Vacation

The girls have been ok on our previous flights, usually 6-7 hours. We chose to fly directly to Orlando last Saturday (a 10.5 hour flight) and then drive to Naples the same evening. A week stay in Naples at a rented home and a week back in Orlando at Disney then fly home. The flight was unbearably long...I have taken many flights that were longer but never in coach class and never with two young kids. They were well-behaved but it was tough. Thank God for modern technology - DVD players and TVs in the back of every seat rest.

We landed in Orlando uneventfully, Rebecca got the luggage with Kate and I took Lauren to get the rental car ($1,900 for two weeks and that was for standard size, nothing larger was available when I booked in June!!!) The Camry we were given barely fit all of our luggage, and that was with one suitcase inside another and four empty duffle bags which we expected to fill with food, kids' clothes and Christmas presents. The 4 hour drive to Naples from 8pm to midnight (2 am to 6 am German time) was painful and we switched drivers a few times and tried to keep each other awake. We had decided it was probably best to stop but there were no hotels on the back roads of central Florida we were willing to try. We arrived at our rental house, carried the girls in and went to sleep.

They were up at 5 and have progressively slept a little later each day this week, usually until 6 or 630. The house has a pool and the girls have adored swimming, Kate learning to dive for rings. We saw some old friends and my mom flew down to join us for a few days which has been fantastic. We had a second Christmas with my mom (see the pics) and several days of warmth, a few hours at the beach here and there and some outlet store shopping. Most things we buy here are about 1/3 the cost as in Europe with the exchange rate impact, as well as the extra taxes and higher costs. This makes purchasing clothing for the kids worth a special trip here itself.

We are winding down our first week and heading to Orlando for a week at Disney Saturday. We had to rent a second car to go to Orlando to carry all our stuff! But are looking forward to seeing my dad and all of Rebecca's family from NY, OH and Alaska!

I got a new camera for Christmas to travel with so I can take pictures throughout my journeys. The pics and video attached are taken with it. Happy New Year!