Vacation Day 5- Friday

Beach Day- one of the best days EVER!! (hence the 3,001 pictures)

The beach day. It was finally here. Was I more excited or the kids?? I laid in our bed with the glass patio door slid over as far as it would possibly go. The ocean breeze and sunshine wafted into my room. The kids were wrestling on the bed in the adjoining room. So for a few minutes I felt like I was in heaven. We ate breakfast in our room and headed out.
 It was like 10 by the time we walked out on the sand. So it had gotten a little warmer and it was so so so very lovely. The kids played with their new giant shovels in the sand for a long time.

Ethan loved the rivers in the sand that led to the water. He splashed and played in the little tidal pools.

 

Katie was a step behind Coleson running for the water. Being smaller, it knocked her down more, but she didn't care. The water was by no means warm (it was January), but the air was warm and after a little while in the water your legs went numb so you couldn't tell how cold it was anyway. Kinda :) Coleson was in love with the waves. Hunter was in love with the sand. So fitting for their personalities. We had so much fun. After a while, Jared decided to rent some of these sand bikes that people had been riding up and down the beach. And they were cheap enough too. It was like $10 for an hour. So Hunter and daddy took the first 1/2 hour and rode so far down the beach we couldn't see them anymore. Then Coleson and I took the second 1/2 hour and raced each other and it was SO fun! Afterward we hopped back and forth between the ocean and the hotel pool and hot tub while Jared took Ethan to the room for a nap. He was right above the pool and we kept waving up to him.  Everyone was just so extremely happy all day long.  It was like the kids knew this was a once in a great while kind of opportunity, and there was no sense ruining it with temper tantrums or time outs.  Everyone was just happy the whole day.  And it was perfect.

Ethan found these puddles and had SO much fun splashing.

Katie & Coleson head for the waves.

The waves take Katie down, but she doesn't care.

Daddy will help her.

Hunter finally notices the water.

Hunter- "These waves won't knock ME down!"

While he was up there he made some phone calls and made a dinner reservation for us at a really nice 4 star restaurant at the hotel. So after Ethan got up we all got dressed up and went to dinner. We had a pep talk with the kids as we walked to dinner. The white table clothes should've been a red flag to us, but we went for it anyway. Right from the get-go they assigned 2 servers to us. Score! So we got awesome service. And the food was delicious. It was the first of many $150 meals on this vacation. Like I said, we'd been saving our money from the previous days and were thrilled to have some days we could splurge. And our Disney food was already paid for. After dinner we enjoyed another beach walk. 

We put Katie and Ethan to bed while Coleson and Hunter watched a movie on the iPad and Jared and I whisper talked. We were waiting for midnight. Our room looked out right over the pier that was doing the New Years' Eve fireworks for that strip of beach. I know, how lucky was that?!? It was one of the coolest things ever to be laying in our hotel room right across from the fireworks going off at midnight. And since our room was so far up, we were literally parallel to the fireworks. The boys lay in their sleeping bags (we were down to 1 room that night) with their faces against the glass. It was the best New Year's Eve ever.
 

Hilton Daytona Beach Resort/Ocean Walk Village

100 North Atlantic Avenue, Daytona Beach, Florida, United States 32118

Vacation Day 4- Thursday

We got up early (partly because of the traffic noise and partly because of the neighbor noise) ate breakfast downstairs and headed out. The kiddos were anxious to get to our final stop that night. Me too! So climbing back in the car wasn't too arduous when we knew the best was yet to come. When we stopped for gas around 11am we had just crossed into Florida. And so began the humidity (which was weird to us for January, but nothing like July) and the tourist advertising. Disney tees for $3 and knick knacky stuff everywhere. It was a little exciting to me, honestly, because that meant we were getting there. A few hours more and we were in Daytona Beach. I have such fond memories of this place growing up. California beaches ain't got nothing on Daytona and south Florida. Who wants rocky cold beaches you have to wear a wet suit in, when you can have warm, fine, brown sand between your toes and warm water splashing on your legs? The kids (and I) were glued to the windows as we passed through town. Weird I never seemed to notice the poverty along the highway coming into Daytona. All the glamor is on the tourist "island". As you go up and over the bridge, there is a distinct change in view.
We had again Pricelined this room and were anxious to see what our money had got us. With a title like Hilton Ocean Walk Village Daytona Beach, we were pretty sure we were safe from the terrors of Macon. Boy or boy were we ever. The kids were plastered to the side window of the van when I went inside to check us in.
We had actually booked 2 adjoining rooms for the first night, but hadn't been able to get it for our second night. The risk of Pricelining, I guess. I did everything I could do get us a suite or a walk out room on the beach level, but they were booked up. We still got a super nice room. We unloaded our gear and headed to the sand. It was about 5pm or so by then and the sun was starting to go down. Whatever warmth might've gone with the day was quickly fading. But that didn't stop our curious kiddos from heading out to the water's edge. We splashed for a few minutes with our pant legs rolled up before walking the beat of the warmer (and dryer) "boardwalk". I love boardwalks. It's just fun. The food. The games. Of course, we never had the money for it growing up and since we still don't- we only watch and smell and window shop. But we always give in to buy just a little something. Coleson was all agape at the cool bungee jumping apparatus. We reminded him of his money that he could spend where he wanted. $50 from Christmas- all to himself. But when it was gone, it was gone. He decided to hold onto it for a bit.
On down, we came to another beach shop. Every boardwalk has one shop that beats everyone else's prices and amount of inventory. Usually a corner type store. Almost like the Wal-Mart of the area, but with a local name. Anyway, we found it and, since we're budget shoppers, stopped in. There we found Coleson a pair of swim trunks (he'd grown out of his and I couldn't find them anywhere at stores at home in January) and the boys found these totally awesome huge blue and red shovels. They were perfect for what we planned the next day. So they used the first of their money (aside from frequent gum purchases on the days driving).

Then at another shop, Jared and I bought the boys shark tooth necklaces, because they were just so stink'n cool (and the cheapest we'd seen) and a dolphin bead necklace for the princess. After boardwalk'n for awhile we stopped for dinner at a place called Sloppy Joes. It was between that and Bubba Gump's Shrimp. We decided the first place had more food the kids would eat, but then we wished afterwards that we'd gone for what we really wanted. Oh well. The food was still good and we dragged ourselves back to our hotel by way of an absolutely stunning night time ocean walk.  It was just beautiful. 

Vacation Day 3- Wednesday

We had an early appointment with our Realtor on Wednesday morning at her AMAZING house in Brentwood (which we decided is the Beverly Hills of Tennessee). Most of the houses looked like mansions!! Not joking. I was a bit intimidated as we drove up in our teal conversion van with 4 rambunctious children inside. I threatened them with their lives before ringing the doorbell. Fortunately, she was enjoying Christmas company and her gorgeous house was stuffed to the gills with tents and people. She was very knowledgeable and had some properties picked out for us that we might be interested in. I had found her info a few weeks before by contacting the mission home and asking for a Realtor in the stake. The mission president's wife knew just the right gal. How handy is the church?!
After we gathered our gawking children (who were amazed by the sheer size of her home and all the nice electronics in every room of the house) we went to see some of the properties. None of them were quite right for us. I've come to the conclusion that we're pretty picky, really. Not too close to town or too far. No land restrictions. Just the right price. Just the right school district. On and on. But it did give us some knowledge about the area that has helped a lot. So we'll see if anything ever comes of it. I'd love to live in Tennessee. It's such a beautiful state. And who can resist the Smokey Mountains??? Not I.

Anyway, we wrapped it up a little sooner than we thought and, even though we had our hotel there for another night and hadn't planned to head south until morning, we figured we might as well get on the road and get to the beach that much sooner. So we took off at like 3 that afternoon. I played stewardess again and made and delivered everyone's lunches to their chairs while they watched a movie. We kept a large blue cooler stocked with food in front of Ethan's chair. I totally loved that van. If it just weren't so...GREEN. I joked that it was our traveling Christmas tree (since it was the holidays). We had dinner in our Christmas tree too and kept watching the miles roll by (you can imagine the money we saved from our envelope that day- eating all our meals in the car and no entertainment expenses). We finally started getting tired near Atlanta and booked a Priceline room for Macon (like Bacon with an M). It's not nearly as cool as it sounds. The hotel was by far the worst we stayed in the whole trip. The thumping car stereo in the parking lot was a firm clue that we were not dealing with the caliber of people that we'd been treated to so far. Jared made sure the van was locked up tight, all the curtains down on the van windows, and parked it right outside our window. It left us with a sour taste for Georgia in our mouths. But, no biggie, it was just a stopping point on the way to our awesome destination.

 

Vacation Day 2- Tuesday

Tuesday we got up and going at a really leisurely pace.
We went downstairs for breakfast where they had a huge breakfast buffet- those really nice ones that are super expensive (and we totally LOVE). And, since we were the only ones there, the waiter gave it all to us for free!!! Awesome way to start the day!
We had planned to visit the Nashville Children's Museum http://www.adventuresci.com which was way super fun!! The kids are still talking about it. It had a 3 story climbing and jungle gym right up through the middle of it from the first floor up to the third. There were slides and all sorts of neat things to do on it. The rest of the museum was devoted to cool kid science stuff. It was a lot of fun. The electricity had some sort of emergency shut off in the middle of our trip at the museum, so we went to hang out in the van for a snack and a break. Then we were charged and ready to go again. Since we had such a big breakfast we figured we just hold off on lunch since we'd planned to have an early dinner.
Dinner...was at...the Whitehorse Saloon. Yes, that's what I said. It's like a Nashville icon. I couldn't resist. And it was so much fun. The food was delicious- ribs, of course. We ate on the hardwood by the dance floor (which was closed off since it was so early). Our kiddos would've been long since expired to wait to go to dinner when the joint was really hopping. That's ok- I used my imagination.
After dinner, we drove down to Brentwood (a nice suburb of Nashville) where we had a hotel for the night and an appointment with a Realtor in the morning. Another comfy room (at Hyatt- thank you Priceline). This one had a separate living room from the bedroom (and a perfect size closet for Ethan).

All in all a really really nice day. 

Vacation Day 1- Monday

Vacation Day 1
Monday December 27
Kevin and Charlotte were blessing Vaughn in Brownsburg the day after Christmas, so we figured there wasn't really any point in driving down and then back home, so we just packed up everything and left from there after the blessing.
We stayed at a surprisingly nice Microtel in Indy that night for surprisingly cheap (thank you again Priceline). And had a quick breakfast in the morning before taking off. The excitement in our van was palpable. We were finally on our family vacation. I love family vacations!!! Can you tell? We had already decided that we were NOT interested in a straight-through mad-dash if we didn't have to. And we didn't have to. We had a hotel in Daytona Beach, FL for Thursday night and 4 days to get there. Nice and slow. We had also already decided we wanted to spend some time in Nashville (we've been eyeing it for a while as a possible place to move to- temple, good schools, good home values, good job market). Anyway, so we only drove an hour before we saw the Edinburgh outlets in Columbus, IN and thought "yea, we can stop." Jared has a soft spot for Columbia wear and IZOD shirts. And we hit the jack pot, because it was after-Christmas sales. Yay!
Moving on. We planned to reach Louisville by night (a whooping 3 hours of driving for the day- I told you we were taking it slow). We thought we'd stop at Mammoth Cave and do a little sight seeing, but can you believe it- they were closed for Christmas? Bum-mer!

So we got to Louisville, KY earlier than expected and found a local BBQ joint. Yum!! We had a super nice room that night because the hotel was practically empty and they gave us this gynormous corner suite- for FREE! Awesome. And we had the whole pool to ourselves. And the kiddies were happy happy. Eat, swim, play, hotel. We all fell asleep in happy vacation mode that night.

The LONG anticipated Disney World Trip Post (the background info to the trip)

We have been saving together as a family for a Disney World trip for about 2 years. We even made a bar graph and would color it in $20 blocks. At the beginning it was daunting- the idea of getting all those blocks colored in to reach $3,000. It seemed so far off. But the kids loved it when we could add some money and color in a few blocks at a time. It was slow going. Early in 2010 we found ourselves without work. Saving for the trip came to an abrupt halt, but Jared and I were broken heart-ed when we had to borrow all the money we'd saved out of the Disney envelope (we never told the children about that). Fortunately, when work came in the summer we were able to pay back what we'd borrowed and even reach our savings goal. We had told the kids when we reached $2,000 we would start making firm plans. We were so excited to finally start planning our trip- for real!!

We had several options to consider.
When to take the trip? When knew we had to get a bargain so we would have to go during off peak (slow) season (which is usually during the school season when most people can't go) when the rates are cheaper.
Where to stay? Jared and I went to Disney for a belated honeymoon and stayed for 10 days at a beautiful Wyndham Resort (off Disney property) through Priceline and paid just under $50/ night ($500 for the whole trip). With cheap eating and minimal purchases, the budget for our first trip (with gas) was just $1500. But we knew we would double that this trip (since we had tripled our numbers since then:). So we had to decide if we wanted to stay on Disney property or off. It's cheaper off property, but there are some conveniences with little people that are worthwhile. I spent a LOOOOOT of time on the internet and on http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/ and on a few awesome blogs( http://land.allears.net/blogs/dnews/ and http://www.themouseforless.com/ ) that had great info and tips. I must have priced and repriced different scenarios of that vacation at least 1000 times (seriously). Tweeking this and that. Since we were traveling with 6 people that put us in a different boat than the customary 4 people per room. We were going to need 2 rooms or a suite (hotel mandates not ours). There are a whole lot of off property resorts that offer multi-room suites for really reasonable prices. And we almost booked with one of those. But when I found an excellent after-Christmas rate at Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins that was 40% off, plus FREE Disney Dining (AMAZING!!) we were only saving about $400 (after you purchase park tickets and add the food back on) by staying off property. We decided it was worth it to spend the extra money and stay on property. WE. WERE. RIGHT.

I could just kick myself now that I didn't take any pictures of our cute cabin. Here are the stock photos Disney offers. 

But this place was so perfect for us. We scored a cabin near the bus route but off the main road- so it was very quiet. Everyone out there was looking for the same kind of experience and we had no problems with loud neighbors. We were able to park our van right outside the cabin and didn't move it until we left. Our Dining Plan included a quick lunch (which is really a nice lunch at a quick restaurant), snacks, and a sit down dinner (which I made advance reservations for every night at the best places we were really wanting to go to and that determined the park we went to each day). We ate breakfast in our cabin (it was super great to have a kitchen- plus they did the dishes every day!!). The kids wouldn't have wanted to go out to eat each morning anyway. They wanted to go have fun. So we got up whenever (usually around 8, but we were totally relaxed) ate and were on our way quickly. One reason we had wanted to stay on property was for Ethan so that if he was completely tuckered out one of us could run back easily with him and let him get a nap while one of us stayed at the park with the kids. But who wants to leave all the fun??? Not me. Not Jared. Not the kids. And Ethan was such a trooper. He'd just lay down on Jared's shoulder and zonk out for a little bit then be ready to go again. Our stroller was like our traveling home. Every morning we'd load it up with a whole day worth of changes of clothes and jackets and snacks and head out. Definitely glad I had the double stroller. I considered taking something smaller to move around like an umbrella stroller, but there were always at least 2 tired kids who wanted a ride and they'd rotate in and out. They all took a turn at some point. Plus it carried all our gear.

I carried the camera everywhere and, even though the Photopass folks took pictures, I did too. Boy was I glad I did. I didn't realize until I got home that they were $15/ picture!! Yikes! But fortunately, I had also taken the pictures from similar angles as the Photopass ones so my pictures were almost identical. I only ended up buying 2 pictures that I couldn't live without.

Part of vacation for Jared and me is the eating out. We love good food. Who doesn't?? And we had some amazing food at Disney. Several of the blogs I had read talked about ways to eat cheap and bring your own meals. I wasn't really interested in being stressed about how much money we spent at each meal and how much we couldn't spend on the next one. And how we couldn't afford the nice places we wanted to go to. So it really REALLY was so nice for me and worked out great that we bought the package that had the free dining plan. I wouldn't have probably sought it out myself because I didn't know much about it. But, boy, am I glad we got that one. When we made our Disney Reservation I started making dinner reservations. I knew the nice places go quickly and didn't want to be out of luck. I was able to get all the places we wanted. We had a nice (super nice!) dinner every night at each park. Then that determined which park we went to each day. It's so easy to do. You just go to any restaurant or vendor and ask if they're part of the Disney Dining Plan (usually it's posted actually), then buy whatever you want for the most part (there are a few places that you can only pick from a selected part of their menu). Then you give them your Disney Key to the World and they just scan it and it prints out a tally of how many meals and snacks you've used and how many you have left. Just for fun (purely for our own info) we kept the receipts at every quick service meal, sit down meal, and snack we ate the entire time. The DDP would've been like $850 or so to add on to our package (we got it FREE!). Our total food receipts came to just over $1250. Wow!!! First of all, I had no idea we could spend that much just on food in a week. And second- awesome! What a good deal. And we ate at restaurants that we never would've otherwise. Monday we ate at 1900 Park Fare and had a delicious gourmet buffet dinner with Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the evil stepsisters. That meal receipt was $150 for all of us!! We never would've gone and spent that money right out of our pockets. Every day was like that. The kids would ask for those ridiculously priced Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Cones and we'd say "sure, take your card". It was soooooo nice and sooooo much less stressful. We will definitely do the DDP again. Definitely.

When to go? We got our awesome amazing deal for 2 weeks after Christmas- just when everyone else would've been going back to school. If you looked on the Disney site, the rates were high high high for Christmas and the week after, but the week after that (the first of January) they plummeted. Score. So we just pre-approved the vacation time with Coleson's teacher (she said they'd be having an easy first-week-after-break week anyway) and we were good to go. I was a bit concerned about what the weather would be like in January. Who wants to go out for a beautiful beach and parks vacation when it's 30/40 degrees? Not me. I really didn't want it to ruin our dream trip. But the price was so good. I scoured tons of websites and almanacs about Florida weather and it seemed like the weather could go either way. We were so so so so so relieved when the 10-day forecast started showing 70 degree weather for the week of our trip. SO relieved. In fact, the day we arrived at the beach the weather spiked up to 80 degrees for that day and the next (which were our 2 full days at the beach). It was 65/70ish all week at Disney. Which we decided was absolutely perfect weather. Cool in the morning and evening (perfect with jackets) and the perfect t-shirt and walking weather all day long. We did get caught off guard one day when we stayed later than we thought we would and it got really chilly and then we had the boat ride back to our resort and that was cold. But other than that, the weather was perfect. Which turned out to be more of a blessing than we could've imagined because on our drive home Saturday and Sunday, an ice storm hit Georgia (and reports said down into Florida) with the coldest weather and more snow than they'd seen in 20 years!! Ha! What a blessing it didn't ruin our trip.

Every night of our 2 week trip (except being at Disney) we Pricelined our hotels. We bought only 1 room for all of us- the kids are small and we really don't mind. Poor Ethan spent every night of the trip in some sort of closet. I thought about taking some funny pictures of the tight spaces we got his little porta-crib to fit into (so he couldn't stand from inside his bed and see me laying in my bed and then scream "Mama!" until he could get me to come get him-which doesn't take long in a hotel room, because you don't want all the kids up and crying for mama in the middle of the night), but Jared didn't want him to know about it when he gets older (thought he might feel less loved or something for being tucked into closets. Weird.) Several hotels let us upgrade to a suite either for free or a really small fee (bonus to traveling off peak travel season). And every hotel had a continental breakfast for us to take advantage of before we took off for the day. We were extremely strict with our budget for the trip. We allotted ourselves a certain amount of money each day (I think it was $115) for hotel, food, and any extras in a specific envelope labeled for that day. If our hotel took $50 we had extra for a nicer dinner. If our hotel took $75, we had less. We were amazed with how far our money stretched each day. Almost every day we closed up our envelope with extra money in it.

So, on to the actual trip.

My Grandmother

My grandmother was one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. She loved her family more than anything. She was the perfect example of what a "lady" should be. I have always wanted to be a lady, because my grandmother and mother were so lady-like. She was soft spoken, never spoke ill of others, always primped and beautiful, slow-tempered, a loving mother.

My wonderful grandpa passed away of a form of dementia in 2001, just a year before Coleson was born. So none of my children were able to meet him, in this life. I remember the day we were sealed, my grandma leaned over and whispered in my ear, that she knew grandpa was there with us that day in the celestial room. He loved his family more than anything, and he always showed it.

Somehow, grandma came down with the same thing. It was strange since obviously they weren't blood relation. The past few years, it has been my parents' blessing to care for her as she quickly went down hill. I remember the last fluid conversation I had with her in April 2009. I was pregnant with Ethan and we were there in Utah for Becca's wedding. I remember leaving that conversation knowing that was the last time she would really know me. It was shortly after that she became "lost". She didn't know who even her own daughter was. That was a really, really tough thing for my mom. Although we talked and cried about it, I can't imagine how hard that must have really been for her.

Grandma finally passed away on January 23, 2011- a Sunday evening, with all of her daughters standing by her side. She was a very loved woman.
I will miss her very much. She was a wonderful grandmother and mother. She has been an amazing example to me of the kind of wife, mother, and daughter I would like to be.


This is a picture of a board I made to put up at her viewing. Becca and I decorated several tables with flowers and pictures of her 7 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Coleson played the violin and I accompanied him on the piano as we played "Families Can Be Together Forever". The service was perfectly attended- enough to pay tribute to her, but small enough to be sentimental- the people she loved most. It was a beautiful service. I am so very, very thankful for our forever family.