Our Last Week in Boca

We were graced with the presence of my PARENTS! Bailey counted down for weeks for the day they came. And it was so great to have them here and see them relax... Actually, my mom doesn't really relax. She rocked and did everything!

Addie's Beauty Salon (call for appointment) services offered:

Manis Pedis and lipgloss

Best part of the week was spending hours across the street...at the beach...

Bailey and Gram cuddling in the sun. Such a sweet moment I had to capture it Life sized game of candyland. Melt. My. Heart.

Treasure hunting in the tide pools

Lovers on the beach Bailey wins the prize for best swimmer

She could charm anyone away from their book in the sunshine and into the cool waves

Adeline wins the prize for best "teenager"

All she wanted to do was pose in the sand, lay out, and maybe touch her toes to the water

This is my dad...and how I will always picture him..."swim trunks" on, mask and snorkel in hand, walking into the ocean

Of course, my mom and I got a little shopping in too!

A perfect week to end the perfect trip. Love you Boca. Miss you.

The Intracoastal

A close business asscosiate of John's lives here in South Florida and offered to take us for a ride through the intracoastal (a canal system that weaves by homes offering easy boat access to the ocean).
We went from his home in Hollywood, Fl to downtown Miami. Chris was a great captain! He even let the little kids drive

Downtown Miami from the water

The whole trip took about 4 hours. I parked it on a cozy chair and didn't move much. It was perfectly relaxing. I reluctantly got up for a group shot.

Side note: Sorry this trip has not been blogged like last years to the Philippines. It's been pretty unintersting. Just lazy days full of golden sunshine, glassy pool and crystal beach. I didn't say boring, I just said uninteresting!

Fan Boat

The day after we said sad good byes to our dear Jolleys, we said a happy hello to the wonderful Thatchers.
On a day that seemed a little stormy, we decided to head out to the Everglades and take a fan boat ride through the swamps to check out the crocs.
Bailey found herself a big feather that she is pretty proud of As we waited for the boat, we wandered this little "museum" on site

Austin is funny

and brave

The boat

How we love the Thatchers! Not pictured: their 6 month old Finn. We found out just before getting on that he wasn't aloud, so I stayed off with him. (Steve, Tate, Charis)

Croc sitings

And beautiful scenery Check out the storm that came in. Glad we weren't at the beach!

Such a fun time for all!

Gumbo Limbo

Why am I so behind on blogging? I have all the time, just none of the giddy up. Lazy begats lazy and I AM LAAAAZY these days. Not to mention, it's a pain uploading pictures to blogger. Anyone have answers to that?

Anyhow, just down the street from us is a sea life rescue spot where you can check out who and what they are saving these days. I don't know why, but it's called Gumbo Limbo.

Austin and Michael were highly interested in what the guides had to say and tested their knowledge with some pretty good questions.TurtleAfter the aqariums, we wondered a butterfly gardenBailey was being grumpy and wouldn't say cheese, but the frown is super cute too.At the end we got to play on plastic sea life. I had to throw this pic in there because not one of the peeps I'm trying to picture is looking at me

Miss Thang striking a pose

Thank goodness this place was free. It was fun, but did not knock our socks off.

I will try to catch up on my blogging- If there's nothing good on HGTV

The Keys

Earlier last week when it was a little windy in Boca, we decided to make the 2 hour drive to check out The Keys. The northern most Key is Key Largo. We had high hopes mainly because it's the first of many tropical places named in a famous Beach Boys song (you're welcome, you will now sing it all day).
It was LAME-O! The beaches (which were few and far between) were small and rocky and the water was mucky. We only lasted about an hour at the first location. (The highlight was playing on this cannon)

We moved on to Islamorada (the next Key) which offered a fun place to feed fish and birds

Even Miss Mckinnley was brave enough to fist a fish and throw it out

These fish were MASSIVE!

And the pelicans were tame enough to pet
That turned out to be the redeeming feature of the day. I asked a gal working at a souvineer stand about beaches on that Key. She refered me to a "great" beach that was "big" and "sandy"

In this picture, I am standing on one side of the "big" beach and you can see the parking lot on the other side. It was more sandy than the Key Largo beach, but not much better.

It was nice that you could walk out 200 yards and the water wouldn't touch your waist

The kids still had fun playing in the shallow sand

And we got a little pose from Addie and Maddi just as the sun went down

We stopped at a yummy Mexican restaurant before making the trek back home. Fun day, but not anxious to get back to the Keys. (Although we have heard that it gets better the further south you go)