Florida 2009

Our family vacation was to Fort Myers in Florida. We were blessed with a condo at a reduced price, that was located off of one of the canals. I have to say that I had been looking forward to this vacation for many months. I would have a whole week with my husband and children, and spend QT with our best friends Luke and Nicole. Have you ever heard of Murphy's law: what could go wrong, will go wrong. Though I'm sure there were many other things that could have gone wrong, it seemed like we had quite a few of bad experiences. So here's a summery of our vacation, mind you there were always positives to the days so I will make sure to sprinkle them throughout!

Day 1: We leave 2 hours later than hoped for, 1:30am on Saturday night. Ryan got out of work later than he predicted. We were anticipating taking turns driving, but it turns out that Ryan's license is expired, so it left us with only three drivers. Well in actuality only 2 decent drivers, and one really scary driver. I won't name name's but it begins with NICOLE!
People think Ohio is the longest state, but I must correct them, Georgia is horrible! Not only did we take the longest route, but it was also during that crazy snowstorm; and people in Georgia do not know how to drive in snow! Driving through the night is the hardest, but we try to keep each other up. We continue to hear my husband snoring loudly in the backseat!
Sprinkle: Girls slept through the night, and when they were awake they were great!

Day 2: We are still in Georgia!!! We stop at cracker barrel to eat. We ask how much further Florida is, manager claims it's the next exit on the highway. Then we ask how much further is Fort Myers. He responds with, "well that's passed Tampa, right? Well I haven't been passed Tampa, so I don't really know." Nicole and I look at each other thinking at the same time, maybe geography is not his strong suit! Ok then...
Finally we arrive at the condo at 8:30 pm on Sunday! It took us 19 hours and only 3 stops for food and gas! The condo looks nice for something that has not been lived in for over a year. On our entrance we see a very much alive cockroach on the floor. Awesome! Nicole yells for us to kill it. No problem for me, but if it was a spider it would be a completely different story. I hear Ryan from Luke and Nicole's bathroom asking me to come in there without Nicole. Ryan shows me a cockroach chilling out underneath the toilet seat. He said he was just about to sit down when he saw the head. When I came back out to where Nicole was, she stated she did not want to know what it was, she just wanted to make sure we killed it!
We then started our 2 hour process of cleaning! Finally we all laid down and went to sleep, Haylee and Sophie both sleeping in our room. Within a couple of hours Sophie woke up crying. I went to her half asleep with an extra blanket thinking she might be cold. I found her covered in vomit! Sorry for the visual! I freaked out, thinking she is really sick and I'm in freaking Florida!
I start telling ryan to get up, he of course could sleep through a tornado, so I grab his arm and yank him out of bed!
We clean her up and put her back to sleep. She throws up three more times! Awesome! Ok so I get only 4-5 hours of sleep, thanks to Nicole getting up in the morning and letting me and Ryan sleep. Sprinkle: Haylee slept through it all!

Day 3: Boys are gone playing golf. Sophie continues to throw up anything we give her, she is keeping nothing down. During nap time we go and explore outside to find 15 feral cats hanging around the houses, just staring. It's 62-65 degrees and overcast. The pool has to be at least 50degrees, no way we are getting in there! We lay out next to the dock on the canal, though we are fully clothed and have towels covering us up, so there was no sun penetration. We go out to eat that night and get snowcrab! My fear is that I will get sick and throw up a $30 meal! Sophie throws up at the table, luckily they had covered the table with butcher paper. Indiana game is on for the boys to watch, but they loose. It was close though.
We head home and go to bed.
A couple hours later I hear hacking...it's haylee! Awesome! She throws up on her bed on the floor. Again I have to yank Ryan out of bed because he is sleeping. We clean her up, re-sheet her bed, and she and I sleep out in the living room. I hold a bowl next to her and explain if she needs to get sick to do it in the bowl. I'm anxious about every movement, asking "are you going to get sick, do you feel sick, etc." At one point she told me, "no mommy not yet," as if to reassure me she would tell me if she needed to use the bowl. I wake up a couple of hours later to Ryan rubbing my head on the couch asking how the night went! It was uneventful, thank God!
Sprinkle: Ryan did well on the golf course for not golfing for 6 months, and they didn't get eaten by alligators as I was certain they would as seen in movies! Happy Gilmore comes to mind!

Day 4: The boys are home for the day, and start making breakfast. Haylee is completely back to normal, but Sophie still can't keep liquids down or she doesn't like it (ie Sprite, Pedilyte). Call the doctor and they say that if she is still having wet diapers every 6-8 hours that she will be ok and it will just take time to get over it. Alright, so there is nothing I can do....Awesome! At this point my stomach isn't feeling the best, but this was the day we were suppose to go to the beach! I said I don't care if I am throwing up, I'm going to the beach!! Well that didn't happen, the beach I mean! I thought I was ok just had a bad stomach ache, but come 1:00pm I got sick! I have gotten the stomach flu at least once a year, and according to Ryan I always claim I am dying, but this time I really felt like I was dying. After I had blacked out twice on the bathroom, I finally told Ryan I really feel like I'm dying, he just rubbed my head and said, "honey, you always say that when you have the flu." luckily I didn't have the energy to hit him, instead I laid on the cold bathroom floor and waited for Jesus to come and get me.
Jesus never showed, but I did start feeling better by the end of day. No body made it to the beach that day, I felt bad but also a little happy that I didn't miss the beach experience!
Sprinkle: As I lay incapacitated and dying on the floor, I guess ryan caught a huge fish off the dock!

Day 5: The boys play golf again. Apparently, it takes Nicole an hour to get there to drop them off. She sees a sign that says "Caution: Panther Crossing!" What?! How crazy is that!! By the time she gets home it is 1-2pm. I feel like I could still get sick, but I am desperate to go to the beach, that is what this vacation is suppose to be about! We hop into the car, and head to the beach. It takes us forever to get to the beach that should only take us 10 minutes. Traffic is ridiculous, and I would not have minded so much if I didn't feel like I was about to throw up over the bridge. After an hour of driving and trying to find a parking place, we park and find a hole in the wall cafe. I take two bites of my chicken and decide that I can't eat any more. So we head off to the beach! It's just me, nicole, and the girls. Haylee is excited to build sand castles, and Sophie is excited to eat crackers, the only thing she is able to eat for the past couple of days.
We lay out our stuff, and I feel like i just ran a marathon. I realize that I forgot my camera at home! The only place I wanted to take pictures, I forgot it!
Haylee and Sophie start playing in the sand and love it. Haylee starts making sand mounds claiming they are castles, Sophie starts taking the buckets of sand and pouring them on her head! It was so funny! But then I realized the sand was sticking to Soph's head where she had sunscreen! Poor thing started screaming when I poured water on her head to get some of the sand off! Haylee and I walk to the ocean to get some water for her castles when I realize a bird had pooped on top of her head!! Awesome! Haylee did better about having the water poured on her head! Then Nicole tells me that a bird pooped on her dress!
Ok, we have had enough fun in the sun today, and drive an hour to go pick up the boys!
I'm still feeling terrible and do not eat anything the rest of the night. The rest of the night is uneventful, yea!
Sprinkle: The girls seemed to really like the beach, and had fun!

Day 6: Ryan wakes up not feeling well. He starts asking me about every symptom he has and if that is what I felt like prior to getting sick. "Honey, I have a really bad headache, did you have that?" "Honey, I'm dizzy, did you get that at first?" He ends up feeling ok enough to go with us on the boat we rented. We head out at 9:30am. It starts out cold, and cloudy. The boys find a good place to fish and start catching a few. Haylee and Sophie are fascinated with driving the boat. I actually bring my camera this time, so I am able to document our trip. Haylee even starts taking some pictures. After fishing for a while, we head out further and find a cute island that opens up to the ocean. We decide to dock there and walk around for a while, ryan stays on the boat still struggling with a headache. The island was definitely the highlight of my trip, it only lasted an hour but it was the best hour the whole week! Haylee finally started walking in the water on her own, and was fascinated by the sea shells. Sophie loved crawling around on the sand, but didn't like how windy it was.
After the boat trip I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, ok this day has been too nice to be apart of this vacation. The worst thing that happened that day/night was ryan felt too bad to come with us to dinner. We think ryan has a sinus infection, he goes to the doctor tomorrow because he is still struggling with it.
So really that was a good day!

Day 7: We were planning on leaving for home in the late afternoon after the boys played golf, but ryan felt too bad to go. So we opted to leave in the morning, 11:30am. Since it is in the middle of the day the girls were not as excited to be stuck in their car seats. But I have to say they still did very well, only a few melt downs. Sophie is starting to finally take food and drinks again. And we discovered on our trip back that Haylee has learned a new phrase, "Dang it!" She starts saying it in response to her horses not standing up on her tray in the car. I try to explain to her that they will not be able to do that, well this was not satisfying enough for her. She continued to get frustrated and would vent by saying Dang it! Initially funny, we attempt not to laugh, but it's hard. We stop another 3 times, one of which is to pick up Bella from my mom on the SR 28 exit at 5:30am on Sunday. On our way home we run into a bad rain storm, but we finally make it. I'm anxious to get out of the car and sleep in my bed!!
Sprinkle: WE ARE FINALLY HOME!!!!

I have never come back from a trip, and even missionary work trips and felt like I needed another vacation to regain my energy. This vacation had many positives, not the least of these being we have our lives and health in tact. We were blessed with an opportunity to go on vacation even though it turned out to be a dark comedy.

Hopefully next years adventure will be a little more restful!

At least Haylee came back rested!