Florida--Day 1

May 1st was the start of our Florida vacation!

My little brother Jason is leaving for a mission for our church mid-June. My mom wanted to go on one last family vacation before he left and Jason picked New Smyrna Beach, the same place we've gone since I was a baby. My mom grew up her whole life there, as did her mother. We love it.

George couldn't come... something about being a doctor in his intern year of residency and having no life outside the hospital. Bummer. The boys and I said a sad good-bye Tuesday night before driving up to my mom's house where we spent the night and left George in Charlottesville. Being a responsible adult is so over-rated.

Wednesday, our plane was scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. and the airport was an hour away. Our 4:00 a.m. wake-up call came pretty early.

The boys were too excited to be grumpy and after getting dressed spent a few minutes loving on Mr. Knightley who was staying at my mom's house for a couple weeks. This was Jude's first time meeting him, although Lance remembers him well.

The boys have been begging for a cat, so this was a fun treat for them.

Mr. Knightley enjoyed the treats attention as well.

On to the airport! Most of my family along with Aunt Linda, Kailey and Bethany were on the same flight which made the airport experience awesome. I didn't have to handle the boys alone and they were happy to hang out with aunts and uncles.

Cole has a small obsession with airplanes and was so excited to see them up close. He kept pointing and saying "airplane? airplane?"

Thank goodness for awesome uncles!

 

The flight was less than two hours and the boys did a good job. 

Ready for take-off! 

  

During the flight, the boys received wings from the flight attendants:

Nice.

Cole and I took a short, much-needed nap while Lance and Jude watched their silent mini-TV's. You needed headsets to listen, but I forgot to pack them and didn't want to buy any. They didn't seem to mind.

The Orlando airport is awesome, especially since you get to ride these big trains between the gates and the baggage terminals. 

All the boys thought it was great! I love the look on Jude's face. :)

 

Rental cars. Such a head-ache of a necessity. We landed around 9 and didn't leave the rental facility until about two hours later! The only thing that made it bearable was having all our family with us.

Riding the shuttle: Aunt Linda, Kailey, Bethany, Amy and Jason

For being tired and traveling, these boys did a great job..

Laura, Mason, Mom and Cole. Thank goodness for extra hands!

 Stephen!

Once we had the cars, we drove about an hour to New Smyrna Beach (while the boys napped!) and had lunch at my grandma's house. The boys were getting anxious by then--we had come to play at the beach! So, after lunch we drove to the beach-side condo where we would be spending the week, unloaded, found our suits and ran out to enjoy the sand and waves.

It was spring AND there was a storm brewing, so it was a little chilly, but the boys didn't seem to mind.

Jude told me he was going to go surfing. He grabbed a boogie board and ran to the water, put the board in the wake and tried to stand up on it.

Success! He was so proud when he rode it a few feet before getting caught on the sand.

 

Cole wasn't too sure about the water at first, but soon realized it was sooooo fun!

Lance spent a lot of his time digging. He even managed to dig up a poor little crab.

Cole liked the water so much, he wandered out into the waves all by himself.

He got knocked down by a sneaky wave before mommy could catch him.

Thank goodness for Aunt Amy!

It was so cute to watch him in the waves. He would laugh when a wave would come and splash him and he didn't seem to mind the salty water on his face.

Mason came out too and had a great time digging and playing in the cold water.

Lance went out into the waves and dove around for a while, but swallowed a little too much seawater and ended up throwing up. Poor guy.

Nothing a little warm sand can't cure. (You can see Jason, Kailey, Bethany and Stephen in the background. This is what they did the whole time they were on the beach for the whole week. Teenagers. :) )

 

We spent about an hour on the beach before the adults were cold and ready to go in. We washed away the sand and salt and warmed the kiddos up with a bath.

All four cousins!

After baths it was a 2-hour trip to Walmart to get all the food for the week and then back to the condo for a quick dinner and then bed for the kids. 

The adults stayed up playing our latest craze: Ruzzle. It's like Boggle but on your phone. It's addicting and tons of fun.

Whew! It had been a long day, but we were excited and happy to be in Florida and surrounded by our family.