Fort Lauderdale Vacation

We were so blessed to be able to go on a vacation to Florida! We left Erie on the 26th of April. Our flight was delayed a half hour!!!! Yay! Great way to start off vacation!

Emily and I on the plane from Erie to Philly!

Andrew! So excited to be on his first plane ride!!!!

A view of the clouds below!!! So nice to be above the clouds and see the sun!

Andrew enjoying the view out the window of the plane. Of course the first thing he sees are the little cars. It was so cute!

Safety First!!!! Andrew observing the manual for safety if there is a problem on the plane!
(I was having problems getting the pictures to upload...so I have to fill you in a little here.) We were to have an hour and a half when we landed in Philly to make our connecting flight. Well, we left Erie a half hour late....then, when we got to Philly, they made us circle for a half hour....By the time that we landed....ran to catch a bus transport to get us to the gate we needed to be at, ran to the other end from where we were dropped off, we missed our connecting flight. We made our way to the customer service. As we are standing waiting, an employee of the airline came by and said that we could go down to the ticket counter. There were ten people down there and only three upstairs. Mind you there are about 30 people in front of us. So, a group of us proceeded to go down tot he ticket counter. Ummmm PROBLEM...we had left the secured area. We now do not have a boarding pass, and there are not places down there to get food. UMMMMM there is no one there to help us. Whatever happened to the "10" people we will never know. Finally a lady came out to "help" us. We had to rebook for the next morning. Then we were given a coupon for a hotel at 78 dollars!!! WoW what a help that is especially when all of the rooms were booked! Hmmm now what do we do? We can't get back up to the secured area for food. We have no clue where we are, and we have our two precious children who are waaaayyyy past their bedtime. We walked a little bit and tried to find WiFi..then, we finally found an airport employee who helped us the most out of anyone. She directed us to a Mariot that was connected right to the airport.....Ugghhhh that was full as well. In the end, we ended up getting a shuttle that took us to a Ramada..It was pricey, but we were willing to pay what we had to in order to get our children a place to sleep. We caught the 10:00 flight the next morning!) DO NOT FLY INTO PHILLY if you can avoid it....ohhhh and the airlines gave us nothing for this :0)

A view from the hotel room in Florida!

The moon reflecting off of the ocean one evening!

The outside of our hotel at night..

View from the hotel!

Another view from the hotel!

These little guys were all over the place. The Iguanas that you usually see died during their cold winter this year. A lady was telling me that they were literally falling out of the trees dead.

Enjoying the beach in front of the hotel!

Emmy with the bucket and shovel!!!

Emmy and Daddy at the playground...we walked here a lot! I see that the picture of Andrew didn't come through either....sorry!!!

Emmy in the hotel room playing with brother's hat and the beach ball!!!

Daddy and the kids on the water taxi. We took a day trip on the water taxi with the kids. We really enjoyed it!

This was an awesome playground on the beach. We went here the day that we took the water taxi!

Andrew loved this playground and asked to go back later in the week, but we didn't get back there as it was too far to walk!

Ahhh the palm trees!

The Ocean!

Mommy and Emmy at the beach!

Waiting for the Water Taxi...we got to see the Pelican come in for a landing!!! Do you see him?

One of the many homes in the Inner Coastal waterway.....

Another beautiful home!

One of our stops on the Water Taxi...someone had caught this shark. Very impressive!

Another stop during our ride on the water taxi. I was in a Starbucks. Andrew had found this interesting chair!

Emmy and Mommy spent a lot of time just walking the beach. Emmy loved to walk. She would carry the bucket over her arm like a purse and go visiting with other people. It was really cute!

Enjoying Vacation as a family!

Emmy with her bucket and shovel!!!

Andrew with a full sifter!

Daddy and the kids in front of the hotel again...of course!

The picture of Emily...she is sitting in the closet while I was packing reading a book!

Andrew and I on the plane headed home :0(

View from the plane of the entrance to the Inner Coastal Waterway!

The Ocean from the plane!

More clouds!

The Family on our way back to Erie.....

HOME SAFE AND SOUND!
We are so thankful for a safe and wonderful vacation!!!
Hope that you enjoyed this. There were so many other pictures to post, but of course had to pick and choose!!!!!