OUR FLORIDA VACATION 2008

Howdy - and I apologize up front for any grammer goofs, that area was not a strong one for me in school - so if you will just over-look - that would be great. I have had this blog for quite sometime, but have failed to keep it up as I think I have stated before. My plans are to add to it daily, and if not daily - weekly for sure. Today I have chosen to log the following here. I have had soooo many ask how our vacation was and where did we go and what did we do. I figured this would be a great way to share ---- Well, here ya go, day by day.

WHEN: Left home, Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, May 24th
WHERE: Arrived Lakeland, Florida area
WHY LAKELAND?: We have family there
RETURNED: Wednesday, May 28th

My husband's son Scott and his family, wife-Karen and 3 grandkids live in the Lakeland Florida area. We had not seen them for nearly 3 years. We left Port Columbus in Ohio @ 11:20 aboard Southwest Airlines. The flight there was a little rough, I was OK with it but hubby is not fond of flying and he did not do real good with the flight but we landed with no situations. :-)

The weather the entire time we were gone and including our flying time was perfect. I was praying for no bad weather to delay anything. My prayers were answered. The kids were waiting for us when we exited the security section of Tampa airport. Hugs were flying every which way and yes tears of joy were there as well. The kids looked good and the grandkids had grown a lot. We manage to keep pictures flowing back and forth but nothing is like seeing the real thing. Julia is 13, Dylan is 9 and Garrett is 8. They are beautiful kids! Seeing my hubby embrace his son was such a good thing!

After picking up our nice rental SUV which held all of us for tourning, we left the airport and followed the kids who led us to our motel which was very nice. We had a king room and everything worked and the bed was comfy! Can't say much for motel pillows. They are always flat and way too soft for us. So we settled in and unpacked a few things for our 4-night, 5-day stay. We then left the motel and headed to the kids home which we had never seen. It was only 10 min's from our motel which made it nice. They recently bought a home and were anxious to show it off. After a grand tour of the home, we sat and visited and then ventured out to go to the beach. By this time it was well into the evening and the breeze off the ocean was awesome. We even seen some dolphins. So before we laid our head down to rest that first night, we had already seen the ocean, palm trees, dolphins and sand. I was happy. We slept a little rough the first night. Being in a strange place always does that I think. We got up and took advantage of the continental breakfast at the motel and headed back to the kids house. We then spent the day with them in their home visiting and catching up. Karen had put a turkey in the oven to roast and had the fixings that evening of a Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious. Her sister and hubby and her Mom and Dad came over and joined us. We had wanted to meet her family and were pleased they came. As we returned to our motel, we both figured we would sleep better that 2nd night and we did.

The next morning (Monday) we got up early and headed for St Augustine, Florida. The kids were out of school because of Memorial Day so they were able to join us. St Augustine is an awesome place. We visited the beach there, the St Augustine lighthouse and toured an old time jail and took a trolley tour of the town which was just way too kewl. I must say this day held the highlight of our stay. If you ever get the chance and have not been, St Augustine is a wonderful place to visit. We returned back to Lakeland for the kids to get to bed at a reasonalbe time for school, the next day. We returned to the motel and once again were very tired and sleep came.

On Tuesday after the kids headed to school, the four of us went to Disney Village which is a down-scale of Disney World. Lots of Mickey's and everything Disney you could want. There we bought each of the kids a gift. They boys Lego's and Julia got jewelry. We left there and did a little bit of site-seeing and returned to the house to relax for the evening. It felt good to get off our feet. Old timers you know.

On Wednesday, they kept the kids out of school so we could spend our last day there with all of them. We headed out and were able to see where the kids attend school and where both Scott and Karen work. The kids wanted McDonald's that day and so we did that and had DQ for dessert. In their eyes, it does not get much better than that. That evening we headed back to the motel and departed Tampa airport @ 8:15 and arrived back home to Columbus Ohio about 10:00. The flight home was perfect. We took off in the daylight with bright sunny skies and were able to enjoy the sunset above the clouds and loved seeing all the zillions of lights as we landed. What an awesome sight.

Being able to tour some of the state of Florida was great, but being able to see family just made it next to perfect for a good vacation. I took 120 pictures!