Back from Vacation

I admit I was a little nervous about this vacation. There are 14 in my family 6 children ranging from 22 months to 15. How are we going to keep them all entertained? There are also my parents who don't like to sit. We are on a tropical vacation where I want to get a tan how am I going to manage that if we go all the time. I also wanted to keep this an inexpensive vacation but memorable for the boys.
So the start of the vacation usually sets the stage. Let's start at the beginning. Thursday started off great. I dropped the boys off. and went shopping for last minute items at Walmart and Target. I had lunch with Sherry. I got an aqua massage.(loved it!) I dropped of my camera cards at Walgreens to have back-up discs of all my pictures. Very relaxing and took a lot off my list of things to do. By 4 I was mostly packed. We were on the road before 6. As I am driving and Brian sleeping I am counting suitcases that I saw go out the door and I assume into the trunk. I only remeber seeing 3 plus the two carryons. Yep we forgot to grab the suitcase out of Campbell's room. The one that I had finished packing on Tuesday! So 5 minutes from Interstate 35 (going this way to make sure all roads are clear of flood water) we turn around. Brian called his dad and I thought they talked about him meeting us but where? Brian never said. Well we met in Grundy Center Welcome center and started our trip all over. We get to Des Moines and get a call from my dad saying the exit to our hotel might be closing due to flood water, take an alternate route. We barely know where and when I call and talk to my mom I swear we are having two different conversations. Just give me the road numbers please because we are on the exit you said and that doesn't match the rest of the information. We made it and we made it to the airport. The next day at check in we will pay $12 for a lap child and be on our way. Yeah, RIGHT!
We now have to pay tax and handling. They are going to need to call to get the price. That will be $249 please. Uh oh what happened I just lost your reservation. Hold on let me get someone else over here. We are going to need to call and see what happened (Check in has now been 45 minutes long starting at 4:30 a.m.) Hey guess what they gave me a different price for the ticket. The price will now be. . . $152 (that made my morning!)
No more excitement on the trip there. Jamison liked his first plane ride. No one tried to throw us off. I'll give more later but don't want to bore you to death.