See You Later Alligator

We had a fabulous vacation, I mean ophthalmology conference, down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this past week. 

Nope, these guys aren't Lens Crafters models.  These are our wonderful buddies Jackson and Catherine Lever, who met us down in Florida.   We conveniently got rooms at the same hotel, and the Levers are one of the things that made this trip so fun. They used to live near us in Milwaukee, but moved to Michigan 2 years ago for Jackson's ophthalmology residency. 

John and Jackson would attend the ARVO conference together while Catherine and I beach bummed with all the kids.  It was a perfect arrangement.  

We engineered a few sand castles.

We celebrated Cole's 1st and Elizabeth's 4th birthdays.

We jumped over the waves in the Atlantic Ocean.

 

John presented research on retinal development for albinos, and Jackson presented a study on how supervised medical residents can perform LASIK safely.  (Any takers for John in about a month?!)

By the way, an ophthalmologist from Denmark introduced himself to John and asked, "why are you dressed up so formally?"  John's research mentor (the guy in red) said, "oh, he's a budding 1st year resident."  The Danish guy said, "I was going to guess that!  Either a brand-new resident, or a Mormon!" Everyone cracked up, and they explained to him that John is BOTH.  I'm looking at the picture above and I think John looks pretty normal-- am I missing something?!

We took an awesome airboat tour of the Everglades.

Here's Catherine and Thomas enjoying the ride.

This fellow was tracking us down.


Trust me, this video is absolutely worth the 4 minutes it will take to watch.   Our tour was so exciting-- we saw a bunch of alligators in the wild and our boat got so close to a few that we could have reached out to pet them. (If we had nothing to live for.)

The part of this video that makes John and me chuckle is halfway through when an alligator wrestler grabs an alligator by the tail and yanks him out of the water, and Elizabeth says, "oh no!  He got his pants all wet!"  That, plus he also almost got thrashed by an 800-pound reptile.

We rode our fancy bike until sundown.

John and I had a date one night at a Japanese hibachi steakhouse where they cook your meal in front of you.  (I'm kind of into gimmicks, and I love these restaurants!)  John must have showed promise, so the chef called him up to try flicking the egg into the air without letting it break.  John was actually decent at this and I didn't find any eggshells in my fried rice!

More beach bumming.

Benson likes long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and Skittles.

We also visited the science museum.  Here are Elizabeth and Benson climbing up the tree fort.

John tried to wow Cole by forming massive bubbles.  

Here are the boys learning about aerodynamics on the flight simulator.

  

Fort Lauderdale is nicknamed "The Venice of America" because of its huge canal system.  Evidently, anyone who's anyone owns a boat there. We took a water taxi one evening to see the sights via the canal, and it really is a fancy city.  The boat driver told us which celebrities owned the various mansions and yachts.  

During the water taxi ride, I commented to John that I did not understand why anyone would own a yacht (which costs about $15 million), because they have to move the yachts around the world to dodge hurricanes several months out of the year.  What a liability.  BUT, then we flew back to Milwaukee in our cramped airplane, trying to contain our wiggly kids on our laps, reshuffling our luggage to get it all under 50 pounds, dealing with flight attendants who wouldn't leave us alone about stowing our carry-ons completely under the seat before takeoff, and... I suddenly understood why people travel in yachts!  

This week it's back to reality from our Educational Leave.  I'm so glad that John and Jackson gave us an excuse to travel to a beautiful part of the world.  Keep up that research boys!