Florida in Review:

Roxx (my sis) speaks in the beginning explaining the post, then I share... have fun!!!

From Roxanne: Relationship expert, Gary Smalley, offers the following 2 points as the "Secret of a Close-Knit Family": 1) Sharing Numerous Experiences, and 2) Dealing with Difficulties in a Positive Manner. That being said, for as close as we were with Elizabeth's family before our "Hawaii in Florida" Christmas '08 vacation, the two weeks of many colorful experiences, laden with on-and-off road blocks made us even closer! We sense our Lord was more concerned about connecting as immediate and combined families than the glamors of traveling to a warm destination (This is a big deal if you live in the Pacific Northwest! Yes, we are savoring our tans and have no problem turning ourselves orange with "tan in a can" if that's what it takes to preserve our color! He, he! :0) While, yes, there were many pamperings of the Florida tropics, please indulge us for a moment as we, well, whine. :0) We will certainly share the glorious aspects of our trip in future posts, but for now please grab a cup of tea and share in our travel highs and lows (Especially those experienced by Elizabeth and her family - poor things, they just couldn't catch a break!). If you've experienced such travel glitches you will feel validated. If you are bumming because this was not a year for traveling, you will be grateful you celebrated Christmas in the comforts of your home. And if you are inclined to celebrate with us, you will feel the love shared among our two families in the middle of both conflict and calm. This trip sort of became akin to a "part time job," managing continuous issues, but the inbetweens were nothing short of a blessed blast! Via a journaling email Elizabeth shared with loved ones, I have her permission to use her writings as a form of sharing our Christmas Break '08 journey. Elizabeth is in regular font (I [Roxx] added some comentary in several entries in italic font). Enjoy!

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Hi Friends,

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So as not to repeat myself a million times, here’s our trip in a nutshell (OK, not really a nutshell, in fact, it’s a book, so you might want to read it in short spurts :0):

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December 19 - We were packed and ready to go. The house was clean, the neighbors were prepped to take care of the dogs until the snow cleared enough for our house-sitter to get to the house, and we had made arrangements for my car to get picked up because I had had to leave it at the gym due to snow. I went to bed at 9:00pm and was sound asleep when Jonathan came rushing in yelling at me (at 11:45pm) to, “Get down here, now, I need help!” I rushed downstairs to discover that one of the cold water faucets to our washing machine had blown off and water was gushing out all over our laundry room (and no, this was NOT weather related, just crappy plumbing materials). Luke (our dog) was standing directly in the line of fire enjoying a refreshing drink and getting soaked. We spent the next hour getting the water turned off and the mess cleaned up. (Roxx: Packing and prepping to depart December 20th.)

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December 20 - Snowed in, without water. Jonathan and I trekked down "FH" road to get the car from the gym and drive to a hardware store to get the supplies needed to fix our water. We were able to get the car back home and stored safely in the garage. After getting the faucet fixed and our water back on, we discovered that the van doors had some how come ajar and the lights inside had depleted the battery, but the entire van was encrusted in a 1 inch think layer of ice, so all we could do was get the doors closed and leave it until we got back. Because of all the snow, we were getting a little worried about getting to the airport the next day, so my parents came and got us in their 4-wheel drive truck w/chains and took us to our dear friends’ (the "PO’s") house with the intent on spending the night and heading to the airport early the next morning. We thought this was sooooo smart because they live closer to the airport and we knew the weather was only going to get worse. Well, we found out at 6:30pm that our flight for the 21st had been cancelled. We made the treacherous trek back home. (Roxx: Departed on time because we left from a different airport just before the storm shut down our area, dealt with airlines losing some baggage, and learned our rental car office was closed, forcing us to change companies or spend the night in Orlando. We ended up changing companies, and by an act of God were able to only pay a little more than planned - this was due to a "walk up" fluke. You can't do this over the phone; hence, Elizabeth's struggles below. We ended up staying in Orlando because it was late, were really tired and wanted to give time to see how things would pan out for Elizabeth's family. Ended up eating crow and visiting a Disney water and theme park while waiting for them (we vowed no theme parks as this was our "Hawaii in FL trip," but glitches galore changed our minds). While this was certainly a joy, there was an undertone of stress worrying about Elizabeth's family and if they would make it or not (we were not looking forward to possibly being in Daytona or otherwise without them, so the delay in Orlando helped take the edge off emotionally and logistically as it turned out staying in Orlando through our first two nights allowed us to help with Elizabeth's car issues [see below].)

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December 21 - Spent all day making new travel arrangements, and trying to rearrange our rental car situation. We finally had to switch it into Roxx's (my childhood sister-friend) name. Did you know that trying to get a car rental changed is nearly impossible, and would have cost us 4 times as much if any rental company had even had a car available (which, by the way, they did not)? We finally got everything worked out and were scheduled to leave Tuesday, the 23rd at 9:00am, and we got to be in first class - great right?

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December 22 - Spent all day hoping and praying we’d actually get out the next day and realizing that wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed. My parents were stranded in their home, we were stranded and had no way to get to the airport. Fortunately, our friends the "PE’s" came through. Dennis came and got us, took us to their house for an amazing dinner and we spent the night with them. (Roxx: to Daytona time share, really stressed and upset, wanting Burton's to arrive!!! No offense to fine people of Daytona, but we were only there in light of Elizabeth and fam coming. Being there without them was a HUGE bummer as we had been trying to get to Hawaii for 4 years (!!!), but finally gave up as each time we would get a time share assignment they would block our free miles or the tickets were way out of our price range. Daytona happened by, "OK, Hawaii is not happening, what do you have available that is sunny on the mainland?" question directed to our timeshare company.).

December 23 - Got up early, got to the airport and discovered our flight had been delayed by 2 hours. This meant that we were most likely going to miss our connection in Philadelphia, but they kept assuring us, we’d be fine because the flight always makes up a lot of time. We got seated in our comfortable first class seats and enjoyed the ride. We got to Philadelphia with 15 minutes to spare. Jonathan ran to the gate that we were told to go to only to discover it was the wrong gate. He was sent to a different concourse, but met up with us on the way and I had taken the time to check the monitor and we found out that the gate we were supposed to be at was right next to the one he’d gone to. We rushed back and got to the door as they were pulling it shut and they absolutely refused to let us on because they’d given our seats away. We went to customer service where they claimed that they put us on standby on the next flight, gave us food vouchers (that were only enough to get 4 slices of pizza—whooppee!) and a hotel voucher in case we didn’t make it on the flight. They also put us on the flight for the next morning just in case. We went to the new gate and checked in—guess what—they had not actually put us on standby, and in the meantime several other people were put ahead of us. We stood there and waited for 2 hours, hoping to get on, but of course there was not enough room. We went to get the shuttle for the hotel, called the number we were supposed to and got some lady in New Jersey—poor thing told is it happens to her all the time. Well, after numerous calls and waiting for another 45 minutes, the shuttle finally came, we got to the hotel, checked in and went to our room. I told the kids I would at least take them to the pool. Nicholas went into the bedroom to change and came back out and said, “Are we all going to sleep in that one bed?” Yes, that’s right, we got a room with one bed. Jonathan tried to fix it, but they had no other rooms available. The kids and I went to the pool only to discover there were no children allowed after 9:00 PM. We finally gave up, went to bed and turned on the TV. I started flipping through the channels (kids watching, of course), to unintentionally discover that at 11:00pm HBO has extremely inappropriate shows on! I scrambled to push buttons to move it along as fast as I could—I’m really pretty sure the kids saw nothing, but I was mortified! In the meantime, Jonathan had gone down to sit in the hot tub to find it was freezing cold. We went to sleep thinking things could only get better—boy were we wrong.

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December 24 - Got up at 3:30 to be the first ones in line at the airport. Again, they had the wrong gate listed, but we finally found it, checked in and found they had seated us in the exit row—no children allowed, so we ended up in the very last row of the plane. At this point, we didn’t care. Right as we were getting ready to pull away, they came and moved us to first class (things were beginning to look up). We did have some angry first class folks who were irritated that we hadn’t paid for those seats and we were holding up the flight, but I didn’t care. We arrived in Orlando 3 days after we were supposed to, got to Daytona beach and needed to get cash out. Of course we couldn’t just go to one bank, had to try 3 before we finally found a working ATM. Got to the condo (which had one bathroom for all 9 of us and was much smaller than the pictures showed) and headed straight for the beach. We had a great rest of the day. We attended a wonderful Christmas Eve service at the Port Orange Presbyterian Church and an interesting service at the “Drive In” Church across from our condo. I’m not really sure how to describe this experience other than to say we drove in, stayed in our cars, tuned into 88.5 on our car radio and listened to an interesting sermon. Oh yes, everyone clapped for the musicians by honking their horns. It was absolutely crazy (we actually drove in to see the drive thru living nativity then got stuck at the service and couldn’t leave). I did get some funny pictures and afterwards. We then went back to the condo and enjoyed Roxx's fantastic ham dinner.

December 25 - Woke up to rain and cold (yes, in Florida). We had a special time opening gifts, a yummy breakfast which included pancakes from the IHOP across the street and headed out to get our picture taken by the Daytona 500 raceway—we had to do something to get out of our cramped space. We are, by the way, NOT NASCAR fans, so it was a riot to be in this community that is sooooo enthralled with racing.

December 26 - Roxx and I woke up early with the kids and snuck across the street to IHOP for the “Kids eat Free” breakfast. Later that morning we drove up to a beautiful lighthouse (the tallest in Florida) and went to the museum. You can check out their website at: http://www.ponceinlet.org/ We enjoyed climbing the 203 steps to the top and wandering through the many buildings learning all about the history of the sight. Then, we loaded everyone back into the cars and headed to New Smyrna Beach, where our friend Rhonda’s parents live. They graciously took us out on a boat to tour around some of the inter-coastal waterways where we had dolphins swimming along beside us. We went to a little island where the kids played on the beach, swam, collected shells and pretended to be on treasure island. We got back to the condo, packed everything up and got everyone to bed. We had a surprise up our sleeves, so after they were all asleep we got everything loaded in the cars, made lunches and got to bed ourselves.

December 27 - We got everyone up at 5:00am, told the kids we had had enough of crazy Daytona Beach and we needed them to take their blankets and get in the cars. They all went back to sleep and we drove to Orlando. We woke them up right as we pulled into Disney World. Yes, after everything we’d been through, we caved and took the whole crew to the Magic Kingdom for the day. We were there when it opened and stayed until 1:15am the next morning. In keeping with our crazy trip, we discovered early on that the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s happens to be the busiest day of the ENTIRE year. So, yes, it was busy and crowded, but still sooooooo much fun. We made many memories and Charlotte and Julia (my 4 year old niece) had the best time meeting all the characters, riding the (non-scary rides) and eating lots of yummy treats. They had matching princess shirts and we got great pictures of them with all the princesses. The boys hit every big ride at least twice and became masters of the Disney Fast Pass.

December 28 - Got into our friend's home in Clearwater Beach at 4:00am, and we all slept until 10:00am. When we woke up it was a beautiful, clear 75 degree day. We got all the kids up and went straight to the beach. They built sand castles, swam in the Gulf of Mexico and relaxed! Yes, we finally RELAXED! That afternoon Roxx and I went grocery shopping. Let me tell you, feeding 10 people for 7 days seemed like a daunting task! Fortunately, Roxx planned a menu and created a shopping list, so we went to Costco first then on to Super Target. It took us about 3 hours, but we got everything we needed. That night Roxx and I spent over an hour on the phone with the guy who was to be taking us out on our manatee adventure because, of course, there were many mix-ups. We found out that instead of 9:00am, we needed to be to him by 7:00am and it was 2 hours away. Woohoo, we’d need to get everyone up and out the door by 5:00am AGAIN!

December 29 - Up and out by 5:00am, drove to Crystal Springs where we had a most unforgettable experience swimming with the manatees. You can find out more about the trip and our day at: http://choicesrmine.blogspot.com/2008/12/manatee-special-day.html where our dear sweet blogging Grandpa wrote about our experience. Roxx and I met him through our blogs and have become quite close with him and his wife. They have become honorary grandparents and we got to spend the entire day with them. You can also read more about the manatees at: http://www.manateeconnection.com/Home_Page.php We all squeezed into our wetsuits (which make you look at least 10 pounds lighter, I’m sure) and snorkeled around with these amazing creatures. One swam right up to my face mask and then dove right below me—INCREDIBLE! After a couple of hours, we headed to Papa and Mama’s (blogging couple) house where they treated us to a fabulous barbecue dinner. After shedding a few tears when we had to say goodbye, we headed back to the house in Clearwater. (Roxx: Going to post more on this for sure! Elizabeth even has some amazing underwater pics to share once we catch our breath.)

 

December 30 - Beach Day all day. Roxx and I cooked for 10! :0)

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December 31 - Beach Day all day. Roxx and I cooked for 10! :0)

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January 1 - Beach Day all day. That evening our Clearwater friends invited us to their fancy pool to swim where we had a big barbecue (We cooked for 12! :0).

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January 2 - Beach Day all day. Roxx and I cooked for 10! :0). She and I even got away by ourselves for a little jaunt to a cute little town called Dunedin. This was special because this was a really hard day for me. I spent a lot of time reflecting back on my time with my little sister JPM as this was the 3rd anniversary of her passing. I know she would have loved this story of our crazy vacation—she would have laughed and laughed and helped me see that out of every crazy bad experience, memories were made and that some day I would look back and be able to laugh, myself.

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January 3 - Roxx and I had to run travel related errands that morning. Of course glitches occurred, but I will spare you (frankly, I've already skipped over many glitches that have occurred, but you are getting the jist). We dropped Charlotte and Jonathan off a the Clearwater Aquarium while we were out (a rescue center that has a dolphin, whose tail fell off after being caught in a crab trap’s rope—it is the first dolphin to receive a prosthetic tail and has been on the Today show—Charlotte got to hold one of the prosthesis. Check out their website at: http://www.cmaquarium.org/cms/

. Afternoon at the beach, then Roxx and I cooked for 10! :0)

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January 4 - Beach Day all day. Roxx, Jonathan and I were determined to stay out in the Gulf of Mexico until the sun set and we did. We did NOT realize how cold it actually was until we got back to the house and showered and couldn’t tell what the temperature of the shower water was. The biggest bummer was the fact that Jonathan lost his wedding ring out in the ocean. And did I mention that Roxx and I cooked for 10 :0) that evening!!!???? You might be getting the jist by now we wish to not cook again for a very, very long time! :0) Everyone packed up and Roxx and I stayed up until 1:30am cleaning the house and getting everything ready to go.

January 5 - Up and out at 8:00am. Headed back to Orlando where Roxx and Brian had reservations at the Dolphin Hotel on the Disney campus (we got an incredible walk up rate – one of the only logistics that came easy on this trip). We spent all day at the pool relaxing. But in keeping with things not going our way, the pool heater was broken and the pool we snuck into down the way that has the really cool water slide didn’t have the really cool water slide because they had closed it THAT day for it’s yearly maintenance. We had a great last day together and ended it with Pizza on the Disney Boardwalk. When we all said goodbye, I couldn’t help but feel sad to be leaving them. We were so blessed by our time together and the kids made such lasting memories. We headed to our hotel by the airport where my German host sister, Claudia (from 20 years ago when I was an exchange student), met us and helped me get our rental car returned (which took 45 minutes because the guy made the process miserable). Claudia took us out for dessert and we got to visit with her for a couple of hours—bummed we didn’t have more time. Then it was off to bed. (Roxx: MISSING ELIZABETH AND HER FAMILY REALLY SO BAD!!! LOVED SPENDING TWO WEEKS TOGETHER!!! WOULD DO THE SAME MADNESS IN A HEART BEAT!!! Favorite memories: being with my and collective families, up early to let those sleeping keep sleeping to sneak out for am coffee, laughing from Jonathan's amazing sense of humor, spending time with the kids at the pool/beach).

January 6 - Up and ready to go at 3:30am. Got to the airport, got on our first flight to Charlotte, NC. We had heavy head winds and arrived late, so had to run to our next gate (so no time to get food). Got on the flight to Vegas and thought we could tough it out. When I realized how long it was going to be that the kids were going to have to go without food, I thought we’d get snack boxes for them, but by the time I figured that out, they had none left—of course. So, we all tried to sleep and not think about the fact that it was approaching 3:00pm (Florida time) when we finally got to Vegas and got food for the first time ALL day. We arrived home a little early and my parents were right there to meet us. The kids couldn’t wait to get home and open their Santa gifts.

January 7 - Back to work and so glad to be here. It was so good to see my students and feel their joy in having me back. (Roxx: Still missing Elizabeth and fam really so bad! Arrived home to learn part of house is rotting under siding. Ugh! Knee deep in catch up, but have tan!!! Woo hoo!)

January 9 - Whining all done. Now onto future posts focusing on the glamor of our trip! More pics to come!

Happy Travels (or not :0)!

~Elizabeth

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So, How was your Christmas Break?

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