day zero-the flight out

We've been planning this cruise vacation for almost a year now. A couple times it almost didn't happen, but we've been wanting to do this for so long. Right before we left, Aiden started to get really sad when he talked about us leaving, and he kept saying "I'm not ready to say goodbye". It broke my heart, but I knew he would be better than fine with my mom. Sure enough, when we said goodbye Saturday morning, the kids barely noticed that we were leaving.

I wanted to involve them in our trip as much as I could without them actually coming (I did not want to take my young children on a cruise ship for one thing, just the thought stresses me out. I also wanted it to be more vacation than work.) So I left a surprise with a little note for every day that we were gone, and we made picture cut outs of the kids that we laminated, and we brought them everywhere we went and took pictures with them to show them that they went everywhere we did.

The day before the cruise, we flew to Orlando. I wanted to arrive with plenty of time cause I didn't want any chance of missing our boat. Our flight left Las Vegas at noon Saturday, so my awesome dad drove us to the airport that morning.

We got to the airport with plenty of time, and relaxed till our flight left. It was a pretty bumpy flight, and we had a stop in Albuquerque NM before we continued on to Orlando. Apparently it's still considered a direct flight even if you stop somewhere on your way to your destination, as long as you don't get off the plane.

The sun was up and about when we took off.

This is about an hour before we landed in Orlando. By the time we landed, the sun was down and it was night time. We crossed time zones four times that day. We went to bed completely exhausted, but not before we took pictures of our cute cute kids relaxing in the hotel bed with us while we devoured pizza.

The next day was the beginning to our incredible getaway!