Cole's First Vacation (Part 1)

"Look out Florida, here I come!"

We left Thursday morning for our 2 week excursion to Florida and Georgia. We have been looking forward to this trip since before Cole was born, and agonizing over all of the details and preparations for weeks! There is so much to plan when traveling with an 11 week old baby, but I think we did a pretty good job. So far, everything has been great! I'm going to try to blog little by little over the duration of the trip so that I won't have so much to post when we get home.

Thursday morning we left Corpus at 6:30 a.m. and drove all the way to Pensacola, Florida! The entire trip took about 13 hours, including the stops. Cole was a trooper! He slept almost the entire trip and didn't even seem to get restless in his car seat for all of those hours. We got him out a couple of times for diaper changes and feedings, but mostly he took bottles in the car so we could minimize the number of times we had to stop. When we got to our hotel that evening, I was certain he would never fall asleep, but sure enough, he went to bed right after his bath and slept about 6 hours before waking again.

The next morning, Cole met his Aunt Jessica and Uncle Jason (Jeff's sister and brother) for the first time and got re-acquainted with Grandpa and Gigi!



For those of you who don't know, the reason we went to Pensacola was to attend a ceremony at the Museum of Aviation. The very plane that Jeff's dad flew in Vietnam was being moved to the museum, and my father-in-law was asked to speak at the dedication. His dad was the co-pilot of this OV-10 when Lt. Pete Russell, the pilot, was shot and killed during a combat mission. My father-in-law was able to pull the plane out of a nosedive at 35 feet off the water and land it safely. Lt. Russell's family was able to locate the plane a few years back and began a mission to have it restored and moved to its rightful place at the museum. The dedication was a wonderful tribute to Lt. Russell and Jeff's dad did a fantastic job with his speech! Jeff and I were so proud and thrilled that we could be a part of this momentous occasion. If you've never been to the museum, it is a really awe-inspiring, incredible place, and we just couldn't believe his dad's plane was going to be a part of history for visitors to appreciate for years to come!