The personal highlight of my trip was meeting my favorite blogger–Kelle Hampton.  I have been following Kelle’s blog since someone sent me the link to the birth story she wrote about her daughter, who has Down Syndrome, like my brother.  About a year later, she was the guest judge for a photo contest that I had entered–and she chose my photo as first place out of nearly 1,000 entries.  I ended up writing her an email after just to thank her for taking notice of my photo and to tell her a bit about myself and how we had a few similarities in our lives.  

James’ parents live about an hour from Kelle.  I had a few minutes while we waited for our flight out of Rochester last week, so I sent her a quick email asking her if she might want to get together.  In my head, I knew that she has so many people that write to her and hundreds of comments daily on her blog.  I didn’t even think she would write back, let alone actually meet with me.  

But she was all for it. . . so James (he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity) and I and the boys packed up the car and drove an hour to meet her.  It was lovely–and she is lovely.  And I’m so glad that I found the courage to write to her in the first place.  

I also wanted to tell you how wonderful the Tampa airport is.  While the drive was about two hours from where we were in Cape Coral, the airport was wonderful.  Obviously, this is based solely on a great experience, and I’m sure there are many others that might argue, but it was great for us.  There were two large children’s play areas on either side of the terminal.  We were at the airport about two hours early, and the time flew by for us because there was something for the kids to do.  It wasn’t crowded at all, and it was clean, and we even had a great view of the sunset.