Our Florida Adventure..Part 1

I admit I am hopelessly behind on updating my blog and don't know how to catch up...right now the 4 youngest kiddos and I are snowed in at Mimi and Pop-Pop's as this latest Noreaster slams the area. I just heard that we have had 10 storms in 25 days-wow! It seems like a great time to think about the sun and sweaty humid days :) So, I am finally posting pictures from our Florida adventure in September(told you I am pitifully behind!)

We took so many pictures that I'll have several posts from the trip.
It all started as an idea back in January 2010...Mimi learned of Disney's Give a Day, Get a Day and after perusing the website', came up with the idea of helping the kiddos to make blankets for Haiti. The fun part was they(the 3 youngest-G found out by mistake) did not know that a trip to Florida was in the making...

G helped Mimi and I pick out the fabric, the younger 4 made all 8 blankets with Mimi... the older 2 helped with packaging them up for shipping, and Daddy paid for it all :)

Voila! All the blankets ready to be shipped out :)

We finally spilled the beans on a Saturday in August just a few weeks away from when we planned to leave. The morning we planned to tell them, I shopped at Aldi and the Romaine lettuce had Minnie and Mickey on the package! That is the first and only time that has happened and I buy my lettuce there all the time!....perfect timing :) We pulled it out and asked them to guess where we were going! The older kiddos were relieved to finally be able to share the secret!

Getting there is half the fun, right?? C rigged up a curtain knowing the sun would be glaring in the window and affect their movie watching capability...they did not watch much but listened intently to the 39 Clues audio cds...

C at the controls....I think our van looked like it belonged to the Beverly Hillbillies with this curtain set up and all our stuff smooshed in!

After an arduous drive through the night, we arrived on Saturday afternoon at this beautiful single family home. My brother graciously let us exchange his week for this timeshare...what an amazing blessing it was!

We were all so impressed with the creative towel folding that greeted us!

Luxurious, huh??

Our house even had this screened in little pool just out the living room sliding door!

Perfect for swimming in the rain...until the lightening starts!!!!

The 'littles' thought this jacuzzi ( in both master suites) was pretty cool too!

There were several other pools on site' and this huge hot tub too!

This was the sunset on the first night at the main pool. It felt like we were in the Caribbean :)

Another one of the pools...we lasted here about 10 minutes...our kiddos are too old for this now (sniff,sniff!)

The kids sure kept Pop-Pop busy!

...and of course, Mimi too :)

Pop-Pop even shared his lap during nap time!

Plenty of time for game playing~

and more game playing....

And craft making in the main clubhouse...here they are decorating picture frames...

Miniature golf on site' too :)

What a handsome bunch!

Sky writing seen through the screen in our pool room~Not sure who was writing this or why but we sure appreciated it!


As you can see, we were lavished by God during our time away...more pictures to come :)