Best. Trip. Ever!!!

In spring of 2016, Christi and I sat down with the kids and we discussed the possibility of a really neat family vacation.  Everyone was super excited about the idea.  The two most popular suggestions were a cruise or Disney.  We decided it was something we could all work towards.  The older kids committed to contributing $300 each and the younger kids would contribute $150.  So without making a final decision on what we would do, everyone started working towards the vacation.  As we got into winter, the only thing we asked Santa for was help with our trip.  On Christmas morning we got an awesome surprise!  Santa was going to help us to do both!  A cruise and Disney World!!!  We were so excited.  Because of all our adoption trips to China, we had enough frequent flier miles and hotel points to fly everyone to Florida for free and to stay in a hotel in Orlando for free.  WOW!!!

We had to leave early on the morning of Monday, April 3.  Our flight left at 5:15 am.  (When you use miles, the flights are free but not convenient!)  We boarded the plane, and just before we were supposed to pull away from the gate, the pilot announced a 5 minute delay...which turned into an hour delay...which turned into everyone deplaning and having to re-book.  With our group of 11 people, they couldn't get us all on one flight. I ended up going through Houston with six of the kids and Christi took the other three through Chicago.  But we all got to Orlando that night, which was somewhat of a miracle:)

 On the plane and ready to go.  This was before we had to deplane

Back in the airport:

My group in Houston eating dinner.  This restaurant had pleasant memories for me.  Christi and I ate here on the way home from a trip we took together a few years ago.

Conner got to help his group fly to Chicago!

It wasn't a great start, but we figured something had to go wrong on 13-day trip so it was good to get it out of the way up front:)