Weekending and tryna get to Florida!!- spring break part 1

We had a nice weekend at home as Alyssa's spring break came to a close. 

Friday, Alyssa and I left the Sunshine State. Don't let the nickname of the state or the literal state of beautiful sunshine in this pic fool ya- two of the days we were there were very non sunny days but it was all good. I will write more about our time in Florida later. 

Heading on a plane to take us home Friday morning...

It's always so good to be home!

We brought the (relative) warmth of Florida home with us. Friday got up to 70 degrees! It was lovely. We've had a few fairly warm days in 2026 already so we'd spent a little bit of time outside on the patio prior to Friday. On Friday, when Donnie got home from work (a little early to catch the Miami/UT basketball game), we spent time spring (it was actually spring 😀) cleaning the patio and Donnie took the covers off of the TV and the arcade machines. Alyssa filled the outdoor refrigerator with drinks.

Alyssa helped me make homemade pizza so we had that for dinner and sat outside to watch Miami's basketball season come to an end. Aww, it was a good run for the Redhawks!!

After dinner, Alyssa and I ran to the store for snacks for a movie (ice cream for us, a salty snack for Donnie). I finished my ice cream and then I was out! The movie wasn't that good (some Jason Straham movie) and I was dead tired so I went to bed half way through the movie. 

Saturday morning, I ran an errand with Alyssa and then I got to work cleaning up the house. It didn't look too bad but the housekeeper had the week off last week (haha) so it needed some attention. 

Alyssa had a nail appointment and while she went to that, Donnie and I had a "date" at Sam's Club. So much stuff!! It had been a long time since we'd been at the store together. 

We bought steaks to grill but la petite fussy one said that grilled steak didn't sound that good (how??) so we decided to eat at Olive Garden.

I got the manicotti- wowser, it was a lotta ricotta. I ate barely half and saved the rest for Sunday.

When we got home, Donnie watched basketball outside while Alyssa and I played ping pong. It was a beautiful evening and perfect outdoor weather!

My SIL texted me Sunday morning that my niece's high school show choir team had won the state championship for their division! The finals were Saturday night. So proud of my niece and the entire show choir. Shameless brag about my niece- she was the only female soloist so while of course the entire team must have done a wonderful job in order to win, my niece's solo performance must have been really good 😁. She plans to attend a small Christian college and study music ministry. I love that she's using her talent in furtherance of the kingdom!

Sunday morning, I ran (the first time in over a week- I took a break from running while in Florida) and only felt a little rusty! When both kids woke up, they both informed me that they'd made Little Clinic appointments Sunday morning due to not feeling well. Both had trouble sleeping the previous night- one had a very sore throat and one had a very soar ear. They had unwittingly made appointments within fifteen minutes of each other on Sunday morning. Both kids are adults and didn't need mommy to take them to their appointments but we kicked it back like it was 2010 and I told them I'd take them both; no one objected. Neither had fevers but they both needed antibiotics which we picked up on our way home. Got them and Donnie coffee at Bigby after we picked up the prescriptions.  

We watched church online and then Alyssa had to get packed up. Her boyfriend picked her up to take her to Columbus. I'd planned on taking her but he was going that way and Alyssa told me that he'd take her back... so he did. That gave me a few hours back of my day! Donnie and I watched the Purdue/Miami game (happy the Boilermakers won) and then I went inside to read. 

Regarding getting to Florida, I'm going to back up to last Friday, March 13th....

We weren't sure we were going to make it to Florida.

(Aren't we cute in our matching dresses??)

We made it there but the process was not without some stressors... Because writing about stressful things is what I do best (or at least what I, for reasons perhaps only a professional could unpack, I enjoy writing about), I will detail the issues here.

While for some people wanting to travel the weekend into Monday of March 14-15, the weather would have been the biggest impediment. (Indeed, Alyssa found out that several people whom she knows who planned to fly out Monday morning could not due to the weather.) For us it was something different.

On Friday the 13th, Alyssa and I spent a fun afternoon shopping at Liberty Township. We didn't get a lot but what we got we liked so that was good. At some point on Friday late afternoon, as I was mentally preparing things that we'd need to bring for our trip, I recalled the need for our IDs to be RealID compliant to fly. My driver's license actually isn't RealID compliant, but last year when I flew after the mandate for a Real ID to fly was in effect, I used my passport. On Friday, I asked Alyssa if she knew if her driver's license was a RealID. (Her passport is expired so using a passport wouldn't be an option for her.) She said she had no idea. I was hoping but kind of thinking it wasn't. The last time she flew was last year on spring break which was before the RealID mandate. Uh-oh! We looked at Alyssa's driver license and realized that she didn't have the RealID designation on her license. Welllll, that was a problem. You can't fly without a RealID.

Then I solved the problem (or so I thought!). The DMV was open Saturday morning and we had all the paperwork to make her driver's license RealID compliant. We could get her a RealID Saturday morning.

Problem solved! Until I realized that nowadays at the DMV when you get a new license, you don't actually walk out of the license branch with a new driver's license card. You get a piece of paper with all of your information for your license. That is what you use if you get pulled over and need to show an officer your license. The plastic license card gets mailed to your house within seven to ten days. We wouldn't get Alyssa's license card that's RealID compliant until after our trip. I looked up whether having the paper from the license branch (that said her license was Real ID compliant) would satisfy TSA's Real ID requirement. The internet told me a paper from the DMV would not qualify as a RealID compliant document. 

So we were back to square one. No RealID for Alyssa and she needed that to fly. TSA's website addressed what to do if you arrive at the airport without a RealID. You can pay $45 to TSA and have them "try" to verify you via some other way (the other way was nebulous). The process is referred to as the TSA ConfirmID process. So maybe Alyssa still could fly?  TSA's website said there was no guarantee someone would be verified/be allowed to fly If we pay this money.  The website gave very little other information about whether it was likely that paying the $45 would allow her to fly. I asked the internet the question and found myself on an interesting Reddit forum. Basically, everyone on Reddit reporting having no trouble flying if they paid the $45. It was interesting reading and got us hopeful that Alyssa would be able to fly. I paid the $45 and used Alyssa's email- an email was set to her phone that she would present to a TSA agent and then the agent would "try to confirm" who she was- I guess this costs $45 (haha!). TSA's website didn't say anything about bringing other types of ID to help in the ConfirmID process. In the event that other ID would be helpful, I brought with us to the airport Alyssa's SS card, her birth certificate, proof of residence (basically everything we needed for the DMV to give her the RealID compliant designation for her license) and Alyssa brought her driver's license and OSU student ID card. I hated to travel with her official documents like her SS card and birth certificate but I wanted to do everything to ensure we got to Florida...

So, do you need a Real ID to fly? Absolutely not!! I mean, that's good news, insofar as not everyone who wants to fly has a Real ID. TSA justifies the $45 fee for the TSA ConfirmID process in this way, "This fee ensures the cost to cover verification of an insufficient ID will come from the traveler, not the taxpayer." Ok, that tracks. However, from what I learned from Reddit and from our own experience, paying the $45 was nothing more than us extending our wrist out to the government (proverbially) and getting it lightly slapped (also proverbially) for our mea culpa of Alyssa not having a RealID. You see, no attempt at any other verification took place! Here is what happened:

Alyssa had on her phone the TSA email confirmation that we'd paid the $45. When it was her turn in the TSA line, she said to the TSA officer working (bless every TSA worker who was working at airports because I don't think TSA agents are being paid right now due to the government shut down) that she had paid the $45 and showed him the email which showed that we'd paid the $45. The TSA agent beamed at her, "That's wonderful that you've paid it already!" he exclaimed. He then processed her drivers license in the same way he did any other person's ID. He also handed her a piece of paper, sort of like a placard, which stated she didn't have a RealID and told her to give it to another TSA agent who was right there facilitating the next step in the security process. That agent patted Alyssa down and swabbed her cheek and that was it. She was through security. 

We were super relieved, of course! The $45 fee for ConfirmID/slap on the wrist is good for ten days so we wouldn't have to pay it again for her to fly home from Florida. I don't know why her driver's license wasn't a RealID. The only thing I can think of is that when she got her license at age 16, DMVs weren't offering them? When she got her drivers license at 16, I would have had all the paperwork necessary to make her license a RealID so I think I would have done that had that been an option? I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. She was able to fly and it only cost us $45 extra and a decent bit of stress (though like I said, after reading the Reddit forum on the subject, I felt a lot more confident that she would be able to fly). 

The last little bit of stress (really more of an annoyance) was when I received an email from Allegiant Airlines a few days before our departure reminding me that our trip to Punta Gorda was coming up. Uh, Punta Gorda? That wasn't our destination! We were going to Fort Myers Beach.  Did I mistakenly buy tickets to the wrong city in Florida? I went to Allegiant's website  and selected Fort Myers Beach as a destination and I saw that it was labeled Punta Gorda/Ft Myers Beach. So I had bought tickets to the right place... I'd just focused on Fort Myers Beach and completely forgot about Punta Gorda. Except that I shouldn't have because Punta Gorda was actually where the plane was going to land. Punta Gorda is almost an hour away from Fort Myers Beach. UGH! Had an expensive Uber to FMB due to how far the cities are; there is a closer airport to Fort Myers Beach but that is not the one we flew into. It turns out that the Punta Gorda airport is an Allegiant only airport? I'd never so much as heard of the concept of an airline having its own airport. 

I am generally a fan of Allegiant Airlines. Sure they nickel and dime you for everything but flights to Florida on Allegiant are always nonstop (unlike ones typically from non discount airlines who for reasons that are unclear to me almost always have a stop in Atlanta or Charlotte prior to landing in Florida) and the base price is generally quite reasonable. Of course when you add in fees of bringing a bag and an expensive Uber ride to your destination, you likely haven't saved too much money!! And you definitely fly with PWWP (people who wear pajamas) as part of their normal(/daytime) attire but I've never flown with anyone unhinged so... I'll keep flying with them especially when my destination is Florida. However, in the future, I will verify that the airport I'm flying into is no more than 1/2 hour from the town where I'm staying.  

All right, enough complaining/explaining about getting to Florida. Tomorrow I'll hopefully have a recap post :).

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday: