Road Trip: Panama City

We had a great road trip to Panama City, Florida. I brought along my friend Angela and her son. Angela had a lunch date with her biodad whom she hasn't seen in 18 years. She has wanted to have a relationship with him and this opportunity may have opened that door, he called her later to tell her that he wanted to keep in touch as well.

We met up with Kathy and family from Cassel Crew. They brought out some beach toys and kayaks. My kids are not familiar with kayaks so it was a new experience for them. Hop onto Kathy's blog, she tells what we all did together. I have to say that when we have gotten together with Kathy's kids, all the kids have played well together. It would be nice if they lived closer! We hope to have another meet-up in the summer.

Considering the number of kids I had on the trip and the distance we drove, the kids did really well. I had all the older kids do their own packing. I told them to pack something for swimming several times.  The place we stayed at had several indoor pools and outdoor heated pools.  I told them this several times.  For some reason Michelle chose not to pack something to swim in. She was able to wear her shorts in the ocean but was not able to swim in the pools. I considered it a natural consequence and it didn't impact anyone else. The only other child who made some bad decisions was Anthony. He learned that testing on a road trip still has consequences.

Lessons learned on this trip: good condo prices can be found off season, the weather can be beautiful off season, the beach is empty off season, travelling with a friend is great but I miss my husband, , I need to work with my kids on safety (they didn't understand why I wouldn't let them run out to the van alone), it is possible to find your way without a GPS (ours disappeared), a good road trip can help you get out of a funk, friendships can be formed online when you share challenges, sometimes no plan is a good plan (we didn't have firm plans when we headed down, just meet-up with Kathy), squeaky shoes are a necessity when travelling with Benjamin and Benjamin is a real bed hog

The following are a bunch of pictures from the trip (skip them if you don't enjoy pictures!)