Our First Family Trip to Florida

We have now been home from our vacation for almost two weeks but it already seems like longer. I love when we can get away as a family but getting back into a routine is nice. Hadley does so much better when she is in a routine and so do I. This was her first time in Florida, the furthest she had ever been before this trip was Michigan last spring. We thought the car ride to Michigan was rough...ha, were we wrong! Originally when planning our trip we were going to fly down but as we started doing the math and looking into all the work that would be put into flying we decided it would be better to drive this time. I think whether we flew or drove it would have been stressful. The way down took us about 22 hours! We were unprepared, ran into so much traffic, there was a snow storm and Hadley was cutting a tooth. It was horrible to say the least. On our way home, we planned a little better, knew what exits not to get out on, used the rest stops more than stopping off at an exit, had a DVD player for Hadley to watch and had 10 pacifiers up by us so we could hand her one anytime hers seemed to disappear. Our drive home only took us 18 hours, so much better. Hadley only cried once while we were going through the mountains, her poor ears were popping. I was prepared for this though, I started feeding her snacks through the mountains, it seemed to help a lot! On our way down to Florida when we went through the mountains she was asleep for most of it so that was helpful but when she did wake up she threw up 3 times in her car seat. I felt so helpless... I didn't know what to do because we were driving down the highway. Thankfully we were only a couple miles away from a road rest so we stopped and cleaned her up and she was just fine. She wanted to run around and play so my guess is that maybe she got a little car sick, thank goodness that was the only time she got sick.

Florida was a lot colder than we had expected but it was far warmer than at home! I did pack our coats and a couple sweaters which we wore just about everyday. So thankfully we were some what prepared. The first day spent in Florida was the warmest day we had during our stay and we decided to spend it at the beach. There were a few people swimming because the water was decently warm that day it was when you got out in the wind that it was cold. I did not put Hadley in her swimsuit because I didn't think she would even want to get near the water, I was wrong about that! She charged straight into the ocean with not an ounce of fear. Even with waves knocking her down she wasn't scared. She ended up falling a couple of times and her dressed was soaked but that kid didn't seem to mind a bit. As soon as we would take her out of the ocean she would scream and turn to run back in again. My guess is she thought she was being like baby Moana and wanted to go explore the ocean. We went back to beach a couple more times during our stay but we were in our coats and boots LOL. That didn't make a difference to Hadley though, she still charged into the ocean! We've decided we need to go back down to Florida this summer while its warm she can swim in the ocean all she wants.

Visiting Disney World was definitely the highlight of our vacation. We spent two days at Disney Springs and one day at Magic Kingdom. Both places were extremely crowded... I'm guessing because most people were still on their holiday break from work. We plan to do a longer Disney vacation this coming December so this was sort of like a practice run. We didn't stress about not being able to get to everything we wanted to because we knew we would be back soon. Disney Springs wasn't as fun for Hadley but Ross and I enjoyed it. There was a lot of shopping and really neat things to see. Hadley did love eating at the Rainforest Cafe though. We got to sit on the gorilla side and I thought she may freak out a little because they are huge and a little creepy looking but she loved it and even danced along with them. 

The day we spent at Magic Kingdom was nothing less than magical. As soon as we made it in the gate Hadley wouldn't stop saying "wow" at everything. She was so excited and we were so excited to see her reactions to everything. When we made it up to the castle there was hardly anyone around so she was able to run up and dance in front of it, it was so sweet I cried a little LOL. We went on more rides than what I thought we would, only because we had set up fast-passes for them the night before. Any other ride we went on we checked on the Disney app to see how long the line was before walking over to it. If you go to any of the parks I highly recommend you download this app! It was such a lifesaver. We even ordered our food through it and got to skip the entire line! If I had to pick just one, I would say that Hadley's favorite ride was the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. She wanted us to spin faster the entire time and cried when we had to get off of it. She also really enjoyed the Dumbo ride! There wasn't one ride that she was scared of, which was great! There was a lot that we didn't get to see or do while we were there but it was still so much fun. We stuck around to watch the firework show even though we were all exhausted. Hadley never even woke up to watch any of it. They did a new show that is called Happily Ever After and it was amazing. I know I cried and I think Ross might have too, it was just so good! Our night didn't end there though...we scheduled a meet and greet with Mickey Mouse at 9:30 pm. I was afraid Hadley was going to be cranky or cry the entire time because we had to wake her up to meet him. To our surprise she was happy as could be and absolutely loved Mickey. Typically, they try to get you in and out of these things but with us they didn't want her to leave. In fact if you saw any of my videos Mickey pulls Hadley in closer and waves us to leave her there with him. Without us even telling her to do so, Hadley went straight up to him and kissed him right on the nose. Germs were the last thing on my mind at the point, it took all of my strength not to burst into tears! We all three cried when it was time to say goodbye to Mickey. It by far exceeded our expectations and Ross and I will never forget that moment, even if Hadley won't be able to remember it. 

This family vacation was just what we needed for our family. After enduring so much loss and heartache we needed that time together. It was also extremely difficult to be in Florida knowing how badly my mother-in-law wanted to experience all of those things with Hadley but never got the chance. While we were there though you could almost sense her presence with us, it was like she was watching over us and enjoying it too.

Below are pictures and videos from our vacation that didn't all make it to Instagram because I took so many! As always thanks for reading and have a great week ahead!