[MickeyEars]

Let me start off by saying this vacation was one of the best we've had. We left home on April 10th for our 20 hour drive to Sarasota FL to visit my folks. We were a little apprehensive about the drive; we've never taken the kids on a road trip; but I planned plenty to do. The car was stocked with snacks, movies, crayons, paper, books, DS's and everything else I could think of to keep the kids busy. It was 5:00 a.m. and we were out the door, the kids were super excited and didn't fall back to sleep for about an hour. We drove 11 hours the first day, with a stop in Charlotte NC for a good nights sleep and continued the following day to our destination - Grammie and Grandpa's house in Sarasota. All I can say about my kids is that they TOTALLY exceeded my expectations and had no problem with 2 days traveling in the car. We arrived at grammie and grandpa's house about 3:00 p.m. on April 11th, the first thing the kids wanted to do was change into their swimsuits and hit the pool. After a nice swim my mom cooked dinner, we visited for a while, colored some eggs for Easter and headed to bed. We needed some sleep from the drive and we knew the kids would be up early the next morning because it was Easter.

Here are a few pictures of the trip down.

[MickeyEars]

My DH took this picture as we were going through Orlando, the image would stick with me the entire trip.

[MickeyEars]

Day 2 - Easter Sunday. The kids got up bright and early as expected and found their baskets ate some candy and then were ready to do something. After we had breakfast I suggested that we go to the beach. My parents took us to Venice beach to look for shark teeth...we found 7. We had a great Easter Sunday.

The silver scoop next to DH in the picture is what people on the beach (us too) were using to look for the shark teeth. DH would go out into the water scoop some sand/shells up, come to shore and dump it and we would go through it looking for the teeth.

[MickeyEars]

April 13th was supposed to be a beach day but since the kids got a little sunburned the previous day we decided to have lunch at Cha Cha Coconut's in St. Armands Circle and go to the Mote Aquarium. We had the best sandwich EVER for lunch this day...a Cuban Sandwich with Sweet Potatoe french fries...Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!

[allirella]

Awesome! New TR. I love that your DD is wearing a sleep mask. Too cute. Cool shark's teeth finder thing.

[allirella]

Originally Posted by MickeyEars

We had the best sandwich EVER for lunch this day...a Cuban Sandwich with Sweet Potatoe french fries...Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!

I'd eat that. Yum!

Love the huge turtle/tortise!

[MickeyEars]

April 14th - Beach day. We got up ready for a day at the beach, the weather wasn't looking too good. I turned on the weather channel and it was calling for heavy storms from Tampa on up; we were south of Tampa so we decided to head to the beach hoping the weather would clear. It was raining when we arrived, but we decided to wait it out. Finally it cleared a little and we hit the beach. We purchased boogie boards for the kids, they were dying to try them out. I was surprised at how well my DS did boogie boarding, he jumped right on and rode the waves in with no problem; I told him he was a natural. We got lucky and had about one good hour at the beach before we decided it was time to head back because the weather was looking worse. We packed up and headed to the snack shelter for lunch. As we were eating the rain started. We got home just in time for the big storm to hit...this would be the only day of our entire trip that we would have rain...and boy did it rain.

[MickeyEars]

April 15th - Lunch with great grandma, souvenir shopping at John's Pass (where I took a photo of a Dolphin swimming in the Harbor) and beach time at Siesta Key. The kids would be meeting my dad's mom today for the second time, the first time was when they were babies. We met great grandma at Woody's for lunch, it's located right on the Gulf of Mexico - it was a fantastic location and I had some AWESOME crab cakes.

[tinkerbelle24]

awesome pictures.. the kids are too cute!

[MickeyEars]

April 15th photos continued: Siesta Key Beach has the best sand, it's white, stays cool and feels like powdered sugar.

[MickeyEars]

April 16th - An entire day at Siesta Key Beach, this by far was one of the highlights of the trip. This is one popular beach, we drove around for quite some time trying to find a spot to park, virtually impossible. My mom finally said that she would drop us off, circle the parking lot with hopes of finding a spot and if she couldn't she would just go home and we could call her when we were ready for her to pick us up. My mom wanted to be at the beach with us, but lives less than 2 miles away so she told us to have a great day and she'd see us later. We love grammie!...she's the best. We picked a spot; boy was the beach crowded. There were people and beach umbrellas as far as the eye could see. This would be our last day in Siesta key so we made the most of it...and I did a little side planning that was totally spontaneous!

[MickeyEars]

April 16th Continued: Grammie picked us at 4:00 p.m. We had a nice dinner and headed back to the beach for the sunset; this time grammie would be with us, grandpa decided to stay home.

[Princessbaby]

LOVE the beach pictures! Siesta Key Beach sounds wonderful! We want to hit the beach with our kids in a couple years- I'll have to keep this in mind-gotta love that sand!!

[dixie]

Beautiful Beautiful photographs and such a lovely TR-thanks so much really enjoyed this first part.

[MickeyEars]

Friday April 17th was supposed to be our travel home day. We figured traveling home on Friday and Saturday would give use 1 day to rest before DH headed back to work and the kids back to school. That didn't happen. We got up at 5:00 a.m. ready to head home (or so the kids thought) we hit the road around 6:00 a.m....but we made a side stop. Around 8:30 I said to the kids "Hey kids look out the front window...Do you see what I see?" At first there were smiles as big as could be on both of their faces, then out came the words "Mom you lied". "I lied" I replied, "Yeah" said my DD7, "you said we weren't going to WDW this trip". DH and I both yelled "SURPRISE" at the same time. We hadn't planned on making a stop at WDW this trip, but that image stuck in back of my mind the whole trip, so Thursday when DH and the kids were out boogie boarding I pulled out my phone and made some calls. When DH got out of the water for a break I let him in on the plans, he OK'd everything and I booked a surprise day at WDW to end our wonderful April vacation. We pulled into POP Century, checked in and headed to the MK. I was really impressed with POP, what a far cry from the All Stars. We definitely will stay at POP again. We had a truly wonderful last day of our vacation at the MK. Here are a few photos: