1st stop; Fort Lauderdale

To celebrate our 10th anniversary (9-9-00) we used some of our tax return from buying our house last year to go on a Western Caribbean cruise through Princess. It was awesome! The food, the boat, the service, the shows, the entertainment, the excursions, the ports, everything was amazing! The only downers were missing the kids like crazy and badly spraining my ankle half way through and then having to be in a huge air cast (but we'll get to that later). Than's sister Sarah volunteered to watch the kids so we traveled up to their house Thursday night and flew out Friday am (thanks for the ride Courtney!) We couldn't leave Sunday and arrive soon enough to get on the boat, and Southwest didn't fly from Spokane to Ft Lauderdale on Saturday, so we had to leave Friday (yeah bummer, I know). So we rented a car, and got a hotel and had a good time. We went to the beach, drove down to Miami (which is nuts by the way) and went to the beach down there. Oh, and went to Walmart twice (no place like home!). Leaving the kids was harder then I thought it was going to be. I cried the night before we left, anticipating the separation in the morning. I cried/got teary that morning before we left, as we left, after we left on the way to the airport, at the airport, and in the air. Then again at bed time as I'd lay there trying to got to sleep for the next three days, thinking about them! I big baby I know, but we have never been away from then that long and SOOOO far away! I know they were in good hands and going to have a blast, but missed their cute faces! At one point as we were sitting in the Spokane airport waiting to board, the thought crossed my mind, "Just kidding, I can't do this, I want to go back home with the kids!" But it passed, I made it, and had a great time! As we'd see kids on the ship, or certain things would remind us of the kids, or something would come up and we'd say "Oh Garrick/Aleksia/Trestin/Cassiah would LOVE this!" we'd miss them like crazy and wish they were there with us, but over all it was best they weren't. Again, we had a great time, but hopefully our next BIG vacation is a family one! Enjoy!