The Sunshine State

If you don't mind seeing ultra-white legs, Florida tourist traps, and an occasional shark, keep scrolling down!

You know you're in good shape when it's winter and you're 4025 miles away from Alaska.

A bunch of us walked over to the amazing Florida aquarium one morning.  

(Cue the "Jaws" theme)

I thought the Florida aquarium would hire John as a permanent tour guide.  (And he would've accepted!)  He is a whiz at his animal kingdom trivia.  If you ever visit a zoo or aquarium, bring John with you.

Elise and I had to settle a few disagreements by arm-wrestling.  (The issues were things like: do we all play Monopoly or Risk?)  

And I won't mention who won.  

Quin gave Ivy some of her first swimming lessons.  (By the way, we just heard that Beyonce copied Ivy for her own baby's name!  Tara and Evan are so proud.)

Benson and Zaya like taking long walks on the beach...  

Our big adventure this time was PARASAILING!  It was such a rush.  Here we are (John, me, and Tyson), just as they let us fly off the back of the boat.

And that's us again, 400 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.  (That's me, in the middle!)  We got to see a pod of dolphins swimming around while we were up there with our great view.  

Reeling us back in again after our 10-minute ride

Our resort had activities for kids each day.  Here are some of the grandkids after craft hour: Zaya, Caleb, Alistair, Benson, and Chase.  

Tyson plays tirelessly with all of his nieces and nephews.  This particular picture was after three impressive feats:

--An hour car ride sitting in the way back

--Finding hundreds of tiny items hidden in Benson's I Spy books

--Not falling asleep or getting carsick

We took a water taxi one morning and learned about the swanky mansions of Florida's rich and famous.  

Alistair was the honorary volunteer for getting buried in sand.

One night, the kids put on an exhibition of their latest Lego creations.  After their explanations, they opened things up and fielded questions. (Here's Caleb during the Q&A session about his Egyptian pyramid.)

We drove through the Lion Country Safari one day, and while there we were stopped in our tracks by these guys.  This is when you just put your car in park and don't make any sudden movements.  Fortunately, we made it through the safari without a scratch!


This ostrich tried to play a game of chicken with our car.  (He won!)

We got within about 2 feet of this water buffalo!  He came right up to our window.  Cole was sitting on my lap at the time, and put his mouth on the window and said to the behemoth, "kiss?"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  We saw an awesome fireworks show from our hotel balcony.

The kids all earned ice cream cones one night.  (Benson earned his for not throwing sand, and Cole earned his for not eating sand.)

Ah Florida, we will dearly miss you!