Vacation Starts Today!

Our fall vacation officially began today at about 12:30! After church, we ran home, loaded the car and hit the road for the 6 hour drive to Niceville, FL. For those who don't know, David and I lived here for 3 1/2 years before moving to Winter Garden to be apart of the Grace Church plant. We made some dear friends while we lived here, so this vacation is in part reunion! And we are so excited.

The drive went by, okay. Anyone with three kids (5,4,2), or I guess anyone with toddlers would understand that it went OKAY. Poor Brooklyn wanted to get out of her car seat after about 1/2 an hour. We tried movies, we tried naps, we tried snacks... with only momentary success. But we did arrive safely, had dinner and put the girlies all to bed by 7:30. Its an hour earlier here (Central Time).

Vacation started for us with a movie! And after David preaching and driving 6+ hours we decided to rest up for our fun filled week.

Tomorrow, my dear friend Joy is giving birth to her 6th child (2nd Boy). So i'll be anxiously awaiting the call so that I can go see her in the hospital. We will also be able to spend some time with some of our other friends from here as well!

We are also going to be able to go to all our favorite restaurants while we are here - we have to make a list though, because we made a lot of favorites in the years that we lived here.

Here's a tidbit of our day in the form of quotes -

Meredith - she asked us tonight as we had dinner, "so mom, are we allowed to do ANYTHING we want on vacation?" - I was wise enough to see where this was leading... and quickly followed with "well, we get to do things that we don't normally get to do, but it doesn't mean that you don't have to obey". She said, "okay"!

Alyssa - she informed us, "I would like to share a room with my sister because I'd be more comfortable than if I sleep in a room by myself". Wow! A very dignified way of saying, "I want to share a room so that I won't be scared".

Brooklyn - recently learned how to "meow" like a cat or maybe it is "moo" like a cow - anyhow, the last 1/2 hour of our drive she was "meowing" or "mooing". And thought she was hysterical.

They are keeping us laughing!!

So, I'll post pictures as I'm able and update as well!

Family Vacation Day 4

We started out Thursday by heading to the lake. We rented a paddleboat and thought the girls would love it. Well about half way through the 30 minute ride Alyssa said, "can we just go back now". We laughed and made a game out of touching the bouyies (I don't know how to spell that word).

After the lake we went to the Fountain Pool. It was the girls favorite of all the pools at the resort. The girls had naps and we had an early dinner and then went back to the pool until bedtime.

One of our family vacation traditions, is that at least once we eat dessert first instead of last. Now this does mean that the girls won't eat as well. But we figure they can handle it once in a while. And they love it and that is what is most important.

We also worked in time for craft time with mommy.

One of the major highlights was that one of our regular babysitters went with us for a few days. It was so nice to have an extra hand in the pool and at Animal Kingdom, which I'll post tomorrow.

Vacation Highlights

We returned last night from our family vacation. David and I had a few days (Sunday afternoon through Tuesday morning) by ourselves to celebrate our 7th Anniversary and then the girls came Tuesday morning through Friday. We had a great time, swam a lot, David and I went to Typhoon Lagoon and all of us went to Animal Kingdom on Friday. We even were able to take Amanda our regular babysitter to help us and hang out iwth us. These are highlights from Day 1 at the water park at the place we stayed. Kristen brought Katy, Hallye and McKenzie down for a few hours Tuesday morning to swim.

We are home...

We arrived home about 1:30am last night (Wednesday) from a long day of traveling from Arizona to Salt Lake City and then a tremendously long flight to Orlando. We all took some medicine to help us sleep and we all woke up at 10am this morning. We were greated by a joyful smile and an unknowing tilt of the head as we opened the door to dear little Brooklyn. But what a joy it is to be with her again. It was a long week of wonderings about how she was doing, what she was getting into, what she would be like (attitude) when we got home, if she would look like she grew up at all, etc. The musings of a mom, i'm sure you all know what i'm talking about. Today has been full of unpacking, checking email, going through the regular mail and a few loads of laundry. I'll update a blow by blow account of our wonderful trip to Arizona as I can.

Countdown to Arizona

We are leaving next Wednesday, April 2nd to fly to Arizona to visit our dear friends the Nam's. We are taking the older girls and leaving Brooklyn for a whole week. In effort to help the girls understand when we are leaving we made a calendar. Please excuse the art, I am not a very good artist.

Meredith coming down the slide

Meredith is our adventurous child. She did the slide by herself over and over and over again! And loved every minute of it.

David and Alyssa coming down the slide

Boys will be boys

Home

Don't you love the feeling of sleeping in your own bed? As much as I loved our family vacation, I was so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed!

Anyway, we got home late monday night. I'm trying to find time to upload pictures and video, just haven't been able to fit that in yet. I'll post them when I can. Cheryl took some really precious photos of the girls.

We had a fun, relaxing time!

Family Vacation...part 3

So today was another fun filled day! We all took it easy this morning, had a big breakfast and just sat around and played. It was kind of overcast all morning so we were afraid of packing up to go to the pool. We finally did, we were able to use the indoor pool until the storm past and then out to the wonderful pool. I think we made about a million laps around the lazy river, went down the slide a dozen or so times and played until we were so hungry we had to come home. I made dinner while the girls and everyone else watched Cars. And after dinner it was bath time and bed time for Alyssa and Meredith - the joys of vacation and kids going to bed early (7 pm). It made for a fun filled, relaxing adult night! We played games, had ice cream (I had oreo's and milk), and laughed.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can find time to get them off my computer.

We are even enjoying helping the girls choose their "favorite" thing of the day. Meredith's was the water slide and Alyssa's was the lazy river. Very fitting of both of them. Oh and they both loved that they got to play with Katy and Hallye today. They are staying at the same resort, so they found us at the pool this afternoon.

The guys are leaving early in the morning to go golfing, who knows what us girls will do. Poor Joshua will be way out-numbered!

Family Vacation...part 2

What a fun day today was. The morning started off with pancakes and then we hit the bike trails, well we started off on bike trails then ended up on the sidewalk because it was too hard for Alyssa to petal. She did so good. I think it was our first family bike ride. And yes, my face does get really red, but there were no hills, so it was enjoyable unlike the time David took me on a bike ride while we were at Pastor's College. Then we hit the pool!

Tonight we ran out to Walmart to get a few things, had dinner with Aaron and Crystal and then watched Planet Earth. Sandy, Cheryl and Dustin got here around 10pm. So the fun continues!

Family Vacation

It's nap time on family vacation!!!! We spent all morning at the pool, it has a lazy river, water slides and zero entry part of the kids pool. But now its nice and quiet! Our window over looks a canal and doesn't have any curtains on it - people can't see in, but the sun sure does get bright early! I'll try to upload a video of the girls of the water slide later.

We are staying at Hammock Beach in Palm Coast, FL. It is beautiful here and a great place for kids. We got here Monday afternoon and will come home next Monday. On Thursday Sandy, Cheryl, Dustin and Crytal, Aaron and Joshua will join us. This is the first Traugott family vacation and our first vacation just the five of us. We are having a blast. Planning on going on a bike ride later this afternoon if it doesn't rain.