South-ward bound

I'm nearly as excited as our children. Except I have to do all the packing and they just get to bounce around screeching and clapping.

Tomorrow we head out for the sunny south. Except right now it's kinda chilly. High of 57* today, we hear. Supposedly it's gonna warm up starting Monday.

Our week is going to be jam-packed full. We're staying in Orlando and of course, we are hoping for nice weather so we can fulfill all our plans. :)

Epcot, Sea World, Daytona (men and boys only), Kennedy Space Center (men and boys only), mega dairy.

It's not just us going...my parents, my oldest brother and his family, my youngest brother and his wife and unborn twins :)...my middle brother and his family just got home from Florida a couple weeks ago and decided that two weeks there was enough.

So why am I so excited?! I love vacations. A whole 10 days to sit. And swim. And sun. And be toursity.

I've heard in the last couple weeks..."What do you mean? You had a five week long vacation in Russia just a year ago...and a week long trip to Russia a little over a year ago."

I think that anyone who has ever travelled the adoption path would whole-heartedly agree with me that those trips aren't much of a vactation. Sure, we get to hop on the train to head to the grocery. We miss our train and have to hail a taxi....and the driver can't understand us any better than we can understand him. We got to spend a week in the grand city of Moscow. (Which I admit was a vacation....we walked to all the tourist sites that we possibly could in that short week.)

But. The four weeks in Vlad? You tell me. Postponed first court date after sitting in court for 2 hours? Flooded house? Wondering if our newest son would actually get to make the journey home with us? Playing game after game of pool in an effort to forget reality?

That wasn't much of a vacation. Though everything did work out just grand.

But this? There isn't a dreaded court trip. There isn't packing suitcases that must be under 44 pounds....I can pack whatever I want. There aren't piles left all over the house of items that were in the suitcases and at the last minute got chucked out due to overweight issues.

This time? We're going to relax. We're going to enjoy simply being with family.

And we're going to trust that God will grant us safe travels...and that I remember to keep Jack strapped into his life jacket day in and day out. Poor kid. Too bad he has such an infatuation with water....and there is a pool right outside our back door.