Sunshine, Turkey, and Goodbye

On our last full day that wasn't a holiday we decided we all needed some sunshine, so we headed to the beach. We always go to Madeira Beach because it's one I was at a lot when I was a little girl but it's also where Matt and I honeymooned way back when so we just always visit there. 

We had lunch with my parents, went in search of an ornament for our tree (tradition), and then headed to the beach. 

I know technically the water is significantly warmer there then it is at home, but I put my foot in there and it was FREEZING. I'm really glad I didn't bother with a swimsuit! I sat on the beach in my dress and watched everyone else out in the water with Matt. 

For a little while Lucy hung out near me to play in the sand, but she mostly went into the water. I forgot her ear plugs and honestly, her tubes already fell out awhile ago so I thought it was fine. 

Fast forward a few days and she had swimmer's ear and I've never had it but it looked horrible. Lesson learned: never forget her ear plugs!

Olivia and Jackson had a great time swimming and hanging out away from the little girls. I think they were glad for the break. 

Fearless Penelope was all about it. She forgets that she is only five and in fact, not a teenager. She doesn't like being held back but man.... she's ONLY FIVE. 

Lucy and I were buddies for awhile. She got a little scared once a wave crashed into her and I'm pretty sure where the water in her ear came from. 

I promise you these two are playing nice and having fun... though by Lucy's expression one can't be so sure!

I look at this photo and I think damn.... we are looking so old, it feels like we're aging at lightening speed sometimes. 

We weren't at the beach for too long, we had to be home for dinner, of course. 

The next day was Thanksgiving and, as usual, we have a pretty low-key dinner. We saw some family but not many, we ate some really damn good turkey, and we went to bed incredibly early. Our flight home was VERY early in the morning and the airport is about an hour from my parents' home so we had to get up around 3 a.m. to get on the road on time. 

Hot tip for you: go to bed in the clothes you plan to wear! We literally woke up, brushed our teeth, and left. Our bags were already packed, we were dressed, it was so much easier than trying to get organized on our way out the door. 

The kids were sad to leave but we'll be back soon. The cutest thing was seeing my grandma, in her pajamas, telling us to be safe and that she loves us at her fence. I love my grandparents so much but my grandma is just special. I think that's just what grandma's are, special. 

Our day traveling home was so long. We had a five hour layover at an airport that was only two hours away from our house. Honestly I don't know what I was thinking when I booked that flight, why didn't I just get us on a shuttle so we could be home three hours sooner? 

I have no idea. 

What I did learn is that you can use the app GRAB, and they will deliver food to your terminal. You order/pay on your phone, they deliver. It was so great because all of the decent food things were a million terminals away from us and I wasn't about to haul four cranky (and tired) kids around looking for food. I highly suggest looking into this app if you are traveling by plane anytime soon.

Overall? It was a good trip. I am glad we went, I was nervous the entire time, but I didn't realize how badly we all needed to go. We are hoping we can go again in the summer, or maybe when school is getting out, assuming Covid is under more control than now. I will say, people were very respectful of space and masks, and we didn't run into any rude people so that was really nice. It made the trip a lot easier for us. 

Magic Kingdom, super clean and still magical.

Our day at Disney was one that we were all excited about and I was so nervous about. I did a ton of research and I knew that things were pretty hardcore but let me tell you- I felt safer at Disney than I did at any place of business locally to me, that's for sure!

We left super early in morning so we could get there as the doors opens and I'm so glad that we did. 

I'll be honest and say right now, the reduced crowd size was AMAZING and I hope they continue with it. At no point did any of us feel overwhelmed by people around us, the lines weren't awful at all, and the park was incredibly clean. 

Right off the bat the kids were excited. Penelope and Lucy had never been there before so I was excited for them to see it all. We've been really talking it up for YEARS and I think them seeing the castle as we came in was pretty great. 

I won't lie, not having character meet and greets was kind of a bummer. We only really saw one character not on a parade and that was Buzz (a favorite of the girls) and this was their photo op. I'm just happy we got to have one, it was fun and Lucy really thought Buzz was 100% real. 

We rode all of the rides except Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (Pep and Lu were too small for them) and the Snow White & The Seven Dwarves (that line was too long all day and it didn't feel like a must-do). We also didn't get to do the Haunted Mansion (we were SO bummed) because it wasn't open. 

One of my favorite rides from when I was a little girl, It's A Small World, is still open but getting a face lift on the outside. That was maybe the longest line we were in, surprisingly, but we did get to ride it. 

I love how much Lucy loved the ride, too. She sat there clapping the entire time and constantly pointing out a doll she wanted me to see. 

They are spacing people on rides, leaving quite a bit of space between riders, so we never felt crowded. Even in the line, they have spacing markers everywhere. Like I said, the lines weren't bad at all. Even if a ride said it was a 45 minute wait, we maybe only waited 20 minutes. We didn't use any fast passes at all. Those were still being used because we did see people getting into fast pass lines and being let in throughout the park but honestly, you didn't need them at all. 

OK, real talk, WHY IS CINDERELLA'S CASTLE PINK?! I even looked back in my older pictures, it wasn't pink. Why is it pink?! I hate it pink. 

I haven't ever been to Disney during Christmas so I had to take an obligatory photo of the Christmas tree. 

We did manage (by absolute fluke) to see the toy soldiers, the band, and the parade (all at different times). We saw all of the princesses during the parade, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and of course Mickey and friends. Penelope and Lucy were BLOWN AWAY and kept telling me they were REAL. It was pretty cute. 

Oh yes, they got their first pair of Mickey ears, we had to get sunglasses because I forgot theirs all together on our trip, and their "First Visit" buttons!

We stayed open until close and it was such a great day. I mean, this photo was around 3 p.m. and look how empty it was! It was really great to not be crammed with people, to be honest. 

Matt swears he was having a good time but he looks like the grumpiest person in the happiest place on Earth, right??

We spent a lot of time carrying Pep and Lu and my back STILL hurts. I couldn't do it very long but I thought this was a cute picture. 

Oh yes, I got one of Penelope in a mood. Of course. Oh! We also loved the way they do food now. You can't just go up and order something, you have to order on the app, pay, and pick your pick up time. At lunch we struggled a bit because we were learning as we go. By dinner, we were pros! We picked a place close to the Jungle Cruise ride, we figured it would be about 45 minutes before we were done with the line and ride, so we chose that as our pick up time. By the time we were ready, you literally go up, get your food, sit down, and that's that. It is so slick and you aren't stuck waiting in horrible lines with crying, hungry kids. 

The other bummer is there is no night-time fireworks, parade, party. I was bummed about this because there wasn't going to be Elsa doing her thing either. The castle DID look very cool though so I can't get too mad about it. 

Overall? Disney was incredibly safe, incredibly clean, the employees were so helpful. Multiple times during the day we'd say thank you to the workers we came across and they just looked so grateful. I think people working, in any capacity, during this pandemic are stressed out and us being just a little bit nicer is everything. 

Tomorrow I'll talk about the beach and coming home. I am so glad that we had this day, it made me so happy seeing my kids so happy, even if it is only one of a handful of days this year. 

We took a chance... and got on a plane.

 ** Now before you come at me with me blatantly ignoring travel warnings, know that 1. I booked non-refundable things well before that but I thought they WERE refundable and it turns out I'm not a great reader after all. Well some things were but others weren't and I don't have the kind of money to just flush down the toilet. 2. We had other reasons for going on this trip that I'm not going to share, so there. **

We've had a rough year. Actually, the entire planet has had a rough year. In the last few months it feels like everything that was a low boil was starting to boil over the pot, basically. A lot of things have been happening behind the scenes, I'm struggling, the kids are struggling, it is just to the point where I had to either take a chance and leave home for a bit or watch everyone bubble over. 

I fully understand that any one, or all, of us could get sick and it could go to hell. If anyone understands that, it is me. I also know that we have other things going on and frankly, I can't save the world, all I can do is try to make one decision at a time. 

So we went to Florida for a few days. We saw my parents and I didn't realize how much I needed that until we were there. I really, REALLY needed to unplug and check out for a few days. The kids needed to see their grandparents, and we needed to come together as a family without life constantly reminding us what we need to be doing. 

Penelope and Lucy had never flown on a plane before and honestly, I was so worried. I did a lot of research and we went with Delta for all of our flights, which made it a LONG day on the way there. Like three planes to get there and we were so exhausted. 

The great news- Delta does an AMAZING job at keeping things clean and people spaced as much as they can. We all sat in our own row and for most of our flights there and back we weren't around a ton of people, so that was really nice. I was cleaning things like crazy anyways but still, it's nice to know they did, too. 

Penelope and Lucy did great. I didn't realize they had video monitors for each person (I haven't flown in awhile, give me a break) and they hand out earbuds, but if you have little kids I suggest bringing headphones. Thankfully Pep and Lu went with the flow and didn't make a peep on any flight. I was so grateful for it too because there were a lot of kids on most of our flights and we heard some REAL colorful language coming from a boy that couldn't have been older than Penelope, and she's five. 

My kids are really great travelers and it is so nice. I cannot say it enough that traveling with your kids is a huge life skill in flexibility and patience. 

Side note: airports were SO CLEAN and basically empty. It was actually really eerie to walk through an airport at 8 a.m. and feel like you're trespassing because there is nobody around. Just saying. Also, I think it is weird that they had to make it clear that you cannot put your baby in here. 

WHO PUTS THEIR BABY IN THERE?!

Anyways. Florida was nice. My parents' new home is really nice, the kids loved it. Olivia was determined to catch a lizard, and she did, but it also bit her and I hear that hurts quite a bit. Needless to say, the novelty of lizards was short lived and Penelope is now terrified of them. 

One day we went to Zoo Tampa for the day, and that was nice. It wasn't crowded at all and everyone was masked, the entire zoo was impeccably clean, and everyone basically stayed away from everyone else, so it was really nice. Lucy got to see her beloved penguins. 

They measured themselves and frankly, if I ran into a penguin the size of Penelope, I would be terrified. I'm just saying, I feel like a penguin could, and would, kick my ass and I'm not OK with it. 

Penelope was greatly disappointed there were no unicorns and she was not impressed when I tried to pass off a rhino as a chunky one. 

The day was long and the day was hot. This ended up being the only group photo I got of the kids and honestly, it sums up the day. By the time we got home we were all really exhausted. We did learn a lot about animals though, so it kind of made up for missing a day of school, so there was that. 

Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of our trip to Disney. It was the ONE thing we planned ahead of time and I knew if I tried to reschedule I couldn't guarantee we'd be able to come back to Florida in that time period, and the girls would have been totally upset. So we ended up going, and it was great, but I'll tell you  more tomorrow.