And so the vacation begins!!!

Months ago after we began planning this trip, Mom called me as she was working on booking her plane ticket. She knew it would be best to fly into Jacksonville, and I told her we could just pick her up on our way down since we'd be driving right through there. She said she could get a much better deal if she flew in to Jacksonville on Friday instead of Saturday (when our house rental began). She said she had enough hotel points for free hotel rooms on Friday night if we wouldn't mind coming up a day early to pick her up. Start vacation a day early? Sure!!! So we left on Friday morning and pulled into the JAX airport just as she had landed. We met her down at baggage claim and had some VERY excited grandkids!! :)

Can you see Jacob and Callie practically tackling Tutu in the distance??

Tutu got a BIG hug from Caleb!!

We got checked into our hotel (early - thank you very much Marriott!!) and then had some lunch. It began raining pretty hard so we headed back to the hotel room where Caleb and David had a good nap. The other kids and I hung out with Mom in her room. We had all kinds of fun plans but the rain sort of squashed those. So we just laid low and when the rain finally stopped in the late afternoon, we drove down to see First Baptist Church of JAX (HUGE church where David's old minister of music from Bellevue is now) and then the water!

Of course, I told the kids just to put their feet in - NOT to get wet. This is how Jacob came back to me! :) Soaking and dripping wet. That kid.

I had to get into the car topper to get him some dry clothes since he was a sopping mess and we were planning to get dinner somewhere!

Josiah looked up and saw me on top of the car and thought it was hilarious!! :)

We headed back to the hotel after dinner and got to bed! We knew tomorrow was going to be a big day!! :)