Our place in Florida

This is the flower I saw when we arrived at this place we stayed. It was such an answer to prayer. The night we arrived in Fort Lauderdale we drove to the place we had rented. When we arrived at about 1:30 am. I almost cried. They had said it was a "brand new luxury 3 bedroom home 1 block from the beach" it was actually a 2 bedroom fifty year old remodeled shack/bungalow, that was 4 blocks to the beach. And they also told me there was a fenced yard, washer and dryer, and beach towels, and porta crib, all of which were not there. I felt betrayed. It's was not like the place was terrible, just that they had lied to me about almost everything. It was tiny, and only had space for 3 at the dining room table - there were 7 of us. Ug.

So, at 2:30 am we repacked the car with sleeping babies and luggage and headed out to look for an el-cheapo motel for the night. We arrived at 3ish and put the babies to bed. After a fitfull few hours of sleep I awoke at 6:00 and started looking for places to stay on my iphone. Thank God for the iphone. After emailing all sorts of people. Our prayers were answered and we found the following place - for $500 less!

It was beautiful, by the time Caleb, Hannah and Kendra arrived we were nicely situated. We had even been blessed at the car place with a free upgrade to a RAV4, which Titus formulated the back to hold 2 carseats so we could all ride in it at once. That was great, because we had originally only planned to rent one car since we were going to be 1 block from the beach. This place was a mile or so from the beach, but we all cruised together in our baby-mobile.

As you can see, the place was really nice.

I took it as another sign of God's favor that there were candles everywhere and they even left three flame throwers on the coffee table :) That and the free vodka ;)

The backyard was beautiful with the pool, it was a source or worry for the kids, but we figured out ways to secure all FIVE access points from the house. In two instances, in addition to locks, we moved bookshelves in front of the doors in the kids room and bathroom. The other two had deadbolts and hurricane locks at top and bottom. It took us a few minutes to open the doors, but it was worth it to ensure the children would not drown in the middle of the night. :)

The living area was huge and sparsley furnished, perfect for running the little lads. The only problem was the intense echo from the tile flooring. Oh well, it was a bonding time for all th Hugs ;)

The whole house was beautiful, only you could tell it had probably never encountered a child before. The furniture was suede - including the white dining room chairs!

It was also so much fun to cook in such a beautiful kitchen. the only problem is that now mine seems a little drab by comparison ;)

There were lots of windows and glass doors so we could appriciate the tropical beauty (and the kids could shmear with hand and nose prints). We also went swimming almost every night. Actually, swiming is a bit of stretch. It was more like syncronized jumping and then fleeing out of the pool and running for warmth as fast as possible. But it was refreshing. Unfortunately it was only in the 60's and 70's so not really warm enough to swim with the kids in an unheated pool.

There was even a courtyard in the front for stroller parking. You can't get much better than that. :)

We just felt super blessed that we saved $500 bucks and got to stay in a way nicer place that was so much better for our needs.