Our 40th Anniversary Trip--Three Mini-Trips in One!

In 1994, my parents took their 40th anniversary trip to see the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque along with a special train ride in the mountains of southern Colorado.  They had an amazing time and their photos (the old-fashion printed ones) were amazing, Within six months, my mother passed away which made that trip even more special to my dad.  It was around then that I told Gary that I wanted to do the same trip for our 40th anniversary.  He was agreeable--afterall it was over 20 years away at that point and Gary is always up for adventures--and New Mexico is not as expensive as some of my other "wished for" trips.  So we made a plan.  The first weekend of October in 2018, we would attend the Balloon Festival and do the train ride.

BUT----

then Vonette (Gary's sister) and her husband Gary invited us last fall to go to DisneyWorld with them.  Now Vonette and Gary are the gurus of Disney World vacations.  They have gone around 8 times in the past 16 years or so.  Gary and I have often said to each other if they ever invited us, we were going to go and see Disney and Universal Studios with them.  We finally had an invitation and we couldn't turn it down.  We asked them if they would consider the first week of October and they said that would be perfect as that was one of the "quietest" weeks in the parks in Florida.  So we started making plans for our expanded anniversary trip.

BUT THEN--

I realized that we were going to be close to a beach and there were no plans to spend a day there.  That is not acceptable to me so Gary and I added a day on the front of our trip to spend the evening and night at a beach in Florida.

BUT THEN--

Jessica and Elessia announced they were expecting #3 at the end of October, but they had no worries about us leaving because their boys had come around their due dates.  They even offered to stay at the house with Jena when she was not down in Provo.

BUT THEN WE FOUND OUT IT WAS TWINS--

By then tickets and reservations had all been purchased and because I had done some creative airplane tickets without travel insurance and not refundable, it would have costed over a $1000 to change our flights.  With Jessica's reassurance and support, we decided to proceed with our travel plans, make up back-up plans for our back-up plans, and hope everything worked out.  The twins were due to be born on October 8 (which was changed to October 9 because her doctor was going to be out of town the same week we were.)

AND THAT IS WHY--

Breakfast in the airport

The flat land and the puffy clouds over Florida

on September 29th, 2018, at 9:40 Gary and I boarded a plane heading to Florida, leaving Jessica eight months pregnant with twins and two toddlers watching Jena at our house.  Jessica's health and pregnancy had gone very well and we were all just hoping our luck would hold so we could enjoy our vacation.  I had one week off for the trip and the second week off to watch Liam and Zander while Jessica and Elessia welcomed the twins to their family.

It was a beautiful plan!  And it turned out to be a great vacation even though all things did not go as planned.

Travel and Photo alert--

The next several posts will be filled with travel details and vacation photos.  You may want to skip through them.  However, there is a sweet surprise mixed in with the vacation photos that you do not want to miss.  (How is that for a cliffhanger?)