Off to Florida...

It was December 17, early morning. The bags were all packed the night before and we were ready to go. Fingers crossed that the snow would take a break until we took off, we headed to the airport.

I truly believe the planning and anticipation of a trip are 90% of the fun. And this trip was a lot of fun. We have been saving and preparing for 2 years and here it was- Orlando, Florida for Christmas! All my family was going to be there, too! Elizabeth and Tom, Andy and Josh were housing us all. Andy would be home for 2 weeks from BYU, Provo. Terri and Brian, with Abby and Paxon drove down from Chicago. Our mom lives 30 minutes from the Miller's. And our dad was coming from Texas with his 2 sons- Nigel and Joe(home on leave from the Air Force). We felt truly blessed- this was quite a happening in our family. This group all together, kids and parents, grandparents and cousins, has never happened before!

So all we had to do was take a 3 1/2 hour flight from Seattle to Denver. After a 2 hour layover there, board another plane for our 4 1/2 flight to Orlando. The airport went well. The girls kept busy. Porter loved to see the planes and run and run and run.
Payton was using her time in a teenager way.

Riley and Syd played cards for a while.

Maisyn drew in her new notebook.

We had no idea how Porter was going to handle such a long day of travelling. Not to mention the rest of us! We purchased 2 hand held dvd players, brought about 45 movies, crayon, markers, paper, books of all sorts, toys, and snacks galore. We all fared pretty well.

Our layover in Denver included the most expensive lunch from Panda Express we could imagine. (I wouldn't recommend it). We tried to recharge the dvd players for a little while but the plugs were taken :( The second leg was a little hairy- passing the boy around to whoever could contain him, a few minutes here, a few minutes there.

We were all very excited to land in Orlando- we had arrived! Two years of planning and here it was! We had left behind the snow and cold and found ourselves in 80 degrees at 10pm! The Orlando airport even has a Christmas tree to welcome us!

Merry Christmas to us!