ok so today is the day we are leaving. i cant even tell you the excitement that we were all experiencing. this was the first trip that my parents, my husband and myself, and my sister and her family were all taking together. we had been away before with one of the groups but not all of us together. so as is my usual tradition on thanksgiving day, i had to make my stop to starbucks in the morning for my pumpkin spice latte. yes i was pregnant at the time but i limited myself to one cup of coffee a day cuz without it i would not live!
it was very weird not to be getting ready for the thanksgiving day parade. we live 5 minutes from philly and our family tradition is to go to the thanksgiving day parade in center city. it was also weird not to smell thanksgiving dinner cooking at my moms house or for me to have baked the night before.i own a small out of the house baking business so im usually baking forever for thanksgiving and christmas.
so the plan was that the airport shuttle was picking us up around 11am, since our flight took off at 1pm or so. when mike and i got to my parents house with our luggage (they live two blocks away and my sister and her family like a block away), my sister and her crew were already there. and does it not start snowing/sleeting!! this made it interesting since my sister and her husband and their one son are deathly afraid of flying. my mom isnt so fond of it either. my nephew anthony was nervous because it was his first time flying ever. it was his brothers first time too but that kid doesnt have a care in the world. so everybody had their ipods, iphones, cells, all ready with games and books and everything for the flight. before we knew it, the shuttle was there and we were off!!!!!
we got to the airport with no problems getting through security. just a pain for my dad and my niece chynna and my BIL anthony because they had to bring the ipad and laptops and all that junk! we got to our area and grabbed some lunch while we waited and played games and talked about how excited we were. my sister popped a few pills to calm her down which made he loopy and goofy so that made for a fun time waiting! my mom gave out her pre-flight ritual aspirins to everyone so that we didnt get blood clots (yes, shes goofy too!). before we knew it we were loading the plane, myself, my dad and my husband in one row, behind us was my mom, sonny, and my sister, and behind them was my BIL, chynna, and lil anthony. the flight took off with lil anthony loving to fly! he loved it and wasnt nervous anymore which was great to see. we had my BIL in the back with all of his gadgets tracking our flight. you have to know that the ENTIRE trip, all we heard from him was "ya know theres an app for that" and we made fun of him the whole time for it. this became the saying the whole trip.
so we got in i think a little early from what i can remember. got our bags from baggage very quickly and went down to rent the cars. my dad of course upgraded cuz thats just how he is and we got our two cars and headed out. now for the first 3 days we were staying at a rental house in kissimmee because that weekend in disney was insanely expensive cuz of thanksgiving. so off we go to the condo. i had directions printed out for everything which were pointless because my BIL ended up finding some gps app and we followed him the whole time. but of course my dad didnt want to listen to me and he got us lost and we ended up back in celebration, fl. i did love hearing from him though that i was right! i dont hear this much from him because we are both very stubborn and will NEVER admit that either one is right to one another! well anyway, we ended up driving right past the place too because it was so dark by the time we finally found it! so now we are running pretty late with not alot of time to get ready for dinner.
the condo was awesome, nice and big. full kitchen, washer and dryer, 1 br for my parents, 1 br for my sis and BIL, 1 br for me and mike and 2 bathrooms. the kids slept on a sleeper sofa in the living room. we didnt really get to use the pool too much cuz we were too busy but the kids and my husband did go one day and said it was nice. so we get there and wash up fast and get changed and head out to Cape May Cafe for our 8:05 thanksgiving dinner buffet reservations.
