Life is soooo busy!

Well we have had a busy few months. On Tuesday 4th March 2008 our friend knocked our door at 5.30 am, he and his wife were taking us to Gatwick airport. Barry's email pal had sent us air tickets and booked us into a hotel near him in Clearwater, Florida!! We arrived at Gatwick at 8.30 am and immediately checked in, then we went off for breakfast. At about 10.50 am I think it was, we went through to security. For some reason I made the alarm go off, this woman ran this thing over me and checked me but nothing, don't know what did it! We flew by US Airways, we took off a little late. We were sitting by the window, just the 2 of us, it was very noisy and there wasn't much leg room to be honest. We had dinner about 1.30 which was chicken and something, not too bad, but we did keep comparing it to the flight with Virgin 7 years ago, that was amazing, but there's no saying it's still the same! We had a very bumpy landing in Charlotte about 5.30 and had to wait to get off the plane as they couldn't get the platform to us.   We had to go through immigration and security which took ages, then we had to run to the other gate to get our connecting flight to Tampa, Florida! We made it and arrived in Tampa at 8 pm their time. Met Jim's sister, Mona, and she took us to our hotel, a lovely room. During our holiday we ate out at lots of places, we had breakfast at Biffeaters, ate at Pizza Hut, Ponderosa, Good fortune Buffet, Cracker Barrel, Bennigans, Country Kitchen, I've probably forgotten some but it was so cheap to eat out!! We saw the beautiful beaches of Florida, visited Mona's family in Bushnell Florida, Barry was very brave and drove Jim's car, we were about 7 miles from Jim's condo so he'd drive there each morning but didn't fancy driving back in the dark, so we'd leave about 7 pm at the latest. Mona came down a few times to drive us to different places. Her house in Bushnell is gorgeous, we stayed overnight there and had a lovely time being part of her family. Everyone we met made us so welcome, the 2 weeks went by far too quickly and all too soon it was time to say goodbye. Mona came down to take us to the airport. We had been told to check in about 90 minutes early, well we couldn't find our info on teh computer, so got someone to talk to, he said that the flight had been changed and that Jim should have had an email about it!! It was due to fly out at 5.15 pm but had gone about 3 pm!!! I was now in panic mode, much as I absolutely loved Florida, I was now wanting to see my dog and the kids of course lol!! Anyway, this guy got us onto a flight to Charlotte and then onto Gatwick. We didn't have long before we had to go through security, so said goodbye to Jim and Mona, which was very emotional. This time we went through the security thing that blows air onto you, I had never seen this before so had no idea what was going to happen, I almost jumped out of my skin!! Barry stopped it working somehow! We made our flight though and had about half hour to spare before getting our connecting flight. We didn't sleep on the way back, it was just too noisy, I wasn't impressed with the food again and the breakfast was awful. the flight attendant we had wasn't very happy either, the guys on the way over were amazing, but this one was very sour faced and almost like a robot when asking "Tea, Coffee, juice, water?" to everyone at 5 in the morning! We landed at Gatwick at 8 am and waited ages for our luggage, then went through customs and had to wait for our friends to pick us up. I loved the palm trees in Florida and must have gone on a lot about them as Mona and Lisa gave us some lovely gifts of glasses, windchimes, necklace etc with palm trees on!! We would love to go back but it's going to be a lot of saving up, so have told the kids that for our anniversary and christmas we want money to put towards it. We'd definitely stay in the same hotel as it was plenty big enough, the shower was amazing and there was a little 2 ring hob, a coffee maker and a toaster. We are both extremely greatful to Jim for getting the tickets and paying for our accommodation, there is no way we could have done this trip without him and we can't wait to go back and see them all again sometime!!