Florida Fotos

A teeny tiny portion of our photos from Florida...

The early bird gets the ... sunrise photos!

A beach routine -- filling up the Fat Tuesday drink coolers with slushy drinks from Fat Tuesday. Cheers from Christine, Jim and Mike!

Blinded by the white.... Carter poses on the first day. Yes, I'm from Wisconsin. No, I'm not a farmer but I have a "farmer's tan."

I was taking a picture of Carter and this guy rudely walked in front of my lens!

Family picture before the Everglades airboat trip -- just in case they had to search for us or identify us later!

Was all concerned about getting a picture of one of these yellow flowers. Learned later that one of every 4 is a "home" for a black widow spider! Glad I didn't lean over the boat!

Had our ride in an airboat like this one (which ended up getting stuck in the weeds). Glad them not us!

One of the gators near the boat.

Another one we spotted!

This one was part of the show with Crocodile Dundee. Look ma, no hands!

Anyone know a good dentist? Scary.

Glad there was a muzzle on this little guy when Carter held him!

Lots to do and see along the beachfront. Here is a photo op bench (from the Forrest Gump movie) at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Had excellent cajun shrimp there!

It was nice to take breaks in the AC sometimes but every time we'd see the boys play their video games we wondered why we didn't just stay in a hotel in Wisconsin. Would they know the difference?

Spent a few hours at Jungle Island in Miami. Not sure how they got those parrots to behave! Well actually, they didn't. The one took Jim's glasses right off so we had a picture without them! Silly birds!

A photo (without birds) at the entrance.

Good thing they didn't fly off with Carter's hat!

Saw lots of neat things at Jungle Island, including hundreds of pink flamingos!

Also saw unique (but gross) things like this albino alligator...

And this liger -- the world's largest cat, weighing in at something like 900 pounds.

Did you know Godzilla dines on a light salad before toppling buildings and eating people?

I don't want to know what this guy dines on. Glad I didn't volunteer from the audience!

Some unique buildings and architecture in downtown South Beach.

One of first to arrive at Sun Life Stadium for the Marlins vs. Phillies game Wednesday.

Hanging out with my guys.

Billy the Marlin mascot.

The Jungle Queen riverboat that took us on a 3-hour tour of the Fort Lauderdale canals.

I think this was the house used in filming Where the Boys Are. It was hard to keep track when shooting photos and listening to our guide. There were just so many nice homes!

Random nice home...

Another random nice home... I have dozens of these. I'll stop now!

Don't forget Mr. Rich with the new and used yachts. The used one on the left is just not big enough so he has to sell it!

Friday was a super wavy day at the beach...

Here hubby gets a face full!

Time to "wave" goodbye!

Home, Sweat, Home

So we survived the heat and humidity of Florida in August plus the hurricane season only to come home to Wisconsin's hot & humid stretch -- with a chance of severe storms tonight.

Ah well, it's good to be home!

Did you know we had a cat? Well, we still do. It's just that I didn't give her much thought this week knowing that my sister-in-law was taking good care of her and keeping her company. I can tell she missed us, though! (Our cat, not my sister-in-law. Though she might have, too. She just doesn't purr like our Sylvester.)

We got home around 7 tonight after a decent flight to Milwaukee and only a few stops on the way home to fuel up our tummies and our CRV.

We knew we were in Wisconsin when the sight of glitzy diamond tank tops and 4-inch heels had been replaced by a woman wearing a t-shirt with a picture of 2 wood ticks on her chest that read: Nice Ticks. Oh it's good to be back in Wisconsin, isn't it?

I am currently uploading some pictures and see that there are 752 of them from the week -- just an average of a hundred a day. Yikes. I guess I'll have to sift through them before I present an online scrapbook. That could take awhile!

I'm pretty confident between my camera and my friend Christine's that we didn't miss anything! And we took plenty of time to actually live in the moment and relax and enjoy ourselves. It was an awesome vacation with awesome friends! Thankfully we have one more day to recover...

And remember what it was we were doing in our lives before we left!

If You've Got It, Flaunt It

We got exposed to something today I've never seen before. Sorry, guys, this is a bit different than the topless girls on South Beach. This is something akin to the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous -- which up until today I'd only seen on TV.

We took a 3-hour tour (nothing like Gilligan's Island) on a "riverboat" called the Jungle Queen, which toured us through the water canals in the city of Fort Lauderdale. The area is appropriately called "Millionaires' Row." We saw mansions and yachts so huge I think my whole neighborhood could reside in them! Unbelievable!

There was a guy who bought a new $25 million yacht and still had his "old, smaller" one for sale for a bargain price of something like $13 million.

There were homes of famous millionaires (likely billionaires) like the Firestone family, the daughter of Dave Thomas (Wendy's restaurant), David Stern, Barbara Mandrell and some guy who has been a big owner of the Miami Dolphins and still holds 5% of the franchise.

We saw homes the had been used on the set of a lot of movies from the old Where the Boys Are to the remake of Cape Fear to Holy Man and Any Given Sunday. Then, finally, the house used in the Miami Vice series! I knew I'd see a glimpse of something from that show!

After we saw how the other half (of half of one-half percent) lives, we enjoyed our last afternoon of Florida sunshine around the pool! Hate to think about leaving. But it's time to pack. Wonder if I can fit the ocean in my carry-on!

Miami Heat

We rented a car Wednesday and headed down to the steamy city of Miami. And I mean steamy!

Our first destination was Jungle Island, a very cool (not literally) zoo with exotic and native island-type animals. Basically everything ranging from pink flamingos, parrots and birds of all kinds to monkeys, kangaroos, the unique liger and the very unusual albino alligator.

We had a brief shower, rain that is, but other than that it was sunny and quite humid. Took lots of neat pictures and even had one with us posing with parrots on our shoulders. We could have held a python, too, but no thanks. In fact, when we walked through the "serpentarium" I kept my eyes straight forward. No sense creating more nightmares for myself!

After the Island tour, we toured about Miami and South Beach and saw how the "other half" lives. Found a place to eat a big lunch and walked on the beach briefly (just long enough to see some topless sunbathers that we tried not to let the boys see!).

Our big outing for the day was going to the Florida Marlins game at Sun Life Stadium. They were taking on the Phillies. We got there in plenty of time to see the stadium, watch some batting practice, take some pictures and get situated. Then, before the national anthem was sung, it started pouring! And I mean pouring! Had a 50-minute rain delay.

One other time a few innings later, we had to "evacuate" again to get out of the rain. That's OK. We stuck it out and probably lasted longer than the few Marlins fans that seemed to attend these games. They ended up losing to the Phillies 7-2. Ah well, it was baseball!

Carter and I made the Marlins website today, though. The "official fan photographer" snapped some pictures of us before the game. I said "Are you sure you want pictures of Twins fans from Wisconsin?" And that's how he learned he was originally from Wisconsin, too. Small world.

Here's a link to the pictures (I think we're #5-#9). http://bit.ly/dAP3TS Haven't decided if we're buying one since we purchased unnecessary pictures at our Everglades thing and at Jungle Island already!

Got home after midnight. My only disappointment was that we didn't see anyone who looked like Crockett & Tubbs from Miami Vice! (Can't have everything!)

Making Waves

We have discovered that one way to beat the heat (within reason) is to get up with the sun.

This morning, all six of us trekked down to the beach and were treated to a still pleasantly warm swim in calm waters. It was awesome. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Without the thousands of feet kicking up sand, the water was so clear we finally could see the shells on the bottom, too. Pretty cool way to start the day if I do say so myself!

After we got back and had breakfast, we made the mistake of turning on ESPN -- or should I call it the All-Favre Network? Yes, we tuned it in for awhile but knew better than to waste an entire vacation day worrying (not really) -- wondering about something that could change a dozen times before our first regular-season game. He just likes to make waves (sort of our like our beach out front.) You all know where the Austins stand. We'd be just fine if the rumors were true and we could finally cheer for the whole team! And that's all we're saying about that!

Today was our free day -- as in free of scheduled plans. We played some cards during the hot part of the day. Then Jim, Carter and I took a walk in the afternoon so Carter could get a shirt he wanted, I could find a Fort Lauderdale item, too, and, most importantly, find an ice cream shop! Had some Dulce la Leche Cheesecake ice cream -- basically vanilla with caramel and chunks of cheesecake. Yum. Too bad we had to eat it fast before it melted!

Tonight we ate in and then all hit the beach again -- the other "cooler time." I didn't swim. I walked down the sandy part of the beach a mile and then walked back along the wavy shore part. Beautiful walk AND I found some shells. So my pedometer is happy and so am I!

We're watching the Twins on TV again. Seems weird I have to come to Florida in order to see them on TV. We're flipping back between the Twins-Rays game and Marlins-Phillies game since we'll be seeing that game in person tomorrow night at this time! You know baseball. Can't get enough of it.

Sort of like ice cream!

See Ya Later, Alligator

Up until today, the Florida Gators have just been a sports team in my mind. Now, they are large, scaly things with ginormous, crooked teeth and small bladders. (That one will be explained.)

First thing this morning -- after beautiful sunrise pictures I'll have to share at a later date -- we hopped a shuttle out to Holiday Park in the Everglades. Our tickets included an airboat ride to be followed by an alligator-handling show of some sort.

The airboat ride took us around all kinds of canals and routes in the tall grass of this eco-landmark of the south. I don't know where we went or how we made it back. I'm just glad we did!

At first we were cruising along slowly, looking around, then our "captain" said he was going to put some speed on "so hold on!" Well that was fine until he sort of zig-zagged a bit and I felt like we were going to tumble into the water! Now I don't mind doing that on a lake in Wisconsin where my worst enemy may be a snapping turtle. But the prospect of getting dumped into water infested (at some level) with gators and 25 species of snakes native to the Glades was intimidating. Well, downright frightening. I only screamed a teeny bit. Didn't want to call attention to myself if the gators where listening nearby.

That was the only scary, scary part. A little less scary -- but just as cool! -- was sidling up to a gator in the water and taking a picture or 2 or 3. My hands were a bit shaky so I'll be lucky any of those pictures turn out! I got a few good ones. We ended up seeing 3 grown-up gators and one baby one. Not bad.

Also saw millions of lily pads, several vultures and other native birds and, thankfully, no snakes.

Afterwards, we were treated to an alligator show where the handler was a cross between Steve the former Crocodile Hunter guy and Crocodile Dundee. He dragged a gator out of the pen and opened his mouth for all of us to see, then did some potentially hazardous and life-threatening tricks. Got pictures of that!

Then we all got to pet a muzzled baby alligator and could, for a price, hold it! We decided to let Carter and Nate take a shot at that. Apparently our northwoods smell made him nervous, because the gator peed on Nate as soon as he started holding him. Probably a good thing he has a small bladder (the gator, not Nate) because he was well behaved and house broken for Carter. Got pictures of that, too!

Yes, I can see my scrapbooking pages piling up before me. And it's only Monday!!

And that is a good thing. A great thing! OK, back to vacation...

See ya later, Alligator!

Sun, Sun, Sunday

According to the Weather Channel, it was about 80 degrees at 8 a.m. I'm not complaining!

Had a decent first night's sleep and missed our first sunrise in Florida. I'm guessing we'll see one yet! We've got time.

Was nice to relax today like true vacationers! Our goal for the day was to stock up on groceries for the week so we aren't spending an arm and a leg (albeit a very tanned arm and leg) on food. So we hitched a ride to the local grocery store.

Instead of a standard taxi, though, they have the option of trolleys for transportation. They don't run on a railway track. They have wheels but they are old trolley cars! It was pretty cool! And only 50 cents a person to ride.

Thankfully, they are big and roomy, too, because when we got done shopping, all 6 of us were carrying as many bags as we could handle. The price we pay for paying less prices. (Well worth it.)

After lunch, we had a lot of beach time. Mostly water time because it is just so darn nice. But I think I may be getting a tan line. Whoot!

Tonight we're taking it easy -- as we should. Hubby and I might be taking a walk along the boardwalk in a little bit. I say "might" because we don't want to make too many plans. We gotta fly by the seat of our sunny short pants!