We Went to Tampa

HELLO!

We have returned from our first family vacation. Actually, it is our first vacation in 3 years--unless you count a few hours in Vegas with no sleep.

 We woke up at 5am and ate our oatmeal in the car, with eyes that still wanted to be asleep.

We thought we were being smart by packing all in one bag, joke was on us because we were over the weight limit by 14 pounds and had to pay 50 bucks. After some coffee and plane watching everyone perked up.

To answer everyone's question; He packed crackers in his backpack. I called the airline the night before to confirm a peanut free flight, as we checked in there was a note saying Peanut Allergy and a special ticket printed out. We gave the special ticket to the ticket taker and boarded the plane. Clark loved takeoff and remained still until about 6,000 feet.

Once we reached our cruising altitude the flight attendants started to take beverage orders and pass out, you guess it, PEANUTS! I pretty much tackled the flight attendant. She was extremely passive aggressive in her defense and refused to collect the already passed out peanuts. She did make an overhead announcement to not eat them--- yeah, that fixes the problem. As you can see, he was fine...

Once we landed we fought with the car rental company who tried to over charge Matt by 200 dollars, tried to upsell on every single feature and wouldn't take NO for an answer. Big fight ensued, hungry baby cried, bad reviews are being written and a phone call to the manager is made. Don't rent with PAYLESS, you pay more and deal with bullies.

Conflict makes Clark hungry, he was so hungry he tried to eat his foot. We did stop to feed him something other than toes and left over cracker crumbs he found in his carseat. **Notice he now faces forward, that's a big deal.**

Once we got to the condo, we immediately ran to the beach.

Clark was near impossible to contain. He had no concept for personal safety and consistently wanted to be everywhere he wasn't currently at.

Being ushered the other direction because he wanted to go out too far

A short while later, we were joined by Clark's betrothed, Leena.

She is petite and sweet. She thinks cows say Baaa and giraffes are dogs, she is laid back and no where near as destructive as Clark. She ate all her meals in the sink, where as Clark preferred a pot.

Mornings were spent eating breakfast on the beach, which more often than not, was banana cream pie/cookies/pumpkin pie and coffee--because we are adults and adults can do what they want.

Then it was naptime for the babies and pina coladas on the patio for the adults.  Not sure if empty pina colada mix bottles make for good toys--but it does make for a good picture.

More beach in the afternoon.

Strut

 

 

We made dinners together in the condo and put the babies to bed at 6:30. The TV was seldom on, we didn't check our phones and only used the internet to find a grocery store, check a score (Matt) or answer a question like "What does VHS even stand for" or "What year was the movie Cool Runnings made"

It was so relaxing, no one was ready to return to reality. Leena convinced Clark that cows do indeed say Baa, we are going to let him hold on to that for a little while longer, no sense in all of us returning to reality.

Hope everyone else had a relaxing week,
Colie