I'll admit, when we were looking to fly to Florida we wanted to find the cheapest tickets possible- 4 airplane tickets no matter what the price adds up! We founded AMAZINGLY cheap one way tickets to Orlando, but we decided we wanted to fly home from the Miami area rather than make the 4 hour drive back down to Orlando. I was able to find a pretty good price on a one way trip home from Fort Lauderdale (less than an hours drive from Miami) so we decided to go that route. I still think it's strange that I was able to purchase one way tickets cheaper than doing a multi-city round trip.
Our flight out of Fort Lauderdale left around 10 Tuesday morning so we were up and on the road by around 7:15. It was a sad goodbye to great grandma.
We miss you already!!
And after a crazy drive to Fort Lauderdale - through some real life rush hour traffic (nothing compared to rush hour in Iowa!!) and an accidental drive by the Florida Marlins/Dolphins Sun Life Stadium - we had another sad goodbye to grandma at the airport. We miss you too (see you in like 2.5 months!!).
The security through this airport was a whole lot easier than Des Moines and we made it to our gate in like 20 minutes -- which was great except that meant we had to wait around for our airplane. Our gate had a little play table that actually kept the boys entertained for a little while.
Until an airplane landed near our gate - they decided to run back and forth between the play table and the window - for the most part the other people waiting were entertained.
Then we were off. So long beautiful, sunny, HOT weather!!
Hello freezing cold, icey, snowy Iowa.
Our first flight was about 3 hours and landed in Dallas. Both boys did as good as can be expected considering they were warn out from our trip, excited to get home and tired of all the toys/books that we had taken with us (note to self - next time traveling, pack a few extra toys to not get out until the ride home!!).
We were really hoping that Levi would take a nap during the first flight - and he did - he fell asleep as the pilot announced that we were descending and would be landing in 5 minutes. Perfect timing Levi. (and yes - he is wearing his pajama Superman shirt :)
Oh well, he got a very short snooze in and we landed in Dallas. Mark dropped us and our carryon's off at our next gate and got us a quick lunch - Pizza Hut - yummy! We had about an hour layover - the boys decided to crawl under the waiting room chairs - at this point, we really didn't care as long as they weren't hurting anything!
We got on our next flight - an itty bitty plane - for the 2 hour flight to Des Moines. Thankfully we sat right in front of a couple from the last flight - a grandpa and grandma of an 18 month old grandson so they knew how bored little ones can be. They were very helpful in entertaining Levi through the flight. (I wish I knew their name and address, I would send them flowers!:)
As soon as we landed, Mark called the hotel airport shuttle to let them know we'd need a ride back to our truck shortly. We got off the plane and immediately felt the FREEZING cold outside and made it to the baggage claim. Our luggage was the first two pieces off the plane! Whew! Mark went outside to look for the shuttle and it was already waiting! Thank goodness! We got loaded up and in 5 minutes we were back at our truck. 10 minutes later we were on the road. By this time it was about 4:30pm (5:30 Orlando time).
About 45 miles toward home, Levi says, "I want blankie." He says this about 25 times a day, but the second he said this I knew there was going to be a problem. Mark and I just looked at each other, I looked all over the back seat, Mark pulled over and looked in the front of our suitcases - THERE WAS NO BLANKIE! AHHHHH so we called the hotel shuttle and asked if a blue blanket was in the shuttle and of course it was. I knew we had no other choice but to turn around - so we did. We went back 45 miles and got blankie and turned right back around (after stopping at McDonald's :) Shortly after getting back on the highway we came to a COMPLETE STOP because of backed up traffic. We waited for about 15 minutes and a tow-truck came up the shoulder of the rode. We waited another 10 minutes and we began moving very slowly (like 15 mph) for another 20 minutes. (We didn't see much of the accident so don't really know what happened) but we were finally on our way again. Isaiah fell asleep in the truck about 1 and a half times through Toy Story 3 (around 7:30pm) and Levi somehow made it through Toy Story a third time without sleeping at all (but crying/whining I want to go home for about an hour). At 9:30pm (10:30 Orlando time) we FINALLY pulled into our (nicely snow blown --thank you dad!!) driveway - 15 hours later we were home sweet home.
So there you have it - our Florida 2011 trip! It was amazing - I can't wait for our next vacation!!
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