Lauren and Nick decided to take a vacation together in June of 2007. After much debate, Clearwater, Florida became the destination of choice. Lauren, being the super anal planner that she is, took over. Though she will give Nick credit, he did find an amazing hotel to stay at.

After months of planning and dreaming about a wonderful week at the beach, it was FINALLY the day before their departure. Lauren had booked their flights on a website, and so she signed on to print their boarding passes. Only when she went on, she discovered that their flight from Pittsburgh to Cleveland (which was connecting them to Tampa, Florida) had been re-scheduled and they were going to arrive in Cleveland 2 hours AFTER their flight to Florida left! Needless to say, panic ensued and Lauren frantically called the airline to find a solution. Nick found a direct flight to Florida leaving Pittsburgh the next day and decided to book it. Laure therefore canceled their flights to Cleveland and from Cleveland to Florida, saying they would book something else.

Of course, flying never goes smoothly. Lauren and Nick's flight was delayed approximately 4 hours, causing both the develop headaches and backaches waiting for the plane to arrive in Pittsburgh.

Finally, they arrived in Florida. In a rush to get to the shuttle that would take them to baggage claim, Lauren managed to trip and fall and make a complete idiot out of herself. But she reminds Nick that despite falling (woooooah!!), she did manage to not drop and break her cell phone.

Much to their surprise, their rental car had been upgraded to a Hyundai Santa Fe (Lauren's dream car). Thus began a very nice vacation.

The hotel was beautiful and located on Treasure Island, a quiet little place about 45 minutes from Clearwater Beach. The shore wasn't packed, which was nice. Lauren and Nick unpacked and had dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant the GPS system Lauren's dad had loaned them found. A walk on the beach concluded their first day in Florida.

Lots of fun followed. They did a walking ghost tour of St. Petersburg and spent days lying on the beach. Wednesday was spent at Busch Gardens, Tampa. There was hardly any crowd, so Lauren and Nick didn't spend much of their day in lines. They even got lucky and walked straight on to their inverted coaster. Though Nick was disappointed because the new coaster was closed until the following weekend. Busch Gardens, Williamsburg has a similar coaster, and Lauren and Nick are planning on taking a short trip down there this summer.

Their last day in Florida was spent on a private boat tour. They were taken to a reef and given snorkel gear. They went shelling and actually brought home about 15 sand dollars they pulled out of the sand themselves.

Once again, disaster struck when they arrived at the airport to go home. Apparently in canceling the flights down, the flights home were canceled as well. Argh! They were forced to buy new tickets and wait at the airport for about 6 hours to go home.

When they got back to Pittsburgh Nick insisted on going directly to Walmart to print their pictures. This took forever, of course, but they have a beautiful album of pictures from their trip.

It was an incredibly memorable week and the first vacation Lauren had had in years.