Florida Paradise

Hooray for January in Florida!


None of the Babbels can golf, but we all married golfers, so we're learning. John took a bunch of us to a driving range and gave us a crash course on how to swing a club. Here's Tyson, my Dad, and John all trying to see who can hit their ball farthest. (My dad could whap it really far, but not necessarily in the correct direction.)


Here I go! (That's my dad behind me-- he offered me $1000 if I could hit the back fence 500 yards away, but I never quite made it.) This shot looks good until you realize the ball is still sitting on the tee. Golf is MUCH harder than it looks! It's nothing at all like Wii Golf (where I'm already an intermediate).


John and Oliver (on the two sides) inducted Tyson and Elise (in the middle) into the golf world by doing a 9-hole course together one day, and all reports about Tyson and Elise's debut came back positive.


HAPPY NEW YEAR! We celebrated New Year's Eve at the Pirate's Cove restaurant.


Elise introduced us to the game Blokus, and we all got hooked. It's really hard to stop after just one round, especially if you didn't win. We played Blokus several nights after the kiddos went to bed. The main thing I learned from the endless rounds of Blokus is that you have to be aggressive to win-- the nice player (um, me) always loses.

Okay, I know you get NO bragging rights for doing the Polar Bear Plunge in Palm Beach Florida, but John and I are too wimpy for the real thing! A bunch of our Milwaukee friends do this every year on January 1st-- this year it was negative 3 degrees when they jumped into Lake Michigan-- so John and I felt obligated to do the same thing, even if it was Florida.


After the Polar Bear plunge.


On the carousel at the Palm Beach zoo.


This is the paradisical view from our hotel balcony. Even though I was on vacation, I woke up early most days to watch the sunrise. It's like God's paint canvas-- he decorates it however he wants and does brand-new creations daily.


Benson and Chase loved going back and forth, back and forth, on the playground bridge. Our hotel was very family-friendly, and the kids loved this hotel playground.


Here's Caleb and Chase bouncing on the teeter-totter.


Benson was the most thorough shell collector I've ever met. He combed the beach clean and placed in the bucket everything he found-- shells, cigarette butts, seaweed, litter, etc.


We visited Kennedy Space Center one day-- here's Elise, Caleb, Oliver, and Chase posing in front of the rocket ships. However, this front courtyard is as far as we got, once we found out how much the tickets cost to get in! (MUCHO dinero.)


Kind of an obvious sign... We went to Lion Country Safari one day (it's like a drive-through zoo, but without the cages).


Uh John, I think our car is getting surrounded by wildebeests.


Benson tried unrolling the windows at this point (which was ABSOLUTELY forbidden at this safari park)-- I guess he wanted a clearer sight of the rhinos! ("Ninos! Ninos!")


Some Blackbucks pulled up right next to our car. (These are the shortest of the gazelle family-- they're only 3 feet tall, but they make up for it really long, squiggly antlers.)


We're grateful they kept the fences up for the lion area-- it's not as authentic as a real safari, but I prefer safety.


Here's Caleb getting one of his daily swimming lesson from Zoe-Zoe.


John gave swimming lessons to Benson, who was a little fish and loved the water.


And now, we're finished with our vacation and back in Wisconsin, which is a different kind of paradise. (By the way, it's 15 degrees in this picture, but my crazy John is in short-sleeves because he worked up such a sweat pulling Benson around our backyard.)