Christmas Vacation: Departure & St. Pete

Two days after the kids got out of school for Christmas break, we left to go to the Southeast to see family.  We were really excited but also a little nervous about taking such a big trip.  Planning, preparing, and packing were stressful, especially when compounded with the busy-ness and traditions of the month of December.  But when the time came, we were ready to go and things went quite smoothly.

The morning we left, we took time for a quick sibling gift exchange.  In the past, the kids have given a small (Dollar-store-type) gift to each sibling but this year we decided each person would give just one gift to one sibling but be able to give something a bit nicer.  The kids drew names in order to keep the chosen sibling's identity a secret, so naturally nobody knew who anyone was giving to until about 30 seconds after the drawing.

A BIG box of Crayons from Jack.

A "Most Dangerous Animals" book from Luke.

Mechanical pencils and some homemade keychains from Eliza.

A Nerf gun from Cat.

We hired my college-age cousin to come to the airport with us, then drive our van back to our house.  It worked out perfectly!  We did run out of time to give the kids some early Christmas presents from us - books and candy for the trip - so they opened those on the drive to the airport.  And we arrived at the more-empty-than-I-was-expecting airport with plenty of time to eat our bagged lunches before it was time to board.  The kids were great travelers, carrying their own backpacks and helping with the luggage when necessary, pottying when we told them to, and spending most of the time in the air happily watching in-flight movies.

You can't tell in the picture, but this is one of the enormous Christmas trees
that greeted us in the Orlando airport.

We were all pretty excited to be off the plane...

The next day we took a quick trip to St. Petersburg to see some of my extended family.  We couldn't get over the warm, sunny weather and loved seeing the Christmas lights on the palm trees.  It was really fun to see my aunt and uncle, as well as my cousin and her daughter.  We had lunch together and just talked and talked, catching up and getting reacquainted.  Cat and her great-uncle bonded over guitar, Eliza and her second-cousin bonded over ukulele, my aunt and I talked family history, and Jack and Ben even had a chance to toss a football around outside in the sun.

We laughed when Jack was trying to figure out how to adjust
his seat in the rental car on the way to St. Pete, and it kind of attacked him.

By the time we were leaving my aunt's house we would be running into rush hour traffic on the way back to Orlando so we took the scenic route and crossed what my engineer-husband refers to as a "cool bridge," the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.  Then we pulled over and took some pictures of Salt Water (the Tampa Bay, not the ocean) before continuing on to my favorite grocery store for some supplies and dinner.  (Chicken salad sub for me, please!  Next time, not so many onions though.)

Ben and Santa have something in common!

Can you tell that I'd just fallen and bumped my head
pretty hard right before Ben took this picture?

And, since that wasn't enough for our first day of vacation in Florida, we decided to go to Disney Springs and check out the scene there for a little while before finally heading back to our hotel.  It was a very full, very fun day!

We started asking Luke trivia questions to keep him from disturbing
the other people waiting in line to go on the boat ride across the lake.  My favorite responses:
Me: What's your last name?
Luke: Skywalker.
Me: How many wise men visited Baby Jesus?
Luke: 26 (pause) 3