We had a great time!

Time to play catch up.
This month sure went fast, and I can not believe Easter is only a week away!  We still have LOTS of snow around here and the nightly temperature goes well below freezing.
But the spring sun is showing its face on a regular basis now days and the evenings are getting longer, so somehow it does after all feel like SPRING!  And it smells springy.
Yum.

We had a wonderful, amazing, fun, intense and busy trip to Florida.
We left our town on Sunday the 8th of March.  I started the morning with a trip to urgent care, since I in a very untimely manner managed to catch mastitis (breast infection).  I was running a fever and felt like a truck had hit me and then run me over.  So by the time I had gotten antibiotic for my infection, it was 1 pm before we hit the road.  I rested during the drive and the kids were thankfully great travelers.  We made it down to Windsor around 8.30 pm and visited my husband's brother and his family.  I was pretty wiped, but it's always nice to see those familiar faces.

We were fortunate to spend two nights at my in-laws, and my husband worked from their house while I recovered and thankfully felt better by the time we left on Tuesday.
I appreciate the fact that my husband can work from anywhere these days, it makes our life very flexible. Such a blessing for us.

We came to Detroit airport around 12.30 pm and checked in and ate lunch and hung out, watching planes take off and land.  Our flight was a bit delayed, but after a 2 hrs 50 min flight, we landed safely in Fort Myers, Florida, at around 6.30-7.00 pm.
When we walked out of the airport our 7 year old daughter finally got to see a REAL life "pom" tree (she thought until recently that's what they are called), and she ran up and hugged it :)
We picked up our rental van and drove the 35 min to our rental house.
It felt so amazing to actually be there!  The house we rented was really nice, nothing fancy, but perfect for a family with lots of kids.  We picked up pizza and some groceries and made beds etc, and then crashed for the night, quite tired after a long day.

The following week was filled with fun!  My hubby was able to get some hours of work done during the days, but otherwise we visited many beaches (they are SO beautiful!), went to a nice little zoo, spent a very fun day at a water park and did some mall strolling and a bit of shopping.
Leading up to our trip the kids had earned "Florida Bucks", a few cents here and there for helping out, so now they got to spend those money on little things.
One evening we went to the pier in Naples and watched the sunset.  A gorgeous evening!

We had a few visits to the Dr's while there, and our baby was sick with a cold, that led to a burst ear drum, but fortunately she was well by the time we headed home.
We had to get up at 4 am on Wednesday March 18th (our oldest daughter's 17th birthday!!) in order to catch our flight back home. We spent the last night in a hotel close to the airport, so it wasn't a far drive. We landed in Detroit at 9 am and I drove most of the way home, after sleeping for all of 2 hours!  It was not super awesome to return to lots of snow and cold, but hey!, I'm not going to complain after being able to go on a trip like that!!

Seeing our kids by the ocean, feeding a giraffe, riding on a camel and many, many other neat moments, I feel so fortunate and grateful.  This was my 40th birthday wish, and I can't believe it actually came true!  So I will try to handle a few more weeks....or maybe even a month?? of snow.

Happy spring everyone!