Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Florida--Day 1

As this summer was drawing to a close, Scott e-mailed me the list of his upcoming trips and asked "Wanna come on any of these?".

First there was California for three days. I really considered going on that one and taking the older three kids to Sea World, but the cost of airplane tickets for all of us was going to be pretty hefty and we'd only end up with about a day and a half to play once you figured in our travel time, so I decided it wasn't worth it.

Then there was Sun Valley for Governor's Cup. I was going to go with him on that one, but my Grandma died and Scott ended up going by himself.

Then there was Sun Valley again. That's when Shauna's mother-in-law died. And once again, Scott went by himself.

Lastly there was Florida. Captiva Island South Seas Resort. Scott needed to go present at a conference there. All I would need to do is pay for my plane ticket, because Scott's work was paying for the rental car and room. It would be easy for me to come along. Except when I looked up the price of the plane ticket, it was $650. I couldn't justify spending that much. But then I remembered that I have a ton of SkyMiles that I've racked up on our credit card. So I used some of those and got the plane ticket for free. So, as all those other trips came and went (and I had to stay home with the kids), I just kept thinking--at least I get to go to Florida.

My parents graciously offered to come stay with the kids as their birthday present to Scott, and they got into town Tuesday afternoon. I was in a bit of a panic in the days leading up to our trip, trying to get everything done and ready to leave. They announced in church on Sunday that a girl in the ward had plums she was trying to give away, so I took a box. So in addition to getting the house clean and the laundry done, I spent all day Tuesday canning plums (jam and syrup). I didn't even get the chance to start packing till about 11 the night before our trip.

Scott and I finished packing around 12:30 Tuesday night. Our flight was scheduled to leave Boise at 5:30, so we needed to be to the airport by 4:30, which meant we needed to leave our house at 4:00am. So, I decided to shower and get dressed and ready BEFORE going to bed, so I could completely finish packing (makeup and everything) before going to sleep. I laid down to sleep at 1:30am and got 2 hours of sleep before we got up at 3:30 and left for the airport by 4:00.

The rest of the day was a blur of plane rides (Boise to Minneapolis then Minneapolis to Fort Myers), lay overs (4 hours in Minneapolis), napping when and where ever we could (airplane seats are so uncomfortable, but my husband has a great shoulder that he let me use, and there's a wonderful lounge upstairs in the Minneapolis airport that wasn't busy and I was able to push together two chairs and lay down and sleep), and finally getting to Florida at 5:30 in the evening. We rented a car, then drove an hour to the resort. It was just before 7pm when we finally got settled into our room. To say the least, we were pretty exhausted.

Our room had a kitchen, but we didn't do any cooking while we were there (I do enough cooking at home, so we ate out the whole time).

Scott on the phone--he's ALWAYS on the phone.

Our bedroom.

The patio. Our room was bayside and this balcony looked out over the water. It was screened in to keep the little lizards out (there were lizard EVERYWHERE).


We called the kids to tell them we'd made it safe, then went out for dinner. We went to the Bayside Restaurant that was part of the resort and had a delightful dinner. As we were walking up to the restaurant, we spotted a manatee swimming in the harbor--our first dose of Floridian wildlife. And let me just say now, I did NOT stick to my diet while we were on vacation--not one little bit. That night Scott had grouper (some kind of fish) and I had a big old hamburger with blue cheese melted on it (although I did ask for a salad instead of fries). And since we were both very full at the end of dinner, we asked for our dessert to go. We got chocolate cake with fresh berries on it, and ate it later back in our room.

1 comment:

Angela Cothran said...

Sounds like so much fun :) You deserve a little time with your husband.