The Three Bryants Go On Vacation

Scott and I decided to take a vacation together and we choose Palm Beach & West Palm, Forida, as our destination. We picked an extremely nice resort and decided to take our extreme 2 year old with us! I will be writing abut our vacation in several posts. I have a terrible, horrible memory and I can never seem to remember all the details of the vacations we have taken in the past, so I want to record all of the memories. For some reason I didn't get any great pictures of the resort, you can view a slideshow here http://www.thebreakers.com/pop_up_slideshow/ We stayed at The Breakers in Palm Beach. It was BEAUTIFUL and the service was so nice! I highly recommend it!! It was actually very kid friendly, with tons of activities for older children to participate in.

Let me make a disclaimer here: I am not a very laid back, go with the flow person. If I am going to travel, I need to have a plan and think things through, etc. I must have a bag filled with countless Germ-X wipes, a Tide Stick, a bib, and extra pacis and lovies, and outfits at ALL times! I admire so many of you who load up your many children and just wing it. I am not that way. This gives a little background for a few of the adventures we encountered along the way.

We left on a Monday morning and flew to Ft. Lauderdale. This sweet thing did SUPER on the plan ride!! I have been very anxious to fly since having her, and the Lord gave me a peace and gave her a quiet! She watched movies and slept through the flight. We only have one minor meltdown towards the end.
We had to drive about an hour from Ft. Lauderdale to Palm Beach. We cut our trip short with a pit stop at Wendy's. (I am not really a fan of fast food either) This girl was in FULL screaming mode in the car and she wanted "chicken nuggets and french fries!" So we obliged and then continued to the hotel. It was already 7:00pm before we got in and settled, so we decided to take a little walk around the HUGE property. Hollyn LOVED playing in the hammock, walking and galloping all around like she owned the place!

Hollyn soon discovered the Kiddie Pool, or "my kitty cat pool," as she called it. I explained to her that technically the pools were closed, since it was dusk. I let her know that we could swim all day tomorrow. That was really not a great explanation for her. She wanted to get in the water NOW! "Let me put my feet in!" "Let me put my feet in!" She suggested. So I thought that would diffuse a meltdown and we could agree to that negotiation. She PROMISED me that she would just sit on the side and put her feet in. Well, why in the world would I believe my 2 year old?

I should have known it was coming, based on this picture.... She is so thinking about it....
The next thing I know, the dress is off and Hollyn has jumped into the pool. Now, don't worry because it is a baby pool and it is probably only a foot and a half deep. She could touch the bottom easily. So I was truly ok with her jumping in. Except she looked at me and got SO tickled by what she had just done that she couldn't stop laughing. She ran into the middle of the pool and literally fell all the way under, dying of laughter. She soon popped up and stood. Then she lost it, down she goes laughing all the while. So on the third time that she went under, I heroically jumped into the tiny pool to save her.
Even though it was shallow, my pants were soaked and her non-swimmer diaper had exploded. She got a great kick out of pulling one over on me. So we find a towel, and I take her diaper off so we can go to the room. Well, this doesn't go over well with her. Now she is MAD!! I am dripping wet, holding a naked child who is thrashing and screaming like a wild bobcat! We have to walk across the large property and into the hotel like this. Did I mention that EVERYONE else is now dressed to the nines and going to fancy dinners right about now? And we are taking a screaming bobcat up four floors to go sit in our room until she goes to bed 3 hours later?? This was the end of Day One.