We arrived in the Keys on Saturday without too much incident. The trip was long as always but spread over 2 days, it seemed like more than forever. I think we’d just rather have drove through the night and gotten it over with. And why couldn’t Georgia have something worthwhile to look at along the highway? We didn’t get into Florida on schedule due to road construction and the kids needing to pee at inopportune times. We had also planned to eat picnic-style for lunch but the weather would threaten with rain and thunder.

We got into Gainesville late in the evening and stopped for the night at a Days Inn. After a [good] night’s sleep (it was as good as it was going to get, frankly), we headed back on the road onto the turnpike. There was some traffic congestion when we first got onto US-1 but we did get to Steve’s before sunset. We even had time to relax in the pool before bed.

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Tomorrow morning we will be off on our way to Florida. The clothes have been packed since Saturday. Last night, we packed more including the food we’ll need to lunch, snacks, and breakfast. I did a test packing of the back hatch of the van to see where everything will fit. Thanks to my leet Tetris skills, everything should fit just fine without blocking our view or cramping the children.

The plan is to completely pack and ready the van tonight. We will leave early tomorrow morning and meet Mandy’s mother for breakfast. We should be able to get through Kentucky & Tennessee and have lunch once we enter Georgia, probably at their welcome station. We’ll drive through Georgia into Florida and stop for the night at a motel just before the Florida Turnpike. The next morning, we’ll have breakfast and get onto the turnpike for about 8 hours of driving before we reach Big Pine Key.

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Yes, I’ve finally taken Mr. Bill down and created a brand new layout to go with our new domain. I’ll be tweaking this as I go but at least the main areas are here. I’ve imported the posts from Penguin X-ing and, I know, there hasn’t been an update since Ben’s birthday last year. I realize that I’m horrible at posting on a consistent basis so I suppose any posts here can be considered “Whenever Updates” – as in I’ll more likely updating this whenever.

Currently we’re getting really excited about our upcoming vacation to Florida. We’re going to visit Mandy’s dad in the Keys but also take the kids to Disney World right after! I’m excited as well! I’ve been close to it and stayed at one of their resorts some years ago but I’ve never actually set foot inside the Magic Kingdom. This should be an experience we’ll never forget (and yes, I’ll post about it. Geez). We let the kids on the surprise last night and it looks as if their heads will explode.

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