The parentals have been pestering us for a while to use a handful of their timeshare points and take a relaxing little roadtrip with Harper before the new baby comes [AKA "baby[#2]moon", even though anything with a "-moon" suffix surely could/would never be relaxing with a toddler in tow...]. Brian was balls to the walls from day one, but I really wasn't sure about the whole thing... I felt bad taking vacation from work when a) I'm trying to save up PTO for maternity leave, and b) I'm gonna have to ditch my co-workers for 3-ish months when the baby comes, so I feel obligated to give it my all and go full speed ahead right up until delivery day. Also, we just went to Colorado in June...and we're building a house next year and need to save money... But! We pondered and planned and planned some more, and poof! All the plans fell perfectly into place and we hit the road to Florida!
...Not into the hurricane havoc, of course, although my grandma was mortified that we'd be driving sweet, innocent little Harper straight into a natural disaster.
Harper got her first pedi a couple days before the trip; we had to make sure our toes were in tip-top beach shape!
...And then we were off! 12-hour roadtrip, let's gooo! 
About two hours into the drive, Harper's motion sickness issue reared it's ugly head after nine months of dormancy. WHAT THE WHAT! Shockingly, this [huge] pregnant momma can still bolt to the backseat in <0.3 seconds while the car kept rolling along; but it was 0.3 seconds too late and most of the damage had already been done. We were in the middle of nowhere and Brian couldn't pull over, so we cleaned what we could with wet wipes and got new clothes at a gas station when we could stop. Needless to say, Harper couldn't separate with her diva fan, so Brian and I were forced to hold one nostril closed and breathe through the other as the curdled milk puke smell circulated rull strong through the car for the next 10 hours. :/
Oh, and Harper wore her undies and made it accident-free all the way to Florida!!! ...I'm totally jealous of her iron-man bladder... [We did have one minor issue around 9pm when she announced she had to poop and there wasn't any sign of civilization in sight. I continued to coax her in the backseat of how to "hold it in" as Brian finally came up on an exit and took it, only to keep driving for a few miles down the dark road to a neon-lit sign saying, "LION'S DEN: Adult Superstore"....... A few more miles past that was a hole-in-the-wall gas station, and long story short, we made it to a PG-rated potty and Brian sprinted inside with Harper and all was swell.]
After a long! long! super longgg drive, we made it to the beach!!!
The toddler tyrant talked us into toting her creepy baby around 24/7; we literally could not escape the room without it as evidenced in half of the photos below. Brian refused to be seen in public carrying it, which left me looking like the fool who had to request an extra beach chair or highchair everywhere we went..... #thetoddlergetswhatthetoddlerwants
"Momma, ees dor-gessss! I wan' take a pee-chur!" ...I have a full camera roll of Harper's [blurry yet] prized pics. :)
Paradise! We went shopping the first night to get Brian some new swim trunks [end of the season sale, too!]. I asked the store clerk if they had any maternity suits and, after a full up-and-down eye check of my colossal-ness, she said, "Naw, you just gonna have to buy an extra lawrrrrge from over derr." Thanks, dude. [For the record, I already know I'm extra large, but I don't need swimsuit cups that could hold a bowling ball...yet.]
Love these two with all my heart!!!
We were in Destin three years ago when Harper was in utero, and we found ourselves migrating right back to the same restaurants we loved back then... The Back Porch and The Donut Hole, to name a couple!
Breakfast on the porch patio!
The beach was a little boat-ride away from our hotel, so we usually hit that adventure up every morning before washing all the sand off and retreating back to the pool...
The days came and went, and before we knew it, it was time to leave! Harper got a special footrest on the way home [a couple cases had to overflow from the trunk], compliments of her Yuengling-loving dad and all his beer-guzzling friends...
She said she wanted to stay on "vay-shen" and live at the hotel
forever, but we had to burst her bubble. I think she still had some
sweet dreams of the waves washing up and her little toes in the sand!
<3
Thanks again, Mom and Dad, for giving us these points! Y'all were right in the end: I need to be more sporadic and spontaneous like Brian is, because it was an awesome "relaxing little roadtrip" with Harper! And of courseeee, we're so so glad we had this time to hang as a family of three before all our lives change forever! :)
