Many people thought (think) we were absolutely nuts for taking this trip. We have no money. We had no money in order to even create a budget for the vacation (not a smart idea, generally). We certainly had no money for a vacation, when we struggle to pay our basic bills every month. But for the past couple years, we've been praying for the money and the right time to take a vacation. We never felt like it was the right time; we basically kept dreaming and watching for good deals but we never felt a peace about going forward and doing anything. Finally, a few months ago, both of us suddenly felt like the time was right. There was still no money, but we felt like we had been given a green light to go ahead and schedule it. We'd been wanting to go to Florida ever since Natalie was born, because that whole side of my family had never met her. 

Then we got the sales call for this timeshare company called eTour and Travel. As I had mentioned when we first signed up for this, the deal was good but not unbelievable. As it turned out, this particular week we had caught up on all our bills and for the first time in a long time we had a little extra in our account. Not much, but pretty much the exact amount we needed to pay for the vacation with eTour. So we prayed about it, and went for it. This paid for the hotels but we still didn't know how we were going to pay to get down there or eat. We thought a lot about Phil's mom, who would pray for a specific amount of money for a vacation and that specific amount would come, from an anonymous person, usually the day they needed it and not a minute sooner. I started looking into airline costs, watching cheap airlines like Southwest. Finally some really great rates came - it got down to a low of about $90 a ticket round trip which is really good. We still didn't have the money for even that, and we decided from the start that we wouldn't be putting any of this trip on credit, no matter how tempting. I started praying for an amount of money to cover three airline tickets and a couple hundred for food and incidentals. The money never came, and then it got to within 14 days of our already-scheduled trip, when airline rates go sky high, no pun intended. We thought, well, the money can still come, it will just have to be more than that bare-minimum we were figuring on. Still we had no money, and we were struggling with paying for some basic things here at home, let alone going on vacation. Finally it was the week before we left, and we decided that we would just start planning on driving down to Florida. As we discussed it, driving began to make much more sense than flying, even if it meant a tough couple days being in the car. We would be much more flexible with our time, which is one of the biggest things we wanted on this vacation. We could bring a lot more stuff with us, including groceries which would save us a lot of money. It all seemed to be making sense, with one exception - we still didn't have money for gas. We felt like the timing of this trip was God-given though, so we just continued to trust. 

On Thursday, April 22 (4 days before we had decided to start the drive down to Florida), a client of Phil's came into his office and said he wanted him to do some work for him, and that he'd give him money for our vacation in exchange. (In other words, he paid him before any work was done, which is unusual, and he specifically told Phil the money was for our vacation.) Great! So now we had our gas money. We still didn't know how we were going to eat, but we knew if we had to we'd eat sandwiches, cereal, and fast food, monotonous and not so nutritious though it would be, we'd get by. We then got ready to go, set for Sunday evening sometime. (We planned on driving through the night while Natalie slept.) 

On Sunday after church, a couple invited us out to lunch. Right after we sat down, they asked us how things were going and "if there was anything we needed".  Phil and I looked at each other, and we didn't come out and say "we need money for food for this vacation" but we just told them the story about how we had gotten to the place we were with this trip and how it had already all been about faith and trust, and that God had provided the money we needed to get there, just in time. They told us that just that week they had received $300 unexpectedly, and they had felt that they weren't meant to keep it. They wrote us a check for $300 and handed it right to us, saying "Have a great vacation. You really deserve this trip." What an answer to prayer! Little did we know that was just the beginning of the blessings and exercises in faith that would come our way on this trip. We took all the money we needed, in cash, and what we had was what we would spend, gas and all. We were not going to fall back on any credit card. If we didn't have the money in cash, we wouldn't get it, and we just kept an eye on how much we spent in gas on the way down so that we would know how much to keep for the trip back.

We left that evening, well, that night, close to 12 midnight when we finally got everything packed and ready to go. Natalie was pretty high strung with all the packing activity, so she didn't fall asleep before we left, but once we were on our way she zonked out pretty quick. The rain started as we left Columbus and followed us pretty much the entire drive down, making night driving through the mountains of West Virginia interesting. Phil did a lot of that, because my night/rain vision is just not good. Packing the past couple days must have pretty much worn me out too, because for the first time ever I was actually able to sleep in the car while Phil drove. We made good time getting down there, and by around lunchtime on Monday we were in the south part of South Carolina, where we had figured on stopping for the night. Both of us felt pretty good so we decided we would try to just push on through and get to Orlando. We figured, either do it now or we would just have to get up and drive more tomorrow. We decided we would try to just make it down there so that we would be done with driving. If either of us felt like we wanted to stop, we would. Close to Georgia, we stopped at a road-side booth for "Free Disney Tickets". We knew it would likely be a timeshare scam, but we figured why not; we're already going to one tour we might as well see what this one will offer us. We signed up for a tour and they gave us two tickets to the Magic Kingdom, for free! We stopped for dinner at a buffet place in Jacksonville, and by this time we knew we'd make it down to Orlando that night, so we decided we would just plan on getting a cheap hotel somewhere and then go do this new timeshare tour first thing, to get it out of the way. (We were scheduled for our eTour timeshare on Wednesday morning.) We had stopped at a rest area and picked up a discount hotel book, and found a Days Inn right on International Drive, for $25 a night. Right in our price range, and it included free breakfast! As it turned out, the hotel had some curious lumps in the floor, but it was decent enough for one night. Upon check-in, they directed us the a service desk for information about area attractions and so forth. Which was actually a cleverly disguised timeshare sign up (for Days Inn's parent company). The lady there said, about the tickets we had already gotten for Disney, that it was really unheard of to be given completely free tickets; usually it was viewing a timeshare and payment of $40 for two tickets (still a good deal considering Disney is about $55 per ticket per day). She offered us the $40 deal. Since she put some doubt in our minds about the legitimacy of the free tickets we had gotten, we went ahead and signed up for her timeshare tour, and paid $40 for two more tickets, and we scheduled our tour with them for later in the afternoon that next day. 

So Tuesday would be a day of sleeping in, recovering from the drive, and timeshare tours. We'd now been scheduled for three timeshare tours, but we had yet to experience one so we didn't know how it would turn out. But we figured, all we have is time on this trip, and besides, these places also give you breakfast (or lunch, if going later) so that would be meals we wouldn't have to pay for or eat peanut butter. (I started thinking, here I am in Orlando and have starting thinking just like my father already!) As it turned out, the timeshare tours were not bad at all. They put *some* pressure on you, but if you can say "no" and stick to it, they don't badger you too much because they just have too many people to bother too much. If you say no a couple times, they keep lowering the rate, then they bring in the manager, who offers a cheaper deal. If you say no again, they tell you "thank you very much for your time" and direct you to a room to pick up your gift. And all the gifts we got were just as promised, including the free Disney tickets. So as it turned out, we got two days of Disney for the both of us (Natalie was free) for a total of $40.

On Tuesday night we went to visit my Aunt Darlene for a little while, then checked into hotel #2, a Radisson, which was the first of our eTour hotels. It was a nice enough room, though the hotel seemed to have an issue with their ice machines. Our floor was missing the machine. The next floor down was always out of ice, as was the next floor up. Two floors down the ice machine leaked so I got ice but had to stand in a puddle of water to get it. Two floors up was a smoking hall so I had to hold my breath as I got ice. (Since I was refilling our cooler for food every day, this bugged me. Every morning as I prepared the day's cooler was an adventure.) On Wednesday morning (April 28) we woke up to discover that the hotel didn't, as eTour had promised, offer any breakfast. We hadn't planned on paying for breakfast food on the trip, so we were a little irked. 

We had brought a couple granola bars and pop tarts with us, and some juice, so we just ate that on Wednesday morning. Then we went to Magic Kingdom. (This picture is Natalie's first experience with standing in line at Disney.) That was SUCH a nice day, from start to finish. I could write a whole two pages just on Natalie's first trip there alone, but the highlights were meeting Mickey Mouse and eating our picnic lunch out by our car. I wasn't about to go wait in line for an hour at Mickey's ToonTown to meet the character, but as it turned out, Mickey happened to just be walking by on the way to somewhere and he stopped for just a few minutes to meet kids, and we ended up being third in line because we were just there at the right time. Mickey gave her two kisses on the cheek, and she was smitten. So was I. For lunch, we planned on doing the eat out in the parking lot thing (remembrances of so many Disney lunches with my father) but as it turned out, we parked in a lane right next to a little wooded ravine, so we got our blankets and beach chairs out of the trunk and had a little picnic lunch under the shade of trees, with birds stopping by for treats and water running in a creek alongside of us. It was very relaxing, and cool in the shade, and very nice.  It was a very different experience than the lunches we had with my dad, when we'd drink warm cola and warm cold cut sandwiches under the blazing sun next to his car. The Magic Kingdom was such a great time. With the exception of Mickey, Natalie probably enjoyed the carousel (the "horses") and It's a Small World the best. She liked seeing all the dancing and singing "babies". (As she called them.) We had a small dinner snack by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and then stayed until closing, so we saw the fireworks by Cinderella's Castle. Natalie liked it how after dark the castle kept changing colors, especially when it was lit up purple (of course). The only bad part of the day was that I started experiencing some leg pain, a sharp pain right down the front of my right thigh, probably from walking all day. Sometimes it got so bad that if I wasn't holding onto Natalie's stroller, I probably would have fallen over because it struck so quick and strong. It happened off and on all day. I started thinking how once again, I was glad we were doing this trip now and not a month later into pregnancy. Those third-trimester pains were coming. Being pregnant at Disney, though, gave us a whole new, relaxed pace to really enjoy ourselves. I was used to always seeing EVERYTHING possible at Disney, going on all the big rides especially. This time, I couldn't go on the biggest (most popular and crowded) rides, so there was no expectation to see and do everything. We just did what we could and really enjoyed ourselves in the process. Natalie took a nap mid-afternoon, lulled to sleep in the cool, dark Carousel of Progress, and kept napping for a bit longer while we did the People Mover ride. She did great the whole day; I don't think I could have asked for better memories than that day. And we didn't spend a dime! (OH, except we did get her some Mickey ears - $7. They were just too cute on her to pass up, and she even has her name embroidered on the back.)

Thursday morning, April 29. We did our eTour timeshare first thing that morning, and at least we did get a couple donuts. After we got out of there, we were given our tickets to Universal, but found out that we weren't getting two passes to BOTH Universal parks, but instead two, two-day passes to ONE park. Being pregnant and having a two-year old, we knew there was no way we would possibly find ways to spend two entire days at one park, and besides, that wasn't what we had been promised, so Phil called and spoke to someone from eTour (none of the places we went were actually eTour, just places affiliated with them). Since we were upset about both the non-breakfast and also not getting two Universal parks, they compensated us by giving us two tickets to Arabian Nights dinner show. We planned on spending the afternoon at Universal (which was plenty of time to see everything we could see) and then we scheduled our dinner for the show that night. At Universal, we spent probably about as much time as we could have, which was just about four hours. Natalie rode her very first roller coaster, with Daddy. You had to be 36 inches to ride, generally age 3 and up, but our tall girl had no problem meeting the height requirement. They don't even let pregnant women ride the kiddie roller coasters, so it was just them. Natalie looked a little unsure about the whole thing before getting on and every time I could catch her expression while riding, but Phil said that as they got off she looked pretty thrilled. When they came off the ride she was all smiles and said "train!" to me as I walked up. Roller coasters have got to be in her blood. Other than that at Universal, we saw a couple shows, and a couple 3-D movies which Natalie handled well, by pretty much not keeping her glasses on for more than a couple seconds at a time. They also had a really fun play area for kids which Natalie liked a lot. (Though she has an unnatural, for a two year old I'd think, fear of bouncy houses and ball pits. She wouldn't go near them!) We were getting ready to leave, when we decided that the day was right (considering when our mortgage had gone out of our account) to go to an ATM to withdraw a little bit of money, we figured we'd take $30, just in case we needed it for the rest of the vacation. There were no Huntingtons down in Florida so we just decided to use the ATM there at the park since we'd get a fee anyway no matter where we went. The machine wasn't working. So we took it as a sign that we didn't need that money, even though the cash in our wallets was indicating otherwise. We just decided, we've trusted this far, we're not going to start worrying about it now! As we were walking up the main street back out toward the entrance, we were stopped by a lady who offered to give us two tickets to another day at Universal in exchange for viewing a timeshare. We told her, we were leaving for Daytona tomorrow, and besides, being pregnant we'd seen all we could probably see here even though we still held tickets for one more day, so we declined. Then she told us, "well, we could also give you $70 in cash." Cash? We'll be there. That was more than twice as much as we were going to withdraw from the ATM. So we signed up for Timeshare Tour #4, scheduled for the next morning.

That night, we went to our dinner show at Arabian Nights. Since we had a table with a high chair for Natalie, we got to sit in the very front row, literally a table's width away from the horses and actors. You could feel the air rush by as the horses galloped. And as the actors walked by to go up on the stage, several times they waved to Natalie, which she loved.  It was a pretty amazing experience, being that close, and the food was wonderful too - prime rib, salad, veggies, and cake! Once again we weren't forced to eat sandwiches or fast food - we were eating better than we ate at home!

Friday, April 30. We did our fourth timeshare tour that morning.  We were starting to sense a pattern, that they seem to set you up with a salesperson who has some sort of connection with you. This guy was from Ohio and he "just wanted to get us a great deal because he wanted to get his foot in the door with business in Columbus." Uh huh. They spiel was exactly the same as the other three we had heard, with only the particulars of the property changing. By now we were really getting the hang of this whole thing and we could answer his questions as if we were really quite quick. As we were leaving and stood in line to pick up our $70 cash, we got talking to a young couple ahead of us in line. They were picking up tickets to Disney. We gave them our second day of passes to Universal, so they were thrilled. So at least they didn't go to waste! Our plan for that day was to spend the afternoon at Disney's Animal Kingdom. They closed at 5pm, so that would give us enough time to get to Daytona that night without feeling rushed. We first needed to stop by to pick up our rental car, though. We had decided that we might not even use it (supposedly if we didn't use it, it's still on our account for future use) because we just didn't want to bother paying taxes on it and transferring all our stuff to another car, just to save on some mileage on my car. But we thought we'd stop by and take a look at it; if it was a spectacularly better car, we'd still take it. We went to the wrong hotel pickup location at first, but guess what we found there, in this sort of back out of the way hotel off the main drag in Orlando? It was the Trading Spaces trailer! We found out later that they were there in Orlando at that time taping a show. We were so excited - well, me in particular. Phil told me to jump out of the car and he'd take my picture.  No we didn't run into Paige or any of the other people, but we know they were there! You can tell in the picture that I was thrilled. After finding the right car rental place and deciding not to bother with the rental car (would have been $30 in taxes), we went on to Animal Kingdom. It isn't the Magic Kingdom, but we still really enjoyed it; it was a Disney-fied zoo, basically. Phil and Natalie went on the animal safari. I couldn't go because they use real jeeps that go over bumpy road, but they really enjoyed it and got to see some animals close up. In waiting for them I just walked through another animal exhibit, which I enjoyed even though it meant more walking! My favorite part of the park is the Lion King show, which really is Broadway-caliber. (Just shorter - 30 minutes long.) They use live actors and singers (not animatronics and lip synch), and the costuming is wonderful. My favorite part was the "monkeys", who were really awesome gymnasts. I felt like I was watching an Olympic performance, including rings, high bars and more (men's gymnastics have always been my favorite). Natalie also got to meet Pooh Bear, which she was excited about. This time was similar to when we met Mickey - we were walking by on the way to change her diaper (by-product of sucking down the liquids constantly in the hot weather meant we had many diaper emergencies) when I saw Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet suddenly stop in a little enclave next to the restrooms. Phil was rushing ahead with Natalie to the bathroom, but I yelled for them to come back, and we got right up to see Pooh.

After leaving Animal Kingdom, we stopped for pizza at Pizza Hut and then headed out of Orlando to our next stop, what we thought would be Daytona Beach. But first we had to stop at our eTour welcome center, which was at a resort in New Smyrna (about 30 miles south of Daytona). We got there, only to find that eTour had messed up again, and had overbooked the Holiday Inn at Daytona. We were getting REALLY ticked off about eTour now, though they had done a good job at rectifying their other blunders with us. They decided to book us for the next three nights, instead, right there in New Smyrna, at that resort. We thought, great, this place is going to be a dump and we'd been promised a place right on the ocean!  The guy checking Phil in showed him toward the back door and told him to take a listen. We were ON the beach. Our room was so much better than a room at the Holiday Inn could have possibly been. We had our own bedroom. A full living room. A complete, working kitchen fridge, microwave, dishwasher, and stove, with glasses, plates and everything we needed. And, we had a balcony looking right over the beach! So that night, we stopped by the local Publix, got a few more groceries including milk and cereal, and we proceeded to not have to spend any money for the next few days. What a blessing! So we basically spent the next few days completely un-Disneying. We sat on the beach, went swimming in the pool, and hung out in our suite, and ate whenever we got hungry, in our own kitchen. It was wonderful! On Saturday morning both Phil and Natalie slept in, so I went outside and had breakfast out on our balcony and watched the ocean. It was so peaceful, and reminded me of the time on our honeymoon that we had a quiet breakfast out on that back porch, overlooking the mountains. We all got nice and relaxed over the next few days.

Whew! That's the first half of the vacation. I knew this was going to be long. There won't be quite so many details with the next part though, because it wasn't Orlando and theme parks - it was very relaxed. :-)

On Saturday afternoon (May 1) we met up with my Aunt Jackie, Uncle Steve, and cousin Stevi up at their hotel on Daytona, which was also right on the beach. We also got to see my Great Aunt Lucille and some other family. We all just happened to have gone to the Daytona area, it was completely unplanned for us all to be there at the same time! It was so nice seeing them, and spending time with them. That evening, Aunt Jackie and Uncle Steve took us out to dinner, and Phil finally got his seafood dinner he'd been wanting to have the whole trip. Natalie zonked out right after we got our table, though, and slept most of the dinner away underneath the table! 

We spent the next couple days just enjoying the beach, although it was REALLY windy the whole time we were there and it seemed that the rain that had followed us down from Ohio was just going to stay with us the whole trip. We had yet to get some good sunning days in. (Which was just fine for when we had been walking around the parks in Orlando!) It just rained off and on, though, so we spent most of our time outside though the sunshine state wasn't living up to its name yet. On Sunday morning we found a tiny little AG church in New Smyrna so we went there. It was REALLY tiny - it met in what looked to be an older house. They seemed pretty used to having lots of visitors come through, though. On Sunday evening, we drove back down into Orlando to have dinner with Aunt Darlene. She made a big, yummy lasagna dinner, and got to spend a little time visiting with my other family too, during dinner. I am really glad they finally got a chance to meet Natalie. We couldn't stay too long because we had to drive back (close to an hour) to get to bed, but we first stopped at the cemetery where my dad and Grandma and Grandpa Zamrazil are buried. It was getting dark and starting to drizzle a bit, but eventually I did find my dad and step-mom's marker. I looked all around for my grandparent's, and by memory I had thought it was really close to where we had placed Daddy's grave, but we just couldn't find it. So I was a little disappointed to not been able to see it, but I'll get back down there again.

The next morning (May 3), we checked out of our hotel in New Smyrna and headed south yet again. This time we were going as far south as we could drive - Key West. It really didn't end up being that bad of a drive at all, and once we got past Miami and into the Everglades and Keys, the drive was really pretty. That rain still was dogging us as we drove down though! As we passed by Miami on the turnpike, we stopped for gas and potty, and just as we were getting out of the car, it DOWN POURED on us!!! We got a parking spot right in front of the door, and even with jackets and an umbrella, we were still completely soaked by the time we got in. So we spent a little time there trying to dry off a bit, and waiting for the rain to let up. It was just as well to have stopped, I don't think I could have driven in that rain anyway. Once it let up, we headed back out, and we made it down to Key West just at about 6:30. Our hotel, a Radisson, was nothing special, but it had a really nice pool, and had a wonderful view right outside of our door, overlooking the Gulf. When we checked in, the guy told us our hotel taxes might be around $30 - wow! So since we were paying everything in cash we gave him $20 to go toward that, and we'd square it up at check out. (As it turned out, we got about four dollars in return. Yay! That was a nice surprise, after having been told how high it might have been.) After hearing that, though, we once again took a look at how much money we had in our wallets and wondered just how we were going to get food the next few days, because we still needed to save at least $70 for gas going home, and gas prices were going up. And it was a LONG way to home from Key West! But, trust, trust, trust. We had been offered to take another eTour timeshare tour, in return for another 5 days in Orlando, but it had to be used up within a year and we figured with a new baby that wasn't going to happen, so we declined it, but it got us thinking that maybe we could find another company somewhere. But we decided we would only do it if we got cash because that's what we needed in order to eat. We went walking that evening (a sunset walk, which was very nice and there was a nice cool breeze coming off the Gulf), and found a couple potential places we thought we would check out the next day. 

On Tuesday (May 4) we decided to take a walk up the main tourist road, Duval Street. The rain finally went away this day and we all got LOTS of sun! We found a booth for Hyatt Vacation Club, so we stopped by to see what they could offer us. In return for viewing their timeshare, we couldn't get cash (turns out, that is an unheard of deal - no other company is known to give out cash like we got in Orlando), but we were offered something just as good - $100 in gift certificates for area shops and restaurants! We got that plus two tickets to the Key West Aquarium, which I had really wanted to go to while we were there. SO, we signed up - Timeshare Tour #5.  For this one, he asked us if we had viewed any other timeshares recently (which we had to suppress our smiles as we said yes) and he asked why we hadn't purchased. We told him flat out that we liked the idea but that the timing just wasn't right for us right now (understatement). So he didn't even go through the whole routine at all, because he could see that we knew it already. We viewed the property, heard the differences about Hyatt's plan (one of the best we heard) and we were on our way within in hour. With gift certificates in hand for some good meals while in Key West! We spent the day just tooling around, viewing the obligatory Southernmost Point, going to the Aquarium, and hanging out at the pool. (Well, I hung out at the pool while Natalie and Phil took a nap in the room.) We also stopped by Smather's Beach, just so I could put my feet in that beautiful, crystal clear Atlantic. (I was most impressed with how clear the water was down there, with the Gulf being more green and the Atlantic looking blue.) On the way back to the hotel from the beach, we went by a Benihana Japanese Steakhouse, and we decided we would make a reservation for there for dinner. So here we had thought we would be eating sandwiches and fast food yet again, and yet again we were eating better than we ate at home. 

The next day (May 5) we checked out of our hotel and after eating a nice lunch at a little outdoor restaurant called Caroline's. (I had my "cheeseburger in paradise", yes, with lettuce and tomato, heinz 57 and french-fried potatoes.) Speaking of which, we saw a couple getting married out front of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Cafe. Pretty funny. From there we started heading back north. We stopped at the Seven-Mile Bridge, which I had wanted to stop at on the way down but at that point we just wanted to get down to our hotel. It is a stretch of the old, destroyed bridge that you can walk out on, and also a little path takes you down right next to the water. I just had to get a close look at that water just one more time. It ended up being a much longer drive back up, because we decided to try to save money by not taking the turnpike and heading straight up through Miami to I-95. That was a mistake, because we hit the Miami area right around rush hour, and we probably used up as much gas as it would have cost to take the turnpike anyway. It took us close to 3 hours to make it out of the conglomerate of cities that make up the "Miami area" which all seemed to be one big city at that time of the evening. By the time we were heading north on 95, we were already exhausted. Fortunately, we had already decided to spend the night at my cousin Stevi's apartment in Daytona, so at least we weren't heading into a trip all the way home right after that headache of a drive. We made it into Daytona at about 10pm, completely tired and ready for a break. Aunt Jackie and Uncle Steve were just really thrilled that we had decided to spend some more time with them before starting to head back north, and so were we because Natalie was just starting to figure out who they were finally! They asked us to stay with them one more day, and that we could stay in their hotel room with them. We hadn't told anyone else about our tight finances the entire trip, but this time we just had to be really honest, and told them that we really wanted to, but we only had enough money left for the gas to get back and no extra for another day of food. They said "stay with us and we'll take care of you!" So, well, how could we turn that down? We spent the next day out on Daytona Beach with my aunt and uncle, and that night we had a REALLY YUMMY and fun dinner at a place called Caribbean Jack's. We ate outdoors and there was a nice cool breeze. The whole evening was just so wonderful and RELAXING. We felt like now we were (almost) ready to head back into a car ride.

Phil realized that he had gotten his back sun-striped during the day, as he was going into the shower. He came out an asked me "WHO was it who put sunscreen on my back??" and showed me his back. I laughed and said, "I did, honey, but I certainly didn't slap it on your back like that!" What he had done was, we'd gone outside and sat in a beach chair and had a hot dog lunch, after which Phil took Natalie out to play in the sand. I remember seeing him out there with her, bending over with his back to the sun for a good hour, and thinking he was really trying to get his back sunburned. Well, he did, but the chair he sat in right after getting his sun screen on took it off in nicely horizontal stripes! We all had a good laugh about it; we said, well at least the chair didn't get sunburned.

We spent the next morning (Thursday May 6) hanging out just a little more at the beach, and mentally preparing to start the drive. About this time we started packing up our stuff and getting the car ready to go. This was when I went out the balcony with Natalie, and when coming back inside, I whacked my toe on the wooden chair. (I had no idea at that time how bad it would get as the day went on - I couldn't walk on that foot very well, but it wasn't that purple and swollen as it would get by that evening!) Right before we left, as we were packing up, Natalie got really tired and she fell asleep in Aunt Jackie's arms out on the patio. I was so glad to see Natalie had gotten so comfortable with her - I know how slow Natalie is to warm up, and how she's just not the kind of kid to fall asleep in someone's arms unless she really liked being there!

We called Huntington to check our bank balance, expecting to have pretty much nothing in there after the mortgage went out, but instead we had $100 more in there than we expected! Phil checked through all the recent checks to see if something hadn't gone through yet, such as the water bill that we paid the night we left for vacation, but everything had gone through just fine. So, we decided to go over across the street to finally have an IHOP breakfast, which Phil had been pining over the whole trip, before we headed back into our trip north. So here at the very end of our trip, we still had one more unexpected blessing. We had expected to eat peanut butter and the occasional fast food the entire week and a half, but as it turned out, our vacation was two weeks long and we ate very good the whole time, eating lots of veggies, meat, and other things that were healthy for all of us.

Later on, on the drive back, Phil told me that throughout the whole trip, there were several times that when he was praying about how we were going to pay for food the next day, and God would speak to him, saying "as a sign of my faithfulness, you won't have to pay for food tomorrow". And that's always just what happened the next day. We never felt worried about our lack of money or lack of any credit card backup. Even when it looked like we'd be having to scrimp the next day, God would give us such a blessing that we just had to be surprised and amazed. It was, most definitely, a trip that was an exercise of our faith. For the past 2+ years, God has been bringing us through some pretty dire circumstances, but He told me (the first time I'd ever heard the audible voice of God) before Natalie was born to "take a step out of the boat and I won't let you sink". There have been many times that we've felt the water coming up to our necks, but we've never sunk, just as He promised me. We've always had just what we needed to get through. Now, after the last two years, we really think this trip was just an exercise in our faith. Two years ago we would have NEVER gone on a two week vacation with no money and no budget. Yes, it was a crazy idea and I'm sure lots of people thought we were nuts for going on a vacation when we struggled to get our bills paid at home. Even with Phil growing up in a lifestyle of faith and trust in all circumstances, this went even beyond what he had experienced before. Even Phil's previous "benchmark" of faith, his mother, had always figured out a specific budget amount and prayed for that amount. And they'd never driven 3500 miles on a vacation before - more like a couple hundred at that. That makes much more sense. (And everyone we tell about this vacation we also say DO NOT do what we did unless you also feel a direct leading from God to do it. It's not generally a good idea to leave home for two weeks with no idea how you are going to pay for things!) This was such a crazy, crazy idea that we know it was God from start to finish. It certainly didn't make any sense to us as we were tentatively planning this trip, and looking back on it, it makes even less sense, because we did so much more and ate so much better than we could have ever imagined!!!!

It was an amazing, unforgettable trip. I know this was a long monologue about it, but I really wrote it for our memories and so that Natalie can read this some day and see what she was a part of - she won't remember it probably, but we can help her to know about it. This wasn't just a vacation to Florida, her first vacation. It was all about faith and trust!