hi all!

miss me???

I've been on vacation....well, as much vacation as one can have when you're a mom and you've rented a house on an island!

So...

We rented a house a house on Marco Island, FL. Where is Marco Island? Boy, can't tell you how many times I was asked this question!

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Marco Island is located south of Naples, Florida...off I75, just before you take a sharp left and travel over Alligator Alley. It's a wonderful little island, not very big, but with beautiful beaches. It's warm year-round there, and the height of tourist season is in the fall and winter. Traveling there in the summer is better (if you don't mind the temps in the 90's and a lot of humidity) because it's much less crowded, and the prices are much more affordable.


Okay - enough "commercial" about Marco Island! Since we were gone for 10 days, I'm going to break our vacation down day by day, and post some pictures to go along with each day. So without further ado, here we go!!!

Day 1 - Monday:

We left South Carolina at 6:00 a.m. Scotty really wanted to eat at IHOP, but we wanted to get some driving time under our tires before we stopped. We drove until 8:30 a.m. We couldn't find an IHOP where we stopped, so we ate at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. As always,there was good food. But the service was poor, we had nasty bathrooms (no paper towels, most stalls without paper, toilets unclean, sinks clogged and dirty). We bought the kids Sixlets for snacking.

They played DS and watched movies in the car. Unfortunately, the DS was not fully charged (even though mom reminded the owner to please put it on the charger) and we lost the cable for the car charger (really need to see if I can find just another cable, have everything else), so once the DS died, they were stuck with movies or looking out the window....how utterly BORING (or so we were told!). Our plan was to stop for a picnic lunch we'd packed, somewhere after we crossed into Florida. As we got close to lunchtime, the weather was uncooperative, rainy and thunder/lightning. We opted for McDonalds outside Jacksonville (to the south) instead. After that, we drove straight through (with bathroom breaks, of course) to Marco, arriving around 6:30 p.m. After unloading car, we ate our packed lunch as supper instead. Dad and kids jumped in the pool while I went to gather some groceries for our week. After I got home and put the groceries away, I spent some time in pool with kids and Scott. Everyone tired by 8:30 p.m. which is actually past Scotty's bedtime! We all got out, dried off and in bed by 9:30 p.m. Of course, I don't have any pictures of this night, as we were still packed (just unloaded!) and I didn't feel like digging out the camera.

Our plans for day 2 were to beach it in the morning, and pool it in the afternoon...will share that tomorrow!!