Anybody need a vacation?

[you may notice a slightly new look - as I learn about blogger and all it has to offer, I expect lots of changes ahead in the look of this blog.  Plus I love rearranging furniture in the house and changing things around pretty much everywhere I am involved, so I bet I'll be doing that here too.] 

Birc and I have been lucky enough to go on some awesome vacations since we've be together.  Our families like to visit a lot of the same places and we loved finding that out about each other when we were getting to know each other.  There's only one tiny setback we seem to encounter when we travel: Birc DESPISES flying! I think he experienced a bad flight about 8 or 9 years ago that has scarred him for life.  It is about all I can do to get him onto the plane. :) I've actually recently found myself a little more nervous than ever before, so his fears must be rubbing off on me.

Our first time to 'vacation' together took us to Naples, Florida for my cousin Stephie's wedding.  We had a fabulous short little trip and he got to meet all the fam on that side of the family.  He got to go golfing with all the boys, and I was treated to a spa day with the bride and the girls.  It was super nice and a pretty easy first travel experience together. [He hid his flying fear really well and I actually had no idea at this point-he was just sitting by me sweating bullets I later heard. Hah!]

For our next adventure, Birc's family decided to head out to Sedona and Phoenix for a big family trip.  I was thrilled to be invited, and it's on this trip I got to know his sister and her family more.  We spent a couple of nights in Sedona in a log cabin-type hotel, and explored the quaint town during the day. We then we drove to Phoenix and stayed in the Arizona Biltmore which was super nice.  Birc and I got to take a SEGWAY tour (!) and the whole crew went shopping and swimming, and ate ourselves into misery each night. 

Over a year later, Birc's parents thought a beach trip was the perfect way to start the summer and we agreed! We headed to Destin in late May and stayed for a week in a condo on the beach and pretty much laid on that beach the whole time. Which was wonderful!  We went shopping one night, and saw some movies in the evenings after yummy dinners, but we just relaxed on the beach reading for the most part.  Only bad part about this trip was I ended up with a pesky heat rash all over my neck and inner arms.  I discovered 5 days is about my beach limit. 

A year later, [and much to our happiness] Birc's family took a huge family vacation to DISNEY WORLD! Which, coincidentally, is both Birc's and my favorite vacation spot in the world.  His sister's family went, his parents, his granddad, and his uncle.  We had an absolute blast getting to finally go and do all the things we'd been talking about since we met! It turns out that Birc's family loves WDW almost as much as my family does, and we had so much fun getting to experience it together for the first time.  We had great food, stayed at the Beach Club onsite, and loved it all.  The only thing that was not completely great was the dreaded RAIN.  It rained poured EVERY DAY we were there for at least 5 hours per day.  Bummer, but it did not slow us down.  We just bought ponchos and dealt with it the best we could. 

Shortly after we returned from WDW was when Birc proposed, so we knew our next vacation would be our honeymoon!  We decided to go to the Bahamas and stay at the Atlantis Resort.  We had the best time finding our way around the expansive resort grounds, laying on the beach, and eating super yummy food every night.  We had great weather and even got to swim with the dolphins one day! We joke (although, seriously, it'd be nice to do) about going back with our kids for our 10 year anniversary.  We'll see about that. :)

Most recently, we've just returned from a wonderful trip back to WDW with my parents! My family had thrown around the idea of going on a big family vacay in October/November of this year, but when we got the news of our little bean on the way, we knew we couldn't travel that close to my due date.  So, we moved up the trip and planned the whole thing about 2 weeks before we arrived in sunny Orlando! [notice I did say sunny, and no it did not rain this time, except for those 30 minute afternoon showers that cool everything off] We had a super time exploring the parks with my parents from dawn to way past dusk every day and tried to pack in every single thing we could in the time we were there.  I'm pretty sure I'm still catching up on my sleep from that one [and my parents are too!] Going to WDW while prego was really different, as I couldn't ride any of my favorite rides this time.  I did, however, savor the yummy food and goodies a lot more than I had in the past.  I'm pretty sure Birc bought me a tub of popcorn every day we were there.  ;)

I can't wait to take Savannah on vacations with our families.  It is something Birc and I talk about all the time, and we're crossing our fingers that she doesn't have a fear of mascots or anything so she'll love WDW as much as her parents.  [I do have a child at my job who is extremely scared of mascots, and when we took her to Chuck-E-Cheese, she cried, started shaking, and almost broke out in hives when ChuckE came out to greet us.  Hopefully Savannah does not take on this fear.]  Who knows where we will be on our first vacation as a family of 3, or when in the world it will happen, but we are excited about it and can't wait to share all the places we love with our daughter.