-26* to +24* in three hours

A terrible night's sleep from Huffle and I but the kids slept beautifully. The alarm went off at 2:45am - not nice. I woke the boys up. I can't believe how quickly they got themselves dressed (bit different to a school day). Huffle wanted us to be in the car by 3am and we managed 3:05am due to the fact that I couldn't get the front door to lock, thankfully in the end it did. We had packed everything in the car last night and when we got in the car my phone wouldn't switch on due to it being too cold. The temperature was -20* (feels like -26*). The car (we went in Huffle's) was very sluggish and slow and the heater took for ever to get going. It was soooo very cold.

By the time we got to the airport car park we were toasty warm and then we had to reluctantly ditch our coats, hats and gloves and walk to the monorail. Everyone's teeth were chattering but at least it didn't take us long to get inside where it was warm again. Huffle had done all of our online checking in etc so we joined the bag drop line, only to be told that we had to print out our baggage tags. Out of line and back to the machines showing it each of our passports and then back on line to drop our bags. Except that you don't drop your bags, you get them weighed and then take them with you to US border which is in the Canadian airport. Luckily our queue was much shorter than the Canadian queue. Our border official had a sense of humour which is helpful at 4am. He tried to copy our accents, talked about football and laughed when I said 'Orlando' in a British way! After being fingerprinted and photographed (not the kids) we went and dropped our bags off and joined the customs queue where we met Craig Revel Horwood (or a lookout/soundalike).

Out of the four of us, they chose me to be swabbed (I must look more dubious) and then the machine randomly picked out Smallest to be searched. They swabbed him instead of searching him and we went off to find some breakfast. Starbucks was the only place we could find open at that time. Just before 6am we boarded our little plane. Three seats each side of an aisle with very little leg room and we watched the sun come up as we took off. The boys played on their gadgets (no films for us today).

Smallest's 'smelly' basking in the sunshine on the plane.

One the plane there was one toilet for the whole plane (obviously not including posh section), which caused a little amount of trouble towards the end of the flight when everyone decided they wanted to go at the same time. I only go if I really have to (not a fan of those small spaces especially when as soon as I get in there, the clouds decide to be very bumpy) and the rest of the family waited for landing.

We found our way to baggage claim and picked up our bags easily and then went to get our hire car. A bit of a sales spin on trying to sell us every kind of insurance, toll pass, extra bigger car etc etc and then we were on our way. We were all hungry so stopped at a diner place. It wasn't great but it was okay and they were nice people. Huffle then took us straight to a beach where we donned our shorts and sandals and plonked ourselves right down.

The boys went straight into the water even though it felt really icy to me. The waves were huge (quite big Mrs Rumbleskins) and were knocking the kids over. No-one else was in the water and we later found out that there was quite an undercurrent there which is probably why no-one was swimming (though it really was cold in there). It was quite cloudy but still lovely and warm and then it started to rain. Then it got heavier and we decided to drive the 1.5 hours to our house and pick up some food on the way. The traffic was horrendous but we found it in the end. Smallest looked at it from the outside and said "this is the worst holiday home ever, I at least expected two floors!". The cheeky monkey. Once he got inside and found we all had a room each and we all had a bathroom each and the pool was heated, he decided it was the best place ever and wanted to live here for the rest of his life.

We popped to the supermarket for food and a kindly man packed our bags and then walked us to the car with our trolley. This made Huffle very uncomfortable and he said "I can take it from here" but he insisted. He even put the bags in the boot, so Huffle felt obliged to ask him if he should tip him. The man said not to feel obliged, it was just part of the service. Huffle edit - for those who know Larry David it was Definately one of those moments.

When we got back we all went into the pool. It was lovely. We played for a while and then got out and had a quick bite and a drink and then all had showers. This was a rigmarole as I had only brought one bottle of shower gel due to the fact I thought we had one bathroom between us. I ran between Small and Smallest's bathroom passing things to and fro. They put their clothes away and Smallest ended up in Small's room watching his TV (but he wasn't allowed in the bed!!!).

It has been a very long day and we have been up for hours and hours. I hope we sleep tonight.

 

Posted with Blogsy