YEAR IN REVIEW – JANUARY 2005 – VACATION PART 4
Miami, Everglades, Ft Lauderdale, and heading HOME!

After disembarking the cruise ship, we met some friends from Miami at the Miami Zoo and enjoyed an afternoon of fun playing, sightseeing, riding a train around the zoo, and eating! Above Nathan is showing off his teeth which he likes to do lately and he’s enjoying his first solo slide. Below Joshua is showing off his very red tongue and lips after eating a slushy.

The next day we went to Billie Swamp Safari which is an Indian Reservation in the middle of the Everglades. The first activity was an alligator demonstration. Several in our group were brave enough to hold or touch it. After the alligator show we went on our safari where there was an ostrich that tried to peck at everyone. You can see all of us with cameras leaning over the side to try to catch a picture, but then when it came closer everyone was scooting to the other side of the bus.Next we went on the airboat ride through the everglades where our most exciting sight was an alligator who came right up to the edge of the boat! We all wore earplugs except Nathan. We brought headphones for him knowing that he would probably take earplugs out.We stayed the night in a Chikee Hut which was quite interesting. Here are pictures of inside and outside the Chickee Hut, sunrise, sunset, steam coming from the water in the early morning, and a cool lily pad.You can see how close the swamp is to the chickee huts. There is a wire fence that runs under water between the huts and the swamp to keep the alligators out. It really is just out there in the wild.

Below, Tim and Nathan are out enjoying one last nature walk before heading out of the everglades. Later today we’ll head back to Ft Lauderdale for 2 more days on the FL coast before heading home. Amanda was our “official” navigator. She has directed us through all kind of traffic while in FL. I would trust her to take a road trip anytime! She has a great sense of direction especially when being guided by a talking GPS (LOL)

One last trip to the beach before heading home. It’s a nice warm 90+ degrees here in FL. We spent some time on the beach and the kids and I also went kayaking while Tim was out deep sea fishing. I had planned to go kayaking with the kids while Tim’s folks were out on the glass bottom boat tour, but they wouldn’t let Amanda take one of the kids in the kayak with her since she was under 18 and 3 of us couldn’t go in one. So, we waited until Tim’s mom got back and she agreed to go with us. Emily rode with her, Josh with me, and Amanda by herself. We were quite a sight to see. Some of us couldn’t stay out of the bushes! Kayaking ended up ranking in the top 3 favorite things of this trip.Luggage…. it’s everywhere. We had so much luggage it was embarassing. We each only had one bag and a backpack, but STILL it was a lot of luggage. Next time we’ll have to somehow find a way to cut down even more… if there IS a next time that is. Some of us enjoy traveling more then others of us.THIS IS WHAT WE CAME HOME TO. Almost 100 degrees difference in one day. That was a shock to the system. As soon as we saw the weather I think most of us would have been happy to get back on the plane and go ANYWHERE warm…. even if it did mean packing a lot of luggage.