Vacation: Post-Adoption Style

Looking out our room door at St. Pete's Beach, Florida

Well, it only took 11 months since we last left the house alone since our adoption of Blake, but Jerad and I were able to get away for a long weekend, just he and I...and our Lugansk adoption family, the Basile's.  It took a village to take care of the kids while we were gone, but we pieced it all together and made our escape. 

We traveled to somewhere warm, relaxing, and quiet.  Our conversation leading up the weekend went something like this:
"What are we going to do all weekend?"
"No idea...hopefully eat all our meals, warm, in one sitting, and in peace...then sit and sit and sit, then sleep, sleep, sleep.  And finally relax!"

And pretty much that is what we did.

This is how we spent most of the weekend!

This is what adoption does to you...haha   , JUST KIDDING!

 We considered snorkeling, a dolphin sight-seeing trip, a sunset cruise, and many other fun-seeking activities...but for some reason we kept ending up...here.

With our toes in the sand, not a worry in the world, drink in hand!

We spent most of the weekend talking about our kids, go figure!  Discussing this life we have chosen...being completely difficult and a complete blessing all at the same time!  Laughing.  Reminiscing about our Lugansk trip and our longing to return to Ukraine someday soon.  It's amazing how God has worked such a love for that country, in all of our hearts.

We did attempt paddle boarding one afternoon.  GREAT workout!

Jerad (aka Scuba Steve) spent most of the weekend underwater with his goggles and snorkel searching for fish, sea shells, and whatever else he brought to the surface to show us.  At one point he brought a shell up to my Cabana chair to save for Leah...20 minutes later I was jumping and hollering as a baby octopus had emerged from the shell and wrapped himself around my sunscreen bottle, very near to my leg...haha!  That was about the extent of the excitement for our weekend, which was FINE by me!

Well, except for this picture, taken on top of a resort motel, in a spinning restaurant...after 2 glasses of wine...ha!  Let's just say it's been awhile since I've had that much to drink! :)

Except for our return trip home.  It was supposed to be an easy jog to Dallas from Tampa, then Dallas to Wichita...be home by 6, enough time to unpack and see the kids.  Come back from a relaxing weekend, refreshed and ready to take on the world...ha.ha.ha.  Not with how things usually go for us...We got to Dallas to find out they canceled our entire flight because of a broken airplane (don't get me wrong, I'm glad this happened while on the ground and not at 28,000 feet)...but, there were not exiting flights until 9 the next morning.  Operation: Fail.  We did some more checking and managed to get a flight to Denver at 9 that night, then a flight, hopefully, from Denver to Wichita...if it didn't fill up before then.  We debated whether to just rent a car and drive the 6 hours home...but that was going to be the LAST option.  So we took our chances and waited around until that night to fly to Denver.  We got on that flight by the seat of our pants, literally.  So we crossed over our state again, and through the 2nd time zone, to land in Denver.  Our plane was late in landing so we had a few minutes to find our new flight and HOPE to have a seat to Wichita from there.  Luckily there were still a few seats open, so we said our prayers of thanks and took off.  We got home about 10:30 pm only to find out our luggage was lost...but at that point we didn't care.  We
just headed home...exhausted!  

All in all, we had a good trip.  The kids were taken care of and did well.  All 3 were excited to see us when we got home, which made all the chaos from our trip home worth it.  We have already started planning our next getaway with the Basile's in 5 years, when we can do it again!  Who knows?  Maybe it will be to Ukraine!  :)