Travel Adventures..

The drive to Florida is 21 hours! It's the exact distance to CA.  I have been driving to CA and flying my entire life.  But I've never been to Florida. We decided to break the drive up.  We left Saturday at 5 when Richard got off work and stopped at my moms for the night in ft worth. Sunday we drove 10 hours and crossed TX, LA, MI, and into Alabama. Monday we drove 7 hours to Tampa FL were my sister lives.  The drive was beautiful! We drove pretty much down the edge of the states as we followed the Gulf of Mexico.  We even passed the Mississippi River.  A lot of our drive  consisted of trees.  I believe in Alabama we drove through a tunnel that went under the Gulf of Mexico.  Our highlander has three rows.  Normally Cooper sits in the very back by himself.  Allison sits next to Beckett.  Because grandma came with us we put both big kids in the back.  It's been over a year since they last sat together and let's just say I was so over our trip in the first few hours of bickering! We were handing out spankings for fighting.  For example, Cooper if you don't stop you will add another spanking to your total and when we stop next you receive your spanks.  If they were quiet for thirty minutes a spank would be taken off. Ugh!!  So Richard and I decided to switch people around.  We put Beckett in the back and moved Alli in the middle. Heavenly silence!!!  We  don't stop often when we drive.  In fact we try to correlate meals with gas stops. We made excellent time to FL! We drove into town at 6 and ate dinner with my sister and her family.  I got to hold my twin nieces for the first time.  After dinner we walked to a park by there house which has a large lake.  It was a sweet reunion and perfect way to begin our vacation!  I had my camera packed at this point so the picture quality isn't that great from my phone.