Miami Seaquarium

If you ever find yourself in Miami, you must visit the Miami Seaquarium!! It was awesome!!

Parrot holding is a big deal in Miami... we did this at a few places!

These anchors are from the ships of the Spanish Silver Plate Fleet, all sunk by a hurricane off Key Largo in July 1733.

This model is a life sized replica of a humpback whale's tail encrusted with barnacles.

Driving motorizes boats. Hey Dad, give the girls a turn!

A model of a Carcharodon Megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived! They ruled the seas from 20 million years ago, until 1.5 million years ago. They could reach over 60 feet in length and weigh over 100 tons!

One of many dolphin tanks.

This fish reminded us of Paw Paw's African Cichlids.

The sea lions, resting before a performance.

A shark feeding!! It was wild, just what you would expect. They were jumping out of the water and fighting with each other over the food.

...and then the girls and I went fishing, and caught this monster shark ;)

Home of Lolita, the Killer Whale!!

Lolita has lived at the Miami Seaquarium for 40 years. It is the longest a killer whale has ever lived in captivity.

Marion enjoyed the show, she loves to clap!

She's so gorgeous!

The Sea Lions!!! They were Grace's favorite. It might have had something to do with the Little Mermaid music that played during the show :)

Off the diving board!!

Dancing with the trainers!

These are the "Flipper Dolphins." The show was partly filmed here and some of these dolphins are offspring of the original Flippers!

Petting stingrays.

Grace posing with a dolphin statue. We saw 3 dolphin shows this day!

This was the "Top Deck Dolphin Show." It was the most up-close. Everyone got splashed while classic rock music blared from the speakers! So much fun!

Beautiful!

Alligators! or Crocodiles! Who knows?! Obviously not me :)

Rainforest Cafe

Pool Babes

The girls and I have spent lots of time in the pool while Jeremy is in class. Grace is quite a good swimmer now, and Marion now plays happily around the pool. She sits on the first step for a bit, gets out and walks around the pool for a bit, and then returns to her step! My big struggle with Marion is keeping the earplugs in! Since she just got tubes, she is supposed to wear them whenever water may get in. The big neoprene headband just provides another layer of protection for when she's trying to get them out!

Making a lap! She will walk around the whole pool!

Fort Lauderdale - Beach

Hello from sunny Florida :) We are on vacation with the pouty princesses. Jeremy's pursuit of his Third Mate's license (only 1 class to go after this!),and ultimately an unlimited Coast Guard license, has brought us to Fort Lauderdale.

The East Coast sand is so different from the fine sugary sand of Gulf Coast Florida that I'm used to. It's coarse, colorful, and gorgeous! If you look closely at it, you can see that every bit of it is a tiny crumble of a seashell. You can see the shells' ridges and colors on the bits of sand, so pretty. Oh, and the water is fab-u-lous!!! You can go in up to you shoulders and look down and see your feet and the ocean floor crystal clear. There's no seaweed, no cloudiness... just perfectly clear.

Grace was hesitant to go in the water at first. The news here has been full of stories about the dangerous rip tides. Hundreds of beachgoers have had to be rescued in a matter of days. Well, Grace has heard me talking about it, and, like mother like daughter, she was scared! She will go in now, just not too deep, which is fine with me :)

Jeremy and Marion

I am in love with all of the palm trees!

Okay, there's a story here! Marion loves to eat sand!! Despite our constant correcting, she won't stop. She's sure that if we tried it, we'd like it... so she shoves a handful in your mouth when you are least expecting it!

She got me this time!

Beautiful!! These are big pieces of old coral. You could look all around them and see that there are more surfacing as the sand is washed away. I remember from a snorkeling trip when I was a child, the instructor told us not to touch the coral, it was like a cheese grater and would hurt you. Well, I learned the hard way here in Fort Lauderdale. After a slight brush against it, blood was running down my leg!

Grace playing in the rocks as the tide hits them.