Florida Vacation: Days 1 and 2

I am a little overwhelmed with the number of pictures I have from our trip and with the desire to document everything we did and saw. I think the best way to do it is to take a day at a time and post pictures and events of each day. I may combine a couple of the less eventful days. I will also post most of my pictures on FaceBook.

We started our trip at 4:00 am. Our goal was to reach Mobile, AL by dinner time factoring in several stops along the way. I didn't know how my kids would do with such a long car trip. The longest they have ever been in a car is about 5 hours going to Houston and to Oklahoma. Needless to say, I was a little worried. They were so amped up to go that it took them over an hour to settle down and fall asleep. Shortly after that we stopped to go to the restroom and grab something for breakfast. That was just one of the MANY stops we made that day! I wanted to stop at each state line for a picture. We made everyone except for Alabama. The Alabama sign was right near a bridge and it wasn't safe to stop. I said I would get it on the way back, but we never did.

Here are the kids crossing into Louisiana. My kids are really into states and maps, so this was fun for them to stop. Bryson and Jonathan thought it was fun to stand in two states at the same time. I have a picture of that, but I am trying to limit the number of pictures I include in these posts. I have over 500! You're welcome! :0)

Here they are in Mississippi. We stopped at the visitor's center for a little while to let them walk around a little bit and use the restroom (again!) Do you know how hard it is to synchronize 9 bladders? Not an easy task!

Of course, they had to sit on the big cannon. Addie didn't like it and let us know all about it! Drew, David and I stopped at a casino right down the road. I have never gambled, so I wanted to give it a go. Kelly stayed in the car with the kids. Jarrett thought we were going in to vote! It took me all of three minutes to lose my $15 at the slot machine. (We had given ourselves a limit of $5, but that only lasted about 60 seconds. I pulled a $10 out of my wallet and that was gone real quick, too!) Drew and David were playing Black Jack when I found them. David quickly lost his $5 and an additional $20 shortly after. Drew walked away with $25. He knows when to stop. I don't. I guess that's why I don't gamble!

We stopped in Richland, MS to eat lunch. We had packed a lunch and found a city park to stop at. The kids had fun playing and running off some energy and we were glad to be out of the car for a little bit.

We finally made it to Mobile, AL in time to get cleaned up for dinner. We ate at the Mellow Mushroom. They have the BEST pizza crust I have ever eaten. I didn't know that there is one right down the road by TCU. I KNOW we will be visiting that one real soon! The next morning we got up and headed to Pensacola, FL. We had plans to stop at the Naval Aviation Museum before moving on.

This is at the Florida Visitors Center. Florida has the nicest visitors center and rest stops out of all the states we drove through. We stayed there for about an hour. The kids enjoyed looking at the brochures and drinking the fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice.

I know I posted this on FaceBook, but I want to document it for my blog. I was at a vending machine buying something to drink and Addie was with me. (She really didn't leave my side the entire trip.) Evidently she didn't see me put my money in and we don't really use vending machines very often. I asked her if she wanted something. She put her hands up to her mouth, leaned into the machine and said to the machine, "I want a Gatorade." It was the cutest most innocent thing I had seen in a while. After I laughed, of course, I showed her how to put the money in, make her selection and get her Gatorade out of the machine. She thought it was pretty cool!

Fresh squeezed orange juice from Florida! Notice that Cinderella is with us!

Here we are in Florida! Our next stop was the Naval Avaition Museum. If you are ever in Pensacola, I highly recommend it. It is HUGE and filled from floor to ceiling with all kinds of air crafts. We spent a couple of hours looking around and didn't see but a fraction of the place.

Here are Drew and David after taking a ride in the flight simulator. I wasn't "man" enough to try it. I don't like tight, dark, moving spaces. Jackson and Jarrett did it, too, but my picture of them turned out blurry. I am still learning how to use my new camera.

Some where along the way that day we decided to drive to Jacksonville and Neptune Beach. Our original plan was to drive into Orlando, spend Saturday night there, go to Cocoa Beach on Sunday and check into the house we rented Sunday after 4:00. We decided to go through Jacksonville and on to Daytona Beach instead. We spent Sunday at Daytona beach and drove to the house Sunday afternoon. I was so glad we did that! The kids had a blast at Daytona Beach!

Here we are at Neptune Beach. We got there right at sunset and only had time to walk in the sand and take some pictures. The boys got to see the church their dad pastored back in the early 80's, also.

Addie and me on Neptune Beach. I will have pictures of Daytona Beach and some more details of our trip on the next post. Stay tuned!