjay.  I read 2 1/2 books in 2 1/2 days, but  half a book in a week at home.  And even at that pace, I spent way too much time reading when I should have been doing other things.  That's why I don't really read.  Maybe someday.  And for the record, I loved all of the books.  Someone told me they didn't like the 3rd one at all.  It wasn't my favorite one, but I really did like it, and can't wait for the movies!