Florida - The Drive

I am feeling so grateful, but Saturday morning I was feeling so so so tired! We had wanted to leave by 7 a.m. but we just didn't move fast enough. It was -9 but -16 with the wind-chill. I took Milo for a quick walk. There was freshly fallen snow and it was so twinkly and pretty.  

By 8:00 we were ready to go. We hopped on the 401, destination Port Colborne to drop of our Milo. Ken and Chris, aka Nana and Papa, aka Mom and Dad agreed to watch him for us. We were very grateful that they were going to watch him for us.

Poor Kate felt ill as we got to St. Catherine's and barfed in a barf bag. We pulled off the highway and bought some gravol as sadly we forgot to bring any with us! Kate was such a rockstar. She was apologizing poor thing, but not one of us was mad at her even a little bit. She took some gravol and we just kept on going.

When we arrived at the grandparents, Milo knew something was up and he was a bit squirrelly. Ken kept saying he's a dog, he'll be fine, but none of us, Ken included like to leave the dog!

We took a pic of the map when we left the grandparent's place. One thousand twenty-eight more kms and 9 hrs and 53 minutes of driving! EEK!

I took this pic while we were slowly crossing the bridge to the US. You can just make out Fi in the way back. There were so many people crossing into the US today. The wait was long!

We forgot to get a pic of the New York sign, but we did play "Welcome to New York" by Taylor Swift, our crossing into New York tradition. I wasn't feeling super well this morning. My tummy wasn't thrilled with life and I had a headache. Ken did most of the driving to start. I tried to sleep. 

The pretty sky! We had some snow going around Pittsburgh. It was a little stressful for Ken.

We played "Country Roads" when we entered West Virginia - Shawn's suggestion. We have a new tradition! Although I'm not entirely sure when we'll drive into West Virginia again as a family. Who knows though!

We went to the bathroom at the Welcome Center and picked up a map. At some point after this we stopped at Chick-fil-A for dinner and got gas and then we hopped back on the highway. The 19 through West Virginia wasn't the most fun. There were so many slow downs because we were going through towns.

Virginia went by quickly! The girls watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I can't remember when I took advil, but I was feeling better and at some point took over the driving.

I was surprised that there was still snow. We kept watching the temperature wanting it to go up, but it didn't really go up very much today. 

Our destination for today was Statesville, North Carolina. Crossing into North Carolina was a welcome relief!

We arrived at the Holiday Inn in Statesville, North Carolina about 10:45 p.m. It was a long day. Fiona was amazing, she sat in the back in the entire day. Kate slept a lot, the gravol worked and she wasn't sick again. Alice taught Kate and Fiona how to make bracelets and Alice was great. The girls were great! We had a great first day of travel.

Saturday morning Ken woke up just before 7:00 a.m. and Alice, Fiona and I all work up around the same time. The bed was so comfortable and I slept really well. I got up and showered while Ken, Fiona and Alice went and had breakfast. I woke Kate up after my shower and I felt great today. No more headache! And I didn't feel like I wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep in a corner. 

We headed out of the hotel around 9:00 good because today was less than 9 hours of driving - three hours less than yesterday! I started as the driver today. We crossed into South Carolina just before 10:00 am and we tuned into the Zoom broadcast in our home ward, Pickering Ward. It felt super weird when we were planning everything that we would miss Christmas church. I was not happy about it. But tuning in, aside from the sound being really terrible, it was great. 

We went to the bathroom at the welcome center, the biggest welcome center so far. It was sacrament while we were in the bathroom so we didn't really miss anything.

While we drove we listened to Mercedes speak, Hannah and Melanee sing, Sis. Campbell speak, the LaFrance family sing, and then the concluding speaker was Doug Elliott. He gave us a shout out and said we were listening while we drove through North Carolina. We all squealed with the shout out, and giggled that we were actually in South Carolina, not North Carolina! Doug spoke about being a LIGHT in the world, being God's hands. He shared the story of the Cobbler. I'm putting the video here, because I can. 

After church finished we listened to Christmas music and then, and then the traffic. Driving through South Carolina was so long! The traffic was SO bad. We'd start to move and then we'd slow down again. I kept thinking it was over, but it wasn't. Somewhere in the traffic mess we put the movie the Truman Show on. I hadn't watched it in forever. Ken and I kept making faces at each other. The story of the Truman Show is crazy!

When we crossed the state line into Georgia a third lane opened and the traffic moved! However we were all ready to get out of the car, so we did! (We waited five minutes to finish watching the movie though.)

The Georgia welcome center was fun! We all enjoyed it. And it was finally starting to feel warmer.

There was a trolley. 

Gators.

A turtle.

And Tom Hanks as Forest Gump. 

Ken took over as the driver and we got back on the interstate, but we were low on gas and the girls wanted some food. It was getting later and we were trying to figure out what we were doing. I was texting back and forth with Isaac, I had mentioned to my sister eating dinner together in Orlando. The girls decided that they wanted to wait to eat with them. So we stopped in Georgia to get gas and snacks. Ken spotted the two pots of boiled peanuts. Neither of us had ever seen boiled peanuts before. It looked gross to me and I had to take a pic!

Georgia passed by quickly and before we knew it the sun was setting and we were crossing into Florida. Our destination was as close as it had ever been but felt so far away!

It was around the time that we were passing Jacksonville that we started to nail down plans. We decided to meet at Five Guys in Orland at 8:00 p.m. It was 5:45 p.m. when I took this pic. The next two hours would have passed so slowly, if we hadn't been distracted by another movie. So the girls watched Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban and we drove to Orlando!

We got there a little bit before Suzanne and her crew, but it was a happy reunion!!! I love my sister and her husband and her sweet babies! (That aren't babies any more!)

It wasn't until after we'd driven away that Ken reminded me of the date. Today was the 22nd, which meant it was Suzanne and Matthew's 26th anniversary! I can't believe they ate Five Guys and they didn't even share a table! AH! Happy Anniversary Suzanne and Matthew!

We got to our holiday rental around 10:30. It was a long day, but getting here, it was awesome. It's perfect! 

It was exciting to feel the warmth in the air and see the palm trees. The place is really cool. Tomorrow is hang out, swim, shop for food and chill day. I am so grateful that we arrived here safely and without incident. I am so grateful to be here and to be on this vacation with my family.