Sunday, September 4, 2011

Southern Florida Vacation!

We had a great time on our first vacation to southern Florida! We dropped Brad off at his grandparent's house in the country on Tuesday night and we flew out of Oklahoma early Wednesday morning. This is what Florida looked like as we got ready to land...

We got our luggage and our rental car (a Chevy Cruze) with no trouble and--thanks to our GPS--found our way to our hotel and checked in!


We stayed at the Bahia Mar Resort and Yachting Center and had a very nice room with a gorgeous view of the yacht harbor and beach!!




Our first evening there we went down to the beach and were amazed at the storms that were off in the distance. You could hear the thunder rumbling on the beach.

Our hotel had it's own private walk straight to the beach just for hotel residents!




There were sea turtle nests cordoned off along the beach where they laid their eggs.



For dinner that night, we found a great little Italian restaurant right on the beach were we both ordered chicken Parmigiana. So good!!

On Thursday, our first full day there, we headed out West to the Everglades for some fan boating fun! We drove thru Hollywood, FL on the way.


I had already prepurchased our tickets online and we were able to get on a boat as soon as we arrived.









After we were done boating, we got to see a really neat wildlife show.











We had a great time seeing everything there. We grabbed some lunch and headed back to our hotel to clean up then hit the beach again. We also stopped by a grocery store called Publix and picked up some treats for us, and for the seagulls!



^See the jellyfish?




That night for dinner we went to a little Greek place on the beach and ate some yummy gyros. Nick had to have his picture taken here with the "props"....


Our last full day was Friday and we got up that morning ready for a busy day. We aimed for the Keys but stopped off at a park at Biscayne Bay to have a look. We passed several palm tree nurseries.


^Wild crabs running around.

^Driving on the long highway to Key Largo


We finally made it to the park where we bought tickets to go on the last snorkeling trip at 3pm. We boated out into the ocean about 30 minutes then spent an hour in the water snorkeling by a coral reef!




^More jellyfish....

We got pretty worn out with all of that snorkeling and hadn't eaten anything yet that day so we stopped in at a little hole in the wall restaurant on Key Largo called Mrs. Mac's Kitchen and each had a delicious burger.

We didn't make it back to the hotel that night until almost 10pm so we were ready for bed! I got up extra early Saturday morning so that I could catch the sunrise before our flight left at noon.




We grabbed breakfast at Denny's before heading to the airport and turning in our rental car. The flight to Houston was long, and our layover there was even longer. We finally made it back to OKC around 7pm where my dad picked us up and took us home. We dropped our luggage off inside then hit the road again for the hour-long drive out to the country to pick up our little boy.

Saturday was also my father-in-law's bday so we stayed over late for a dinner with the family. We didn't get home Saturday evening until after 10pm and went straight to bed after that. Today has been a very nice relaxing day and I'm glad to be home!

Thanks for taking the time to look at all of my pictures and videos, and leave a comment to tell me what you think!


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2 comments:

  1. Looks like yal had a wonderful vacation! I especially love the pic of you kissing the toad! You have some photography skills, and it def shows in the sunrise pics. Thanks for sharing with everyone!

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  2. Well, the frog kissing pic was totally yuk! But...all the other pics were so fun to look at. You had a gorgeous ocean view from your hotel....so lovely. The white beach is so pretty. Lovely pics! But, I'm glad you're home....where you belong! ha

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