Only the beginning...

We did it, we made it through Christmas and now it is off to vacation land which will be Venice and Paris!  Unlike most vacation time hy where I am running around trying to finish my work-work and my home-work I did the unthinkable, two weeks of vacation at the holidays.  I've never done this before for a list of reasons: 1. I never have that much time left, 2. I like being at work at this time of year so that I can try and catch up and 3. I start to go crazy being at home this long.  Despite the time off we of course were still running around last minute trying to get everything packed in our carry on bags when it happened, I broke my favorite toy at the worst possible time - my favorite DSLR dropped from a whole two inches from the ground and broke my short lens.  As you can imagine this put me into a fabulous mood and now WAY behind in getting all of the bags into the car and off to the airport.  No worries though, we got there on time and from that point on everything really was smooth sailing.

First flight from Jacksonville to JFK = 2 hours of snacking and iPads.  It also ended with a 5 hour layover in the Delta Crown Room where we managed to keep the kids corralled enough that we didn't get kicked out - yay us!

Second flight from JFK to Paris = 6.5 hours of not one tantrum which was shocking when you consider there were no naps that day and only two hours of sleep for the kids on the flight.  We did manage to movie hop every 30 minutes and P dropped every other bite of food she tried to put into her mouth.

We made it through immigration, rechecked our bags and now for an hour wait and we were onto our third flight.  By this point Grant nor I had slept a wink, P was still in good spirits, but A was starting to have enough of this airplane business.  Thank goodness for YaYa and Grr who came to the rescue with entertainment for the next 1.5 hour flight.

We have arrived and so have our bags, now to find our transfer to the hotel which was a cold 15 minute walk to the boat.  Correction - the longest 15 minute walk to the boat you can imagine.  Picture 4 adults, 2 children who at this point can't walk, 5 checked bags, 4 carry on roller boards and three backpacks.  Once we arrived to our dock and got on the boat it was like an energy boost you can't get from a Red Bull.  It had just finished snowing an hour before we arrived, we had the wind in our hair and were entering one of the most incredible cities you can see in a lifetime.

Smooth checkin at the Hilton Milano Stuckey which is a converted warehouse across the canal from the island of Venice.  We arrived to our rooms which were upgraded and included an incredible view.

We all took quick showers, unpacked a little bit and as much as I wanted to crash after being awake for what felt like days we put our boots back on and were off to explore for a little while before heading back to the hotel for dinner.  The girls fell asleep at the table before eating and secretly I wanted to do the same thing, but we were all excited to have gotten through the worst part of the trip.