In the beginning of July, we went with Valerie's family to the Florida Keys for a week long vacation. It wasn't the most ideal time for a vacation for us because we were moving to Michigan less than a week after returning, but the vacation had been planned prior to knowing about our move. It was good to get away nonetheless, and it was great spending time with family. The group included Valerie's mom, dad, sister Christie, brother-in-law Andy, nephew Drew, and his friend Harrison. We rented a house on Marathon and also a fishing boat that could be docked on the canal behind our house.
Brandon loved playing on the boat.
Here are some pictures of a boat trip we took with the whole group:
Brandon and his Mimi.
Brandon and Uncle Andy.
We also spent time in the pool at our rental house.
Brandon's birthday was just a week later than this trip, so we celebrated his birthday there.
He loved the emergency vehicles on his cake!
There was another special thing about this cake. We found out the sex of our baby a few days before leaving for the vacation and decided to use Brandon's cake to reveal the news. I had them put either pink or blue icing in the middle of the cake. We skyped with Krzysztof's parents during the cake cutting and revealed that we are having...
a little girl to the extreme delight of the grandmas!
Brandon enjoyed the cake.
He got a little messy, but didn't get too crazy with it.
Fishing was definitely one of the most important activities of the trip.
Most of the fishing was done in the deep sea with just the men aboard due to the rough seas out there. I got to go fishing twice closer to shore, and it was so fun! I was catching fish within 1-2 minutes of throwing my line every time, which makes me very happy because I'm not a very patient fisherman (fisherwoman?). I also was the only one to catch a grouper. It was unfortunately not quite big enough to keep (and that's not the grouper in the picture by the way!)
Like I said, the men did all the deep sea fishing, and the first few days they didn't have too much luck. Two days before we left, however, they struck gold. They came back with 5 tuna, 1 mahi mahi, and they also caught a big barracuda (which they didn't keep).
Needless to say, we ate well that night and everyone except us went home with enough fish to fill the freezer. (Everyone else could drive home, and we didn't think it was smart to risk arriving home to find all of our clothes smelling like fish.)
Here are the proud fishermen!
Cleaning fish was another activity that took up a lot of the men's time, especially after that big catch!
One of the days when most of the boys went fishing, the rest of us went to the beach.
The second time I went fishing, Krzysztof took Brandon to the 7-mile bridge for a walk.
One of the most memorable things we did was a swim with the dolphins experience. Well most of us, anyway. Apparently dolphins are a risk to pregnant women, so they didn't let me near them, and my dad opted out of the experience since he did it in Mexico a few years ago.
It was still fun to watch everyone. There is my sister Christie going for a pull with the dolphin.
And here is Krzysztof giving their dolphin a massage.
During downtime at the house, Papa's iPad was a great entertainer for Brandon. It's amazing how well someone who's not even 2 can operate that thing.
Here's another cute picture of our happy boy at the house! Not much entertains him more than wearing someone else's shoes.
After we finished our week on Marathon, the 3 of us went with my parents to Miami for the night. We stopped to feed the tarpins before leaving the keys.
We also stopped near the Everglades. This was at an awesome fruit market called Robert's Not Here. They had great tropical fruit smoothies and all kinds of fruit you've never heard of or seen before.
Then we went to an Alligator Farm. Touristy as it was, it was pretty neat to see so many alligators and crocodiles in the various exhibits and to see an alligator wrestling show. An interesting fact we learned is that the everglades are the only place in the world where both alligators and crocodiles live in the same habitat.
The highlight of the Alligator Farm was going on an Airboat tour, which is really why we went there in the first place. It was so much better than we even expected. We had to wear earphones because the boat is propelled by a really loud exposed automotive engine.
The scenery of the everglades was beautiful, and the driver did several fast 360 degree turns which made it fun.
In Miami we went to dinner at a really good Cuban food restaurant with my dad's cousins. (Even Jimmy Buffet knows that everybody has a cousin in Miami!) We stayed at a beautiful hotel on the harbor.
The next day we went to the Miami Seaquarium before our flight back to Kansas City.
It was a great week, and we are so thankful for that time with our family.
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