Fall Break

Whew.  We've been home from Fall Break for almost a week, and I'm just now getting a minute to write about it.  We had both a VERY challenging trip and a fun trip.

To start with we had made the decision two months ago to leave for Fall Break a day early, Wednesday, because we got a better deal on frequent flyer tickets that day.  This was before Keaton broke his hand on Labor Day.  Unfortunately, due to Keaton's unfortunate accident, among other things, he had missed too much school for the term for us to feel good about him missing class on Wednesday.

So, we decided to change Keaton's ticket, and have Dave stay behind and come (space available) with Keaton at 5:00 pm.  That was an extra cost, which turned out to be only the beginning of our troubles.  I left the house with the kids at 5:00 am--just minutes after we told them about the trip.  They were all stunned and sooo excited to be going to Florida and "Harry Potter World".  Except Carson.  We had told the kids we were going to my parent's house in Flowell for break.  Carson was so disappointed to be going to Florida instead of Flowell, he through a major tantrum about it.  It was kind of disconcerting, in a funny way.  Flying with the 3 younger kids has been less than a treat in the past, to put it mildly.  I was fairly worried about doing it alone.  What do you know, but all the seats had individual media screens.  One swipe of the card, and we were set.

Until we got to Atlanta, where we had to change plans.  We had to run from concourse A 1000 feet to concourse B, only to discover that during the flight, they had changed the gate, and we had to run back to concourse A, where we had just come from.  Same gate even, 25A.  Even though we had an hour, the reason we had to run was because the kids didn't have seat assignments!  By the time we got back and got their seat assignments, they were put on row 44, while I was up in row 21!  I thought, well, have fun with that.  Meaning the passengers, not my kids.  I didn't hear any trouble during the flight, but I learned later that Makenzie and McKay might have had a fist fight over the iPod.  At least no one knew who the parent was.

Keaton headed to school, where he discovered that most of his teachers were gone early on break.  I was pretty ticked to find that out after all hassle we had to go through to have him there.  Dave and Keaton got to the airport on time, but the plane was full!  Keaton had a seat, but Dave didn't.  The only solution was for Keaton to come alone, which he did, arriving in Orlando at midnight, and then taking a taxi, alone, to the hotel.  Believe me, that is quite an accomplishment for him.

Dave, on the other hand, had no choice but to take a flight to LA, then to Atlanta, then Orlando, arriving Thursday morning just in time to accompany us to Universal Studios.  You can be sure Dave was a jolly companion that day!

It was great fun.  We all LOVED Hogmeade.  We drank lots of butterbeer, and bought wands and Quidditch shirts.  Makenzie wouldn't let anyone help her with her wand choice, because as you know, that is a personal bond between the wizard and the wand.

After a few days there, we went Fort Lauderdale, where we took an airboat out on the Everglades (a World Heritage Site!!) and went to the beach in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.  I loved the Art Deco architecture of the shops and hotels along Miami beach.  So retro.

The return flight was about like the flight there:  Dave had to stay in Florida for work, none of us had seats together.  Boy, were we glad to get home.