Florida Family Vacation, Day 1

We had all been so excited for our Family Vacation to Florida. We started a sticker chart several weeks ago to help the kids understand when it would be time to go. Elisabeth was so confused because we talked about our vacation a lot and she always thought it was time to go. She would wake up from a nap and ask if it was time to go to Disney World, or we would get in the car to take Nathan to school and she'd ask if we were leaving for Disney World. The sticker chart helped her a lot and it helped build excitement for everyone, so we were all so excited when we got to put our very last sticker on the chart Tuesday night!

We put the kids to bed and woke them up about 3:30am to hit the road. Elisabeth was so excited!



The kids all slept the first few hours of our trip, and then we brought plenty of things to keep them occupied.

Nathan loves those color by number books, so I surprised him with a couple of new ones for the road trip.

I packed a lunch for us, and we found a really fun playground to eat at and let the kids burn off some energy.

We let them play for close to an hour to try and wear them out for the rest of the drive.

Then it was back in the car for the afternoon. Nathan worked on some homework.

Nathan and Elisabeth both took a good nap in the car while Samuel watched a movie.

We made it to our hotel in Navarre about 5:30 that evening. The kids were awesome! It was such a fun, easy travel day!

 We could look past the houses and see the ocean from our window.

Samuel had to show Pooh the ocean from our hotel window.

We unpacked and then ran over to the beach for just a few minutes.

The kids did not want to leave, but we promised them we would bring them back first thing in the morning.

We stayed at the same hotel where Matt spent a lot of time on a work project back in 2010, so he knew the town and surrounding area VERY well. We went to eat at one of his favorite restaurants. Samuel was a little worn out at dinner after a big day.

After dinner, we headed back to bed to get ready for our first fun vacation day the next morning!