Never road tripping with toddlers again, or Our Florida Vacation

We arrived home from our 10 day Florida vacation on Sunday night, after a LONG 12 hour car ride. Have you ever drove 800 miles with 2 toddlers?? Never again (at least that's what I told M). Our vacationing caravan included: me, M, Little Man, Mushie Face, my mom and dad, my teenage sister A, and my 2 year old brother, G. 5 adults, 3 toddlers, 2 cars.

We left Thrusaday the 17th, drove for about 10 hours and stopped over in South Carolina, about 60 miles from the SC/ GA border. Day 2 involved driving for about 6 hours though GA and into FL til we got to Orange Lake Resort, "home" for the next 6 days. The resort was FANTASTIC!! Lots of pools, a lazy river, water slides, sand, playgrounds, live music, a Polynesian luau. The kids had a BLAST. Unfortunately, mama forgot to put sunscreen on herself and suffered 2nd degree burns on her back :(

We visited Disney World Magic Kingdom and the kids experienced the magic. Little Man was enthralled by Cinderella's Castle, he watched Mickey and friends sing in a parade, and he made us ride Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride twice. Mushie Face danced to the music, fell asleep on It's a Small World and threw her paci into the river on Jungle Cruise. All in all, Magic Kingdom was a success and we look forward to a future Disney vacation in a few years.
We also had the pleasure of meeting up with some of M's family that lived about an hour from our resort. Many of them met our tots for the first time and it was so heart warming to see Little Man take to his great grandparents so well.

Our drive home entailed a 12 hour drive from Orlando to Atlanta where we visited more family and another harrowing 12 hour drive home on Sunday. And while I think the kids did okay strapped in their car seats for so long, I don't think we will be doing a road trip like that for a few more years. The near constant, "I get out", "I wanna snack", "I wanna watch...", "I get out" was a little too much for this pregnant mama to take (especially when nursing painful burns on her back).

We've pretty much fallen back into our routines now that we're home and we're looking forward to a somewhat quiet summer of swimming, parks, grilling at MeMa and PePa's (Grandma and Grandpa's), and preparing for our upcoming homebirth. Thursday is a midwife appointment and we're hoping to hear this baby's heartbeat. These 17 weeks have seemed to fly by and it will only be a short time before baby #3 makes his or her entrance to the world.

Hair Makeovers...

For the past 3 or so years, I've been growing my hair out. It was going fairly well, as a matter of fact, it was WELL below my waistline. There were just a few problems:
1~ I couldn't *DO* anything with it. My style options were very limited. I lived in ponytails. If I wanted to "style" it, it took FOREVAH!! because of the length and weight of the hair.
2~ The bottom half was pale blonde from when I was dying it and the top half was my natural color, a more darker blonde/ brown with some blonde and reddish highlights. Wasn't the greatest thing to look at when my hair was down.
3~ Showering took a long time because washing and conditioning my hair took a while.

So, in the name of simplicity and just being plain ole tired of my hair, I cut it. Here are some before and after shots :) Now my hair is all one color, it's HEALTHY (no split, dried, processed ends), and it's so EASY!!! It takes SECONDS to wash, and only minutes to style. A little spray curling gel, a little fluff of the fingers to curl, a couple seconds to straighten the bangs, WHALAH, DONE!!