I know in this picture I look super hot (and I mean that in the literal sense, not the figurative!!) but it was one of the only pictures of the 3 of us on our trip!
Well, Eric and I decided that since we had so much fun in St. Augustine for our family vacation last year, that we wanted to go back and book it again for this summer, so we booked our condo in January. That's right....January. A solid 8 months before we were going to go. We also volunteered on Valentine's Day so that we could get our free Disney passes so while we were in Florida, we could afford to take the girls to Disney World for a day, and spend the money we would have spent on admission on souvenirs for the girls. We thought it sounded like a solid, smart plan. Well, the night before we were supposed to leave, Eric's bank got taken over, so he wasn't able to come with us. We were past the cancellation policy, so we would have lost our money if we had canceled, plus Melanie said, and I quote, "Oh, but I really wanted to go play in the sand and the water and go see Mickey" and(insert sad face)so I loaded up the car and took the girls by myself. (Yes, I was questioning my sanity a little bit at this point, but I figured if I could do a trip with 2 little ones by myself, I could do anything!!)
Well, my little angels were exactly that - little angels. They were so good the whole trip, I don't think we would have had such a great time if they had been misbehaving! The only negative thing the whole trip (well, except for the throwing up on the way to Disney....I'll get to that later) was that Melanie just kept saying, "The only thing that would make this trip better would be if Daddy was here" and she was right. I tried to go through and jot down the highlights of our days in Florida, and it's not as thorough as it was last year because I didn't have any help this time around! But I am really, really glad that we went on our 3/4 of a family vacation. The girls and I had a great time and it is a trip I will never forget.
I am going to go through our trip day by day.....Saturday was our drive down to St. Augustine, and luckily it was pretty uneventful. We stopped in Valdosta for lunch, and somewhere right inside the Florida line at a Wal-Mart because we got stuck in a torrential downpour....where we discovered Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ritz crackers. The girls and I pretty much ate the whole entire box in the first 3 days, and I have been searching for them up here ever since we got home! Once we got checked in to our condo, we ran out to Publix to get some groceries, and when we went to the deli, and Melanie thought it was the coolest thing that I had to take a ticket and they had to call our number before we could order. While we were at Publix, Meredith decided to shout out a new word that she thought was just hilarious..."Cacapoopoo"....she shouted this repeatedly throughout the store, getting a variety of reactions from other people in the store, from laughter to looks of disapproval at me for letting her say that (like I have ever had any control over what my children do or say!) Melanie and I also had a big conversation about mustard...she announced that she likes mustard, but just not on her shrimp....this was a sentence that she repeated over and over all week. Random, but still funny....we walked on the beach after dinner where Melanie ran in the water with her clothes on, and she is so skinny that the water pulled her little shorts down off of her hips! We came back and then had a nice, relaxing evening.
Sunday we woke up and made our way down to the beach, which was absolutely perfect. The girls had a blast, and I realized then that I had done the right thing bringing them down by myself....even though we did miss Daddy a lot. All Meredith wanted to do was "trow sand. I trow sand!!" and Melanie was a little doll, prancing around on the beach like she owned the place, building sand castles and running in to the waves. The girls were so cute, sitting in their little Toy Story and "ca cars" beach chairs...they are little beach babies! We headed back in for lunch and to take a break, and Mel put on the t.v. in her room and was fascinated that she could watch church on t.v. She sat there for over 20 minutes watching church, and just kept saying, "I had no idea you could watch church on t.v.!" While Mel was doing this, Meredith was upset because all she wanted to do was to go shopping at Kohl's. (She is definitely my kid!!) We headed back down to the beach after lunch and rest time, where I was informed by Melanie that "When I turn 4, I'm not going to start drinking." FANtastic. I'm such a proud mommy! At the end of every night, we would go to the hot tub in our building, which Meredith refers to as "the baf tub". This was her favorite part of the whole trip!
Monday morning we woke up and went to get ready for the beach. I put the Disney Channel on for the girls and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on. Now, Eric always makes fun of this show because they really have the most ridiculous problems, and use Toodles to fix everything. Well, Mel was sitting there watching it, and she started shouting at the t.v., "Just do it already!" (She is SO her father's daughter!) We went down to the beach where the girls had another great day.....I hauled a ton of beach toys down, and all Meredith wanted to play with was a red solo cup. That was all she pretty much played with all week! The people sitting next to us caught a seahorse and were keeping it in a bucket to show it off before they put it back in the water, so the mom asked me if Mel and Mere would want to see it. They thought it was really neat, but Melanie looked up at the boy and said, "I like your seahorse, but I don't like your shirt." The boy was wearing a Florida Gators shirt. The mom just laughed, and I explained that their daddy is a big Georgia fan. We got cleaned up and ate dinner, and then we went into downtown St. Augustine for a little bit before it got dark. I got the girls ice cream and I am so upset, because I forgot my camera, and they made the BIGGEST MESS I have ever seen two little girls make with ice cream because it was so warm outside! The ice cream was bright pink and blue and green and yellow, and it was all over them!!
Tuesday was our relaxing day before our big Disney trip on Wednesday. We did a little shopping in the morning and went to the shell shop that the girls love. We went to the beach that afternoon, and then to the baf tub that night. It was an easy, relaxing day!!
Wednesday was DISNEY WORLD!!! We got up early and headed out for the hour and a half trek down to Orlando, and me, not thinking, got stuck in rush hour traffic in Orlando. Well, this made Little Bit MAD. So mad that she stuck her fingers down her throat and made herself throw up. Awesome. What a way to start the day! I had to pull over in a Burger King parking lot to get her and the car cleaned up. Now, I get made fun of all the time for my obsession with how things smell, but I was REALLY glad that day that I had a thing of Febreze in my bag, because if I hadn't, my car would have smelled completely disgusting by the end of the incredibly HOT day! And by hot, I mean with the heat index, it was 115 degrees in the Magic Kingdom. After the throw up incident, the day had nowhere to go but up. And we had a fabulous day. It was hot, but totally worth it.
I brought the stroller, but Melanie wouldn't ride in it very much and Meredith wanted me to carry her around, so I parked the stroller, bought a 17 dollar fan attached to a water bottle, and we had a great time at Disney World. Meredith keeps saying her favorite ride was the Dumbo ride, but she slept through that one, which I thought was pretty funny!
Melanie's favorite ride was the Jasmine ride, where we rode magic carpets up and down....we rode that one about 6 or 7 times, and the teacups about 6 or 7 times. The girls also got ice cream, and after that, Meredith was on her 3rd shirt of the day, but they totally needed it to cool down a little bit!
We also stood in line to meet Mickey Mouse, (Mommy agreed to it mainly because it was 45 minutes in the air conditioner!!) Melanie loved them, Meredith would go no where near them!
We ate lunch at "No-keyo's house" in Fantasyland.....that's what Mere kept calling it! But the girls were so, SO good the whole time. I tried to stay as late as possible, but we didn't make it to the parade. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home for dinner where the girls inhaled about 8 chicken nuggets each, and then they both passed out on the way home.....which was great until they wouldn't go to sleep until 2:30 a.m.!!! Once they went to sleep, they didn't sleep long....Meredith woke up around 6 Thursday morning, and Melanie came out of the room around 8:30 and announced that she had a late night and could I keep Meredith quiet because she is making too much noise. We made our way back down to the beach that morning and just played and hung out, then came back for a rest and lunch. I had promised Melanie miniature golfing, so we went out to dinner at Mango Mango's, and then headed over to the golf course. It was HILARIOUS taking both of them golfing. Melanie had a Happy Gilmore-like stance, and Meredith kept throwing her ball and almost hitting the people behind us! Meredith kept telling me, "Good job Mommy!" and clapping everytime I would hit the ball, and both she and Melanie would either just walk up and put their balls in the hole, and put it right next to it and try and hit it in. They had such a good time, and we got Slush Puppies afterwards...yum!!
Melanie also informed me that "I'm a big girl and I can do what I want." (That was her motto for most of the trip!) That night after dinner and baths, we called Daddy to say good night, and Meredith had already had her nightly "ba ba" and I had told her no more ba bas for the night. So she was talking to Daddy and she just kept saying "No ba bas" over and over on the phone to him, and all of a sudden she smiles and says "Uh huh!" hands me the phone, and says, "Daddy says, Mommy....Daddy says!" Daddy had told her she could have a ba ba...little con artist!!
Friday was our last day at the beach. We hung out for a bit, made sure we went to the baf tub one more time, and got all packed up. Melanie told me she wanted to be a belly dancer when she grows up....another proud Mommy moment! Melanie is also thrilled that Mere has enough hair for her to style, so she was doing a lot of that....I love having girls!!
We got up and out early, and made the trip home in less than 7 hours. It was so good to see Eric again, and even though we missed him, we had a great trip that I know I will never forget! Next year though....we are definitely going with Daddy!
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