Florida. Christmas. Croup.

My favorite time of a vacation is the day you leave to go on it.  Everything's neatly packed, outfits are planned, hopes are high.  We always start off strong with an airport breakfast and now with our new, improved walking version of Brixton, a few laps around the terminal. 

 

The first few days are fun too, as you realize you still have x amount of days left to enjoy before having to go home.  We've spent our first few days eating too much delicious food, playing with cousins, and wondering why Florida feels so cold when it's, well, Florida.  

And, naturally, since it's Christmas and all, we had some family time around a rowdy dinner table, children running everywhere, and gifts.  Lots of gifts.  

 This kid is a blur, even when he's just standing still.

More books?  But I wanted a Snuggie!

Towards the middle of the trip, you realize that time is no longer on your side.  The neatly packed suitcase looks like a bomb went off,  your daily outfit list is used for old gum because the temperature is about 15 degrees colder than you expected.  And so you panic.  You go to the beach.  You feed pelicans.  You try to cram it all in, because vacations never last long enough.  

On our car trip down to Siesta Key Beach, we noticed Brixton had quite a cough.  The kind of cough that makes parents meet eyes and a mother say, "Maybe we should skip this whole thing."  

But it's the beach.  The waves.  The sand.  The sand?  Ugh, I hate sand.  That would have been enough to turn around right there.  

Alas, the beach.

We didn't end up staying long.  Florida vacation times include sleeping in every day till at least 9am.  Which is fantastic.  But lunch was calling, and then closely thereafter, nap.  And that cough was ever present.

Later that evening we discovered that Brixton was developing croup, probably an early Christmas gift from the sick little boy sitting behind us on the plane from Tampa.  So that meant Saturday was spent sitting indoors, doing laundry, cancelling our New Year's day party, and dreading our next day flight.

And then, something amazing happened. Brendan had a thought.  Well, that in itself isn't newsworthy, his thought was that since we cancelled our NY day party, there was no reason for us to climb onto a plane the next day with a sick child and go home.  So, with a little bit of maneuvering on Southwest, we extended our trip.  By 4 days!  Hooray!

Which means now that Brixton can recover here, and so can I, since I am sick now too.  I have my first earache in about 25 years.  But don't feel too bad for us, we were sitting poolside this afternoon while I basked in my Tylenol Cold & Sinus high.  It's the little things, right?

Thus concludes my blogging for 2012. I hope for your sake my 2013 gets a whole lot more interesting..