VACATION 2012!

Obviously, I have not blogged in a really LONG time. In fact, we've added another member to our family, our sweet Jackson, now 20 months old. So we really are Four Jones now, but we've got this name, so we'll stick with it! I look back at some of our vacation blogs and I *really* enjoy reliving the details in our blog posts, so I figure I'll use this vacation to try to get back into blogging and to document our vacation details for all eternity! So come along with us on our trip to FL!

 Friday, May 18, 2012 Adventure Begins!
 We are headed to FL for the next 11 days! We will first stop in New Port Richey. My brother & his wife will meet us there for a two day visit with my Grandparents. My Papa turns 90 on June 5!! On Monday, May 21, we will head to Kissimmee and meet my dad and his wife. We have rented a five bedroom, four bath pool home in Emerald Island Resort, and plan to hit Disney from Tuesday-Sunday, and then head home on Memorial Day!

 On Friday, I worked a half day at work from 7:30 am to 11:30 am. At 11:30, I headed to Janet's to pick up both boys Jeff had taken off work the whole day and had accomplished so much by the time we got home! He mowed the grass and packed the car all by himself. We got home by 12:20 ish and after a few last minute preparations, we were on the road by 12:43 pm. About an hour later, we made it to I-95. and we kept on going! By around 2:30 pm, we had made it to the SC border. Jacob needed a potty break, so we stopped at the rest area right at the SC line and hopped back in the car. The boys had been pretty good thus far, and we had several different options in mind. Option 1 was to drive to Savannah (about 5 hrs total) and stay at Embassy Suites (leaving about 7 hrs for Saturday); Option 2 was to stay at a Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham in Kingsland, GA, (7 hours / 4 hours to go Saturday) about 3 miles from the FL border; Option 3 - which I just thought of Friday morning, was to drive to Ocala, FL (about 9 hours, leaving 2 hours for Saturday) and stay at a Homewood Suites there. Option 4 would have been to go the entire way to New Port Richey, which would have us arriving after midnight. By about 4:00 pm, we decided we definitely wanted to drive past Savannah, so I cancelled our hotel reservation there. By 5:40 pm,, we had been in the car about 3 hours, but all was going well, so we cancelled the Kingsland reservation, and decided to stop in Brunswick, GA for a quick dinner and then press on to Ocala. It seemed to make more sense to try to get the boys to sleep the first couple of hours in the car, and have a shorter trip on Saturday, and we normally stay up until 10:00 to 10:30 pm anyway, so why not be driving? We ended up getting to Brunswick by 6:30 pm - I could not believe we drove four hours straight without a potty break! The boys were being SOOOOO good, I was extremely impressed.

We stopped for dinner at Wendy's, and while we were there, we put their PJ's on them in the parking lot of the Wendy's. For Jackson, not such a big deal, but for a 5.5 year old, a little funny!! ["Jacob, don't show the world your undies!"] We got Jackson set up with the Ipad to watch a little SuperWhy and Jacob watched something on the Iphone. We let Jackson watch two episodes of SuperWhy and then turned off the Ipad, by a little after 8 pm he was asleep. Success! We let Jacob stay up quite a bit later than usual, until about 9 pm before taking the IPhone away. He fell asleep shortly later, but clearly was pretty restless and not too comfortable. Very glad we didn't expect him to sleep in the car very long.

 We pushed on and got to the Ocala Homewood Suites around 10:15 at night. I had called and told them we would arrive at 10 pm and would need a pack n play. Alas, it was not in the room on our arrival. Not too happy. I made up the sofa bed for Jacob and prepped the room. The pack n play arrived about 10 min later. We got the boys in and settled by about 10:45 pm. Jackson was very thrown off. He whimpered on and off for about 10 minutes. Then, quiet. Jeff and I finally fell asleep around midnight. 

Saturday, May 19, 2012:
We were awoken at 6:10 am by Jacob. He also woke up Jackson. We put them in the bed with us, but they wouldn't go back to sleep! So, we were up. Jacob told us that the night before, when Jackson kept whimpering, he sang to his brother, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, TWICE and then Jackson went to sleep and was quiet. He is just the BEST big brother ever.

We finally went down to breakfast a little after 7 am. We showered and then got back in the car for the almost 2 hour trek. We arrived at my grandparents a little before 11 am. We stayed until around 12:15 or so, and then went to Chili's with the boys and my brother and sister in law. The boys were pretty good considering how tired I'm sure they were. Jackson fell asleep in the car immediately. When we got to the hotel about 10 minutes later, I checked us in and then we went to get the boys into the hotel. I carried Jackson and he did not wake up the whole time. I laid down with him in the bedroom part of the suite while Jeff unloaded the car. Jackson slept a whole hour, which is a great nap for him (for us... he naps two hours sometimes for Janet, but we are lucky to get 30 minutes out of him). After naps, we went back to visit with Sugar & Papa for about 2 hours. At 5 pm, we headed to the grocery store and picked up rotisserie chicken and sides to take back to the condo my brother had rented. We fed the boys and prepared the dinner. By about 7 pm, we headed back to our hotel. I bathed the boys while Jeff prepared us for staying in the bedroom part for the night. We got them to bed by about 8 pm, which was a great success. Jackson did not even whimper tonight! Relaxing now with a glass of wine. We'll visit with my grandparents again tomorrow, and have Cracker Barrel take out fir dubber. Monday, we are off to Kissimmee and Tuesday to Disney!