With so much going on in our lives, preparing for the cruise finally came together in the last week or so. Our girls, Kristen especially, was thrilled that our friend Julie was going to come and stay with them while we were gone. Not sure if Julie was aware that Kristen had great plans-o-fun even before she arrived.
Our cruise was scheduled to leave on Sunday morning, February 9th. We were fortunate to be able to fly out on Friday afternoon to just have an extra day in Florida to explore.
I had plenty to finish up Friday morning before we left. Chris and I met with Kristen's teacher for a conference--glowing of course. Following that, Chris went for a hair cut, I ran errands and got my toenails done. One of my errands was for our ditzy landlord who had a rent check sitting at our house while he was in the Dominican Republic. He had forgotten all about it. He asked if I could deposit the rent check in his bank account! Crazy guy. He was a little disappointed when I told him that I couldn't do it on Thursday when we were gone all day long with Chris' Dad's retirement flight. Yeah, we are so done with this rental. And he didn’t even bother with a thank you. Doofus
At the last minute, we decided to stop at Arizona Tile to confirm our granite selection. It was on the way and would save us a trip in that direction once we arrived home. To accommodate that, we needed to leave at 2:15. Instead of having someone pick Kristen up from school, I decided to check her out early so that I could make sure she was home and to say goodbye. She's pretty tender about goodbyes and I didn't want to leave her without one. I picked up Kristen around 1:45 pm. We left around 2:20. She sent us this amazingly pitiful picture afterward of her sad face. I took comfort in knowing that Amy and Misha would be home shortly and would give her some love.
We were a little late in getting to the granite place, but called ahead to have them pull our slabs so that they would be ready to go when we got there. We had two groups of three to choose from. I actually liked the look of the second batch better except for the striation of peach running through it. We decided to go with the first choice. Now, off to the airport.
We parked in the garage, took a picture of our location, and sent the picture to Julie so that she could easily find the car when she arrived in an hour or so. Yep, we wouldn't even see her before leaving. It worked perfectly, but I was worried. I am a mom, that is what I do.
We crossed paths with Ken and Carli Siders. They had just checked in for their flight to Houston and future cruise. Fun that we all had the same idea of a cruise in February. After this winter, it was a welcome event. We parted as we headed off to our Ft. Lauderdale gate. Yay! Vacation. Boo though, that the two extra swim tops that I had ordered and were supposed to be delivered didn't arrive until one hour after we left. Oh well, next time.
The flight to Ft. Lauderdale was uneventful though a little delayed. When we finally arrived we quickly headed out of the airport to Hertz and picked up our SUV. I don't know that all of our luggage would have fit in anything smaller. It was nice to have. We got on the road quickly since it was already 9 pm our time and 11 pm local. We still had a 45-minute drive to Homestead, FL where we stayed at a Marriott Courtyard. We went from -10 degrees to 80. Lovely.