florida vacation

last week i was able to travel to florida with michael and beth for a long weekend to enjoy some fun in the sun!  oh yea, and look at places to live too.  we left super early on wed and came back sunday afternoon.  the kids stayed with my parents and brother, and i thank them all very much for taking such good care of them!

joe and i took a water taxi tour of the canals in ft. lauderdale, since it is known as the 'venice of america', but i have serious problems with that statement having been in venice, ft. lauderdale does not compare at all!!  but we did see some ENORMOUS houses and even bigger yachts!  the 90th biggest yacht was docked there, it had a pool inside and a bunch of them had helicopters!  we saw a ton of famous people's houses, including the 'under construction, but probably won't finish' house of the ceo of circuit city (bad luck!).

up on the pier there were tons of pelicans!  they are really pretty birds, i've never seen them up so close!  joe, of course, had to get closer, but it made for a nice picture!

we spent a lot of time on the beach of course, since it was so nice, a little windy most of the time, but that wasn't going to keep us from the beach!  we started a nice shell collection, i've got a few projects in mind for them.  the underwater camera was fun, but we didn't end up taking that many pictures with it.  the water was really cold at first, but we were able to acclimate to it pretty quickly and have fun in the waves.  at one point, i went under a wave and was just swimming and there were some huge fish right next to me!  i jumped up to get the camera and i scared joe since i was so frantic.  of course, i also scared the fish away, and couldn't get my picture.  the water is so clear.  let's just say, there's no comparison to lake erie!

i think joe was a little bored just sitting on the beach, so we covered him up with sand.  beth had some popcorn and we put some on his stomach to see if the seagulls would eat it....they did.  it was pretty funny.  everyone around us was laughing, it was silly.  then he sat up really fast and scared them away.

there is crazy wildlife everywhere you turn!  this macaw was just on a fence post at the hotel.  we think it was someone's pet, but there are all these scary spiders with spikes, and 3 foot long iguanas everywhere, and spider monkeys just hanging out in a patch of trees.  the kids are going to love it!  i probably will not...