A Late April Fool's Joke a.k.a Last Minute Vacation

A week before Spring Break was supposed to start for my kids, on a Sunday night, I was soaking in the bathtub. This is the only place where I can get down to the real me anymore. I had a very sudden realization. We were all going to explode unless we went on vacation as soon as possible. I called Joseph and told him about it and also coaxed him in with a line that went something like this, "We have to do this. You know me, I'm never spontaneous. If I'm being spontaneous, you know we have to do it!" Based on his own stress, my stress ,and the stress of the whole household, he saw my point and soon arranged his schedule in order to take the family on vacation in a very last minute sort of way. I spent the next morning searching for a location for us to remove ourselves to.

Since it was last minute, we decided to surprise the kids. What fun! What deceit!

I told the kids that Spring Break was going to be great. We were going to clean the house from top to bottom and get rid of at least half of their toys. Here's what I wrote on my calendar:


I told the kids we'd kick off the week by staying up late the night before. I told them that Joseph wanted to take us to a restaurant that we'd never been to before and that it was two hours away. Meantime I cleaned the house, ran errands, stopped the mail and packed like mad. I had the van clean and packed to go when I picked them up on Thursday from school and we planned to pick Joseph up from work and head out. Toledo is about two hours from our home and so once we were en route, we made the plan to stop at The Spaghetti Warehouse and break the news to the kids about the trip. I took pictures of their faces as Joseph whispered into their ears (those are on Joseph's laptop. I'll have to post them later.) Needless to say they were very excited! FLORIDA!!

We rented a cottage by the sea for a week. Florida is a paradise. We all loved it! Every time I spend time by the ocean or the Great Lakes, I get such a wonderful feeling. I come away scheming. Trying figure out how I can get myself a house by the sea. You can check with Joseph if you want to know how I have arranged to get myself one!

The beach house was on Pine Island which is on the Gulf Side of central Florida. It is part of a wildlife preserve. We were able to do lots of kayaking, swimming, beach combing, kicking back and relaxing while soaking in the rays. I feel like I found myself again! Now if I can just keep sight of me, maybe I can stay sane!

Near the end of our week we swam with manatees and visited a little island called Shell Key. Spectacular!! I've never seen the sky so blue or the sea so green. Our kids are still raving about this vacation.

I downloaded Google Earth before we went to see what the island looked like. I'll share three images from our vacation now and then some of our snap shots later.

The water is very shallow for a long way out. That's why the water looks so yellow. On the east side of the island is a marsh you can boat or kayak through.

This is the river near Homosassa Springs where manatees spend the winter months. We were lucky not only to see manatees, but to be able to get out and swim with them!

Shell Key is like a little island paradise near Tampa, Florida. A great place to go shelling.

More to come!