Florida 2013 Part 6

You are probably wondering when these Florida posts are going to end! :-) (I mean, 6 parts! Come on already!) Well, I have news for you! This is the last one! Aren't you excited to read about my conclusion to our vacation???

Well, on Friday, April 12, our last day in the Keys, we packed up and drove to Leigh Ann's Coffee House for breakfast. Kara and I split a cheese danish and a cinnamon roll that had pastry dough instead of regular dough.

 For those of you that don't know, a cheese danish is filled with cream cheese whipped with powdered sugar. Not some sort of savory cheese.:-) Both of our breakfast items were delicious! And yes, that is my ever present journal, trying to catch up on all the latest events. :-)

 After breakfast, we drove to a "few" gift shops. Corinna got her souvenir at one. She got a fuzzy pink stuffed animal starfish with colorful swirls on it. It also has big eyes and a mouth. She calls it her "sauw-fish." It sounds kind of like "selfish", but it's pretty cute. At another gift shop, Darin got a small dolphin snow globe. After looking at several gift shops for Kara, (without success), we drove to Sparky's for lunch. We had been there on our previous vacation to Florida three years earlier. Kara and I split a small pizza. It was a 10 inch thin crust pizza with shrimp, bacon, fresh tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese. Mmmmmm. It was good! The shrimp were flavorful and juicy, the bacon was crispy, and the mozzarella was oozing off the pizza, not to mention the nice addition of fresh tomatoes! That was a very good pizza! After lunch, Kara bought a Sparky's shirt for her souvenir with the money that was given to her by our grandpa and grandma. We had finally found Kara a souvenir! Victory!! :-) After lunch, we drove back to Fort Lauderdale, where we would be staying for the night.

 Mommy and Titus at Sparky's with hundreds of dollar bills behind them

Driving on the 7 mile bridge

Look at the water!

As a surprise, we stopped at Robert Is Here in the afternoon. It is a smoothie and fresh produce "stand" that we had gone to three years earlier. It was nice to get out of the suburban for a while and the cool drinks were refreshing. But we all agreed: they needed a BlendTec! :-)

And yes! That is all! That concludes our Florida vacation! We arrived home on Monday, April 15 without any disasters or accidents. :-)

Florida 2013 Part 5

After our wreckless (well not exactly wreckLESS) supper at The Wreck, we slept at a Holiday Inn and had breakfast there in the morning. Their bagels were actually not too bad! Another odd thing about their breakfast: they had a tip jar! Daddy said that he had never seen one of those at a hotel before. After breakfast, we drove to Bahia Honda State Park. We were there early enough to claim one of the shelters for the day. We swam for the whole morning and "snorkeled" in the afternoon. We didn't actually have snorkel gear, but Mommy and Daddy had bought us goggles, so we used those. And they worked pretty well!

We were able to get this picture before a park ranger told us we weren't supposed to be climbing on the trees.

Brothers!

Having a fun time swimming together

This is a Queen Conch. If you look close enough, you can see it sitting inside there. When I found it in the water, I couldn't believe it!

Kara found a small starfish under a rock. Under water! It was pretty cool! It even stuck to our hands when we held it.

 Darin and Kara found a sea urchin while snorkeling as well. It was pretty sharp!

 I found a closed shell underwater and decided to bring it up and try to open it, since it felt pretty heavy. We opened it and found an octopus! Or maybe a squid. But we were all pretty surprised!

 We put the octopus/squid in a bucket with water and some sand. Inside its shell were some small clearish elongated things that we guessed to be larvae. When we put it in the bucket, it started darting around and swimming. Then it squirted out some black stuff. It was pretty cool!

After we packed up, we showered and left the beach. Then we drove to Keys Fisheries for supper. It was right on the water and all the fish was fresh. Supper was a lot better than the night before! 

We all got pretty burnt in the sun at the beach.

THIS is our supper. The salad in the left foreground is Daddy's and the dish at the back is Mommy's. Daddy had a chicken salad and Mommy had some sort of lemon flavored fish. The two dishes of Lobster Mac 'n' Cheese are Darin and Natalie's and Kara's and mine.

After supper we went to Sweet Savannah's for ice cream. On the wall outside the shop was a large cupcake with light pink frosting and sparkly sprinkles.  So, OF COURSE Kara HAD to have her picture taken next to it! :-)

Florida 2013 Part 4

On Wednesday, April 10, we woke up early and drove to the Keys. We were at John Pennekamp State Park by 9:00 for our glass bottom boat tour. The bottom of the boat had two glass sections to look through. For our ride to the coral reef we sat on the top deck.

Titus looks a little skeptical, but he was just fine.

Corinna covering her ears from the loud blast that is kind of like a turning signal, letting other boats know they are going to go around a sharp turn.

Kara snuggling with Titus

It was a nice view from the top deck.

Natalie's favorite look on vacation

This is not edited!! This was what it looked like when we got to the coral reef.

The lady who told us everything about what was at the reef was very knowledgeable. And very nice. She told us what all the fish's names were and where they lived and their eating habits and such. She also told us about the coral. There was coral that waved in the current. It looked like a plant and was either purple or brown depending on its feeding stage. We saw lots of cool fish and even a stingray!

We sat on a bench while the lady went back and forth between the two sides of the boat. Each rectangle had a number so she could point out exactly where certain things were. Also, the captain of the boat could hear everything she said so he could move the boat for the other side to see something.

This is what the view down looked like.

That is the coral I was talking about on the left edge of the picture. It is brown with purple on the edges and purple "veins" running through it.

Look at the cool striped fish and the bright blue fish!

This is a brain coral. The top was damaged by a boat scraping across it. It takes a really long time to grow.

Here is another brain coral.

Titus ended up falling asleep after we left the coral reef. :-)

 After the tour, we went into the giftshop that was at the state park and Natalie and I each got a necklace for our souvenir with the money that Grandpa and Grandma had given us. She got one that had a stingray on it and mine had a sea turtle on it. They were silver with black accents.

For our "lunch" we went to Bob's Bunz, a place we had been to on our previous trip. It is a very good bakery. Their cinnamon rolls (or "bunz") are really good! This is definately a place you would want to go!

After our lunch we went to Robby's to feed giant fish called Tarpon. They are like five feet long! After Corinna got over being scared, she had fun.

That night we went to The Wreck for supper. It was recommended to us by somebody in the Marina next to our hotel. If you are planning a trip to southern Florida, DON'T GO THERE! That is unless you want slow service, a bar-like atmosphere, and mediocre food. We didn't. We still ate there, but, as Daddy said, supper was a wreck. Literally!

All photos courtesy of Mommy except the coral ones. And the one of her. :-)

Florida 2013 Part 3

The day after we went to the beach we swam in the pool for the afternoon where it was more shady because we had all gotten so burnt the day before. There was another big plus about the pool: it was really warm! Not just compared to the ocean but to other pools too. It was a good temperature for swimming. Mommy even got in!

He's got a funny look on his face, but he's cute!

Another funny look.

He's sticking his fingers in his mouth. Yet again.

Finally! A genuine smile from Corinna!

He's trying to get that foot in his mouth.

There we go!

Now he's using both hands to get it in! :-)

I totally forgot about this picture in my first post about Florida. When we got to our condo in Fort Lauderdale, we found this in our bathroom. It is just towels and googly eyes. Isn't that cool?

Florida 2013 Part 2

On Monday, April 8, we spent the day at the beach that was "out our backdoor." All we had to do was walk down to the lobby and out the back door. The beach was only a walk across the pool deck. Mommy had made a big umbrella for the beach, so we set that up for some shade. Daddy, Mommy, and Titus spent most of their time in there.

Don't you love the color?

She is SO cute!!!!

A perfect Land's End model. Only one problem. It's a Children's Place swimming suit.

I love this one!

Kara and I were in the waves together a lot.

I like this one too.

We all had a lot of fun in the waves and the sun as you can see. And we definitely got sunburnt for it!

This was another morning. All of us girls had headbands in that I made.

Photos courtesy of Mommy. I didn't take any while I was in the water. :-)

Florida 2013 Part 1

It has been about three weeks since our vacation to southern Florida and I have finally gotten around to posting about it! Anyway...

We left for Florida on Wednesday, April 3 and arrived in Fort Lauderdale, FL on Friday, April 5. As you probably guessed, we drove. We went to Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza for supper that night, a place we had gone on our trip to Florida three years ago. We got two pizzas: one with mini meatballs and ricotta cheese and the other with mushrooms and prosciutto. They were both very good and it was definitely a place we would go back to (obviously :-))


The next morning we went to The Daisy (a coffee shop and bakery) for breakfast. We got it to-go and walked to the beach to eat our breakfast. (Yeah!) Kara and I got a breakfast sandwich on an onion bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese on it. When we opened it up, it was warm and the cheese was melting. They had even cut it in half for us. We also got a blueberry muffin with lots of crumb topping. It was was very sweet, but still really good.


After breakfast we drove to a state park. We walked down a path and got this cool picture. We also saw some lizards and a blue heron. It was a nice walk and we also got to see several boats go by in the intercoastal waterway.

The next day, Sunday, we just kind of hung out. One time, after getting out of the elevator onto our floor, we smelled... chocolate chip cookies! Which of course made us want some. So, later in the afternoon, Daddy and I went to Whole Foods to get some cookie dough. Then we had fresh baked cookies after supper. And probably made everybody else on our floor jealous. :-)

My Permit!

After months (okay, maybe weeks) of waiting for the mail to hurry it up, I finally got what I needed to go get my permit. Since I am homeschooled, it was more complicated. We had to send letters back and forth to different people. On Monday of last week, Mommy took me to the driver's license/sheriff's/anything-else-you-want office. (We live in a small town.) When we got there, we told the lady that I was there to get my permit. So, we gave her the necessary information, and she gave us a form to fill out. When she gave it to us, I was thinking, "Why don't I just take the test first, and then if I pass, then I can fill out this form?" But I just thought, "Whatever. It doesn't take that long." Then she took me in back, checked my vision, and took my picture. (It took three tries.) She gave me the piece of paper that would be my license until the actual one came in the mail, and said "Have a nice day."

We were confused why she didn't have me take the test. I guess she just thought I was so good I didn't have to even take the test. :-) But Mommy asked her about it. The lady asked if I had taken a test, and Mommy said yes. I had taken a test to pass the classroom portion (which I did by book). So then she said that I should be good to go. Then, as we were walking away, she said, "Now I'm second guessing myself." Then she concluded that I did have to take the test, but I couldn't do it there because they "didn't do that there." By then, it was too late in the day to go to Rochester. So, we went the next morning.

When we got there, I filled out the form, and got in line. Once it was our turn, we gave the guy the necessary information, and he told me to go to the computer booth number six. He talked so fast I could hardly tell what he was saying. While I was taking the test, there was audio playing into the headphones "just in case I couldn't read." It was very annoying and distracting. While I was trying to think, there was someone reading the options to me (not live; automated). I was way ahead and trying to decide which option to pick while they were still reading the options. The reason I didn't take them off was because I didn't want to miss anything if there was something on the audio that was not on the computer. Once I was finished with the test, the screen said, "You have passed! You got three wrong out of thirty five. Your score is 90 some percent." Well, not quite. But you know what I mean. Underneath that, it said to return to the front desk. So I did, and the guy took my picture and gave me that piece of paper which would be my permit until the plastic one with the picture on it came in about a month. Then, that afternoon I drove down the road aways with Mommy. Later that night, before the sun set, I took Daddy out, and we drove all the way into town and back. Here are a few pictures Kara took of my drive with Mommy:

Nice picture

Instruction time

Something funny about the instructions

Driving! If you look in the side mirror, you can see me. The driveway is a little slushy.

Coming back

I know this picture is not the best quality, but it was so funny I just had to put it on here. Mommy was helping me pull into the garage, and I was holding the brake and doing as she directed. She was telling me to let off or press more on the brake. Then she said stop, so I stopped holding the brake. I don't think that was quite what she meant. Thankfully, there was a little room left so we didn't go through the other side of the garage.