Flo-ridin' to Florida - Days 1-3

In July, my mom, Gammy, called me and said, "I'm going to Florida with Tutu.  You should come and bring the kids."

Following our M.O. for the summer of 2013 travel and adventures I said, "Sure, why not?".

So very early in the morning on July 21st we kissed TG goodbye and headed south. My kids are awesome in the car.  I gave them both their own cloth bin full of new coloring things, stickers, journals, small toys and games and other diversions.  They also shared our small portable DVD player and took turns picking movies to watch. We made it pretty far into North Carolina before our first stop for breakfast and potty breaks.

I love their morning faces.   I also love that even though they usually scarf down cinnamon rolls, both of them refused to eat these Cinnabon treats.  Weirdos.



Our first planned stop for the day was in Charlotte, NC.  I left enough time to stretch our legs on a playground, eat lunch and pick up some precious cargo at the airport.

At the last minute, Tata and R decided to join us!  They flew into Charlotte, we grabbed them at the airport and then continued south.


We went as far as we (mostly the kids) could handle before stopping for the night in Savannah. I got as much sleep as possible sharing a bed with both my kids. They of course were fresh faced and ready to go.   Florida, here we come!

I'll admit the second day of driving was a bit rougher than the first.  We had a narrow escape with a major accident, tons more requests for potty breaks and just a longer drive than we thought ahead of us.  We did have some fun moments stopping just past Jacksonville for lunch and making a random pit stop in Sanford to stock up on supplies for the week at Walmart.

We finally pulled into the hotel that evening and were immediately heavily loved on by all the family that was waiting there for us.  After the long day of driving, we wasted no time in eating dinner and heading to bed.

The next day we got down to our tourism business.  Cocoa Beach or bust!


We somehow randomly found the pier and this beautiful stretch of flat sand and shallow water for the littles.




Name in the sand take two for 2013.  Same ocean, much further south.




I tried to get a sweet cousins shot of them all sitting in a heart drawn in the sand. Fail.

We meant for this to be our only adventure of the day, but after seeing signs for NASA on our way to the beach we realized we were closer than we thought. We made a quick decision to save ourselves the same drive the next day and just head there from the beach.