Days with the Dorans

 We had such a wonderful vacation.  I do wish Joe and my dad were healthy for the entire thing, but overall it was WONDERFUL!  Packing up was quick and painless.  Of course Sean insisted on pressing the buttons in the elevator.  He was the elevator man for many during our week!  My favorite elevator experience was when a couple said they thought I was their sister!  God bless them!! :-) Though Joe was sick, thankfully he didn't have it as bad as Al did that last week.  He slept a lot and it worked its way out of his system.  The trip home was easy and not bad (since trips home usually feel so long and painful).  I drove more on this trip and we were so excited to get Pele' from Carol.  To save us time, she brought him to a stop on our way home (so we didn't have to go out of our way).  For me, this was the vacation that Carol saved!  I made a movie of pictures and videos of all our memories!  Thanks mom...

 What fun it was when I learned that one of my high school friends was down in Myrtle Beach with her son while we were!  Z had been asking to go to Alligator Adventure again (we went the last time we were in MB) and so I asked my friend Julie and her son, Ben, if they'd like to join us!  The place was not nearly as crowded ad the last time we were there and we missed the alligator feeding time, but they were still everywhere and we saw one of Morty's (BIGGER) relatives!  Jeff stayed back with my dad, and my mom and I took the kids. Though I had hoped that Sean would stay behind, he came with us.  He wasn't horrible, but he was "Sean." We did get to see a show and saw some cool animals.  Z is still obsessed with all things turtles and tortoises and I had hoped there would be a tortoise in the gift shop to get my nephew (since he was watching Morty), but they didn't have a single one!!  I ended up getting one from my favorite store~ Amazon!! ...

 One of the best things about taking our vacations around the first week of April is that we are often out of town and get to do something 'different' for our anniversary!  This year was no different.  My folks took the kids and Jeff and I went out for a night on the town. We went to this really yummy restaurant called  Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse . It was a really cool place.  The way it worked was we were each given a card at our table.  On one side was the color green and the other, red.  There were waiters walking around with all sorts of cuts of meat and when you turned your card to green, they brought you different meats to try.  When you were done, you just turned your card to red.  The food was fabulous, the wine was divine and the staff was superb!  when they found out it was our anniversary they brought us out a little something to split (even though we told them we were stuffed!)!  On top of that, another couple saw...

 As I write this, I am still about 4 pounds up from where I was before we left for vacation.  I thought that was crazy because of my runs and all the walking I did.  On one day I had over 18,000 steps according to my fit bit!  The reason though was because we ate out (albeit one meal a day) and drank out! I am not a big drinker but when you're on vacation, it's nice to have a little (or big- as pictured above) something with dinner.  Jeff always gets a tall beer when we're out and it seemed that everywhere we went his beer came with a souvenir glass!  I think the kids' favorite place to eat was Planet Hollywood.  They loved looking at all the things from the movies (I didn't like my burger there but everyone else was fine with the food).  Our favorite place to eat was where we spent our anniversary (but more on that in the next post). When we arrived, Joe said to us, "You know, I think I want to try crab legs!"  I was so excited...

This may be my favorite picture EVER! I have to say that we were a bit disappointed in the weather for our trip.  The temps were below average- in the high 60s low 70s but after spending a summer in the Polar Vortex, we were excited to get our toes in the sand again and it was a heck of a lot warmer than home! It was cloudy the first day we were there, but the indoor pool was open so we spent time there.  Sadly, it was being serviced the rest of the week... but we're so tough that that didn't stop our love for the water.  The kids spent a lot of time in the pool, 'hot water' and lazy river.  The lazy river was Sean's favorite and he went around so many times, we finally let him just go it alone (we are so lax with that fourth kid!). The sun did come out though and we were able to shed the sweatshirts and go down to the ocean.  Even with others walking around in bathing suits and swimming in the ocean, I was so cold!  I kept on my long dress mos...

 I don't think I mentioned this, but for Christmas, my mom got me a Fitbit and I LOVE it!!!  You wear it and it monitors all sorts of things; how many steps you take, active minutes you have, how many flights of stairs you take, calories burned... even how well you sleep (among other things).  Since I got it, I have literally walked or run every day (except for the day we said Goodbye to Cobi and our two travel days on vacation).  I've tried to do "A 5K a day" which is only 3.1 miles.  I am a walker but there have been mornings where sleep got the best of me and I've had to do some jogging to get to my goal.  With our schedules, if I don't exercise in the morning (and I'm NOT a morning person), I don't exercise. The first morning of our vacation, I went out for my walk.  I was so eager to start our day that I decided to run it.  It went well and I loved watching the ocean.  My time wasn't bad so my dad (a real runner) suggested we ...