FINALLY... the reason for the road trip!

On Friday Jan 2nd we headed back to Cocoa Beach before finally celebrating the reason for the entire road-trip... Dana and Eric's wedding!!

We met up with Dana, Eric, Scotty and Robbie Friday night and spent a fun day Saturday together. Paul and Eric took the kids to the beach and the pool while Dana and I enjoyed some kid-free girlie time at the nail salon. Saturday afternoon we all hung out at the beach together where Robbie and I enjoyed bickering in the sand while Molly and Scotty had fun in the waves. That night everyone met up for a fun pre-wedding dinner at a local seafood restaurant.

Sunday morning Dana, Molly and I headed out for our 9am hair appointments only to learn there was one small problem... when we arrived at the salon we realized that even though Carnival supposedly booked our appointments, the salon was closed on Sundays. We quickly headed to the local Wal-Mart for some styling supplies, then back to our hotel to quickly do our own hair in less than 30 minutes. Not the ideal situation on your wedding day, but luckily Dana was able to quickly style her hair and I managed to get Molly's hair under control. We then headed to meet everyone at the port to finish getting ready for the wedding!Grandma Jamie pinning Molly's sash in placeDana looking beautiful despite the hair drama!Molly said that she wanted to be a "Star Wars" flower girl and even though Aunt Dana told her she could wear her hair in Leia buns for the wedding, I vetoed the idea, but allowed this little compromise... R2D2 and Princess Leia were clipped to Molly's flowers.The Happy Bride and Groom!My little familyScotty enjoying his "cocktail"Molly and Daddy dancing to "My Girl"Showing off their signature flipMolly & JocelynDana's brother, Wil and sister-in-law, AprilMe and Joc

Disney's Animal Kingdom, The Beach & Epcot

Animal Kingdom
12/30/08
Our third day we woke up early, ate a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed for Disney's Animal Kingdom. Molly's favorite ride at Disneyland was the Matterhorn, which is pretty much the same ride as the Himalaya at Disney World. Molly was so excited to take Daddy on her favorite ride, so off to Animal Kingdom we headed... with about 10,000 other people. Turns out the week between Christmas and New Year's is the busiest time of year for the parks... Danielle kept telling me that, but did I listen? Noooo, of course not. Not only was the park super crowded, by the time we finally made our way to the Himalaya ride, we realized that the ride is MUCH bigger and more intense than the Disneyland version, making Molly about 8 inches too short for the height requirement. Not only we were still stuck with massive crowds of fellow tourists, we now had a heart-broken and hysterical 4 year-old to contend with. To cheer her up we headed out to see Mickey, Minnie and Donald (all with their own lines that lasted anywhere from 10-40 minutes each!) We did have fun at Dinoramma (a dinosaur-themed mini park inside Animal Kingdom) where Daddy won Molly a stuffed animal and we got to ride the smaller kid rides. By the time we left the park Paul and I decided not to do three straight days at Disney - we were FRIED.Molly and Daddy in front of the Himalaya... before we realized she was too short for the rideRelaxing bubble bath after a hectic day...

Cocoa Beach
12/31/08

The next morning (New Year's Eve) we headed an hour east to Cocoa Beach where we had Uno's Chicago-style pizza for lunch and spent the afternoon on a not-so-crowded beach where we all were able to relax and enjoy some peace and quiet. Molly spent the majority of the time running shells and water to and from our sand castle... she seemed quite busy and on a very strict time crunch. Every time I'd ask her to play with me or go look for shells, she'd tell me she was "busy." Needless to say she sacked out on the drive back to Orlando. Just like Paul and I like it, we celebrated New Year's Eve by being in bed by 9 that night.
Epcot
1/1/09

New Year's Day we woke up super early and headed to Epcot. We were some of the first people in line and headed straight to the Finding Nemo ride. Molly loved it but was even more excited to go to the "Turtle Talk with Crush" show. That was awesome - it's an interactive show where Crush actually talks to the kids in the audience. Molly had been watching the Disney preview channel in our hotel so she was super excited about getting to talk with Crush... unfortunately, Molly didn't catch Crush's attention and didn't get to talk to him, so she ran to us with tears in her eyes when the show was over. As any good parents would do, we got right back in line for the next show and were so excited when Crush picked Molly out of the crowd and talked to her about swimming. Of course as with all Disney rides and shows this one exited through Nemo themed gift shop, where Molly sweet-talked us into buying her a Squirt stuffed animal. (You remember Squirt, Crush's little dude?) That pretty much made her day. After a sushi lunch in Japan, we toured the rest of the countries in Epcot and had a lot of fun. We capped off the day with one last visit to Nemo where Molly waved her Squirt doll in the air until she got Crush's attention and got to talk to him one last time.Lunch in JapanGoofball in CanadaFeeding the seagulls in ItalyMaracas in MexicoView across the lake at sunset

First two days on the road...

This picture is in honor of Molly's favorite knock-knock joke:
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Mississippi.
Mississippi Who?
Mississippi is married to Mister Ippi.

Our trip started 12/28/08 with a 13 hour day in the car. Supposedly it only takes 9 hours to get from Houston to Destin, but with bathroom breaks, eating (we chose sit down restaurants for lunch and dinner so we could have an excuse to be out of the car for a while) and constant rain from Houston to Destin... it ended up taking much longer. We were so glad to pull up to our hotel in Destin and crash for the night. The next morning we decided to spend a few minutes at the beach before continuing on to Orlando. Of course being my kid, Molly got super excited about seeing the beach and immediately picked up fist-fulls of sand and ran straight to the water. It was over- cast and a bit chilly and the water was absolutely freezing, but that didn't stop us from getting our feet wet. Of course that wasn't enough for Molly and by the time we left the beach, her entire outfit was soaked and her pig-tails were dripping.Molly's first drenching... see that wave about to take her out?Daddy to the rescue!And back in she goes...Molly learned an important lesson... don't go in the ocean fully dressed if you don't want a freezing public shower at 9 in the morning!All bundled up and ready to get back on the road

Home Sweet Home

After two weeks on the road, we finally made it back home last night around 8pm. We drove about 2800 miles round trip, crossed four state lines, stayed in five different hotels, visited three Disney parks, took one cruise, were a part of one wedding, visited two ports of call in the Bahamas, swam with one dolphin, made new friends, reconnected with old ones, and enjoyed eating our way through the entire two weeks... Uno's in Cocoa Beach, Lobster on board the ship, chewy conch in Freeport, Dunkaccinos in Orlando, donuts in Destin, awesome BBQ in Mobile, and finally po-boys and beigneits in New Orleans.

I am just now getting around to uploading and organizing all the photos, so hopefully a full post of our trip will be completed in a day or two.

Despite all the cleaning, unpacking and laundry, it's GREAT to be home!!