Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 3 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I know it sounds a little harsh, but after spending the past few days in chilly, snowy Ohio for the holidays, we’re glad to be back in Florida.

We spent Christmas Eve day doing some last minute shopping and preparations, which included cooking lasagna (in our hotel room) to take to dinner at my aunt’s place.

Christmas Day was relatively relaxing. After church and an early lunch a few of us went to see “The Princess and the Frog,” which my daughter enjoyed (it was a very different type of Disney princess movie … I particularly enjoyed the musical score and the trumpet-playing alligator). We cooked Christmas dinner at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s place and spent the rest of the day with the immediate family.

On the 26th, we had a family photo taken at a local Portrait Innovations studio. The place was pretty small, and apparently had a 40-person occupancy limit so they were asking people to wait outside (in the cold!) until they were called. Overall it was a poorly organized way to get a picture taken, but the end result was worth it. We spent that evening at another aunt’s house to visit with my mom’s side of the family.

Sunday? More visiting with family, of course! That’s also when the real winter weather started to move in. By the time we left my sister’s place that evening a good half-inch or so had fallen (and it was still coming down) so my daughter had her first experience with a snowbrush as she helped clean off some of the cars.

The drive back to the hotel was slow due to the deteriorating road conditions. Of course, we had to take advantage of the snow once we got back to the hotel: my daughter and I had a serious snowball fight, which was a lot of fun (mostly for her), and she got to make a decent snow angel.

Luckily, when we woke up early this morning to head to the airport, it was just freezing cold and no longer snowing. The crews had done their job overnight and the major roads were clear. Once we dropped off the rental car and got into the airport, though, the “fun” began. Thanks to the two Northwest Airlines incidents, security at the airport was crazy! You’d think the airport would have been prepared, but the line was a  mess: it switched back on itself several times so it was almost impossible to find the end. Plus it went past all the other lines to check-in so people were constantly cutting through with their baggage, causing general confusion. 40 minutes later we were finally through, without major incident (although once we got to our gate and settled down my wife realized she had accidentally left an opened bottle of apple juice in her carry-on that went through the x-ray machine and wasn’t caught. Oops!).

We had no return flight issues except for the slight delay for de-icing. Once back in Florida and the 60-degree sunny weather, we heard from my sister that it really started to get bad after we left, so we had made it out just in time. To celebrate being home, we had lunch on the deck outside at a Bahama Breeze near the airport. Ahhh. And yeah, we rubbed it in for the family up north by sending a photo. Love you guys! 🙂