Florida Vacation - Day 3 - Captiva

Since the kids are sorta interested in animals, we book a short boat ride to go watch some wild dolphins. We went to Captiva, which is the next island north to catch our boat ride from the South Seas Island Resort. I've never heard of a resort that spans 2 miles long!! 

Anyways, the boat ride was quite calm and not long after we've hit open sea, sure enough the dolphins were sighted. The kids were quite excited to see them. I always find it fascinating that they love to dive in and out of the wake created by the boat. So, that was 5 mins out of a 1.5 hr cruise! What did the kids do after that? They bounce on mommy and lick daddy!!

The Millsers on the dolphin cruise

Where did the dolphins go?

Cody decided that licking daddy was a good game to play on a boring cruise

Kids kissing daddy!!

 So, on the cruise, the guide said that if we weren't in a hurry to go anywhere, we should hang around the marina and see if we can spot some manatees, and i thought.. hmm.. yeah right.. But again, i tell you, Florida is an awesome safari!! I could not believe my eyes when a few manatees decided to frolic around the marina!! Unbelievable!!! I didn't even know manatees live in Florida!! And if you don't know what a manatee looks like.. go look it up!

For dinner, we decided to check out Bubble Room which was recommended by Steffen and Anne. That place is crazy!! :) The kids had such a good time checking out the whole place, it was hard to convince them to sit down to have their dinner! Here are some pictures of the restaurant

The tunnel of love!

The kids loved it so much, they were willing to pose with the sign

Tyler's big melon smile!

Alan checking out the menu

The Christmas room

My two gorrillas!

Florida Vacation - Day 3

It was a cloudy morning and we were supposed to either go kayaking or cycling but decided it was too late. So, we opted for the beach. And since it was not as sunny, i thought it was perfect. The strange thing was the sea was also very calm. Not sure if the cloudy skies and calm beach are related.

The activity of the day at the beach is sand castle building. As Alan is good at building the sand castle, he is the chief architect while i'm the flaky artsy director who only managed to decorate 1 out of 4 towers. Tyler was the support team, if towers need to be built, he got it, if moat needed to be filled, he's on it. Cody.. the demolition guy.

In the nice gardens of the condo complex

Chief architect building the sand castle

The sand castle team

The creative director

He is 4 yrs old, of course he was distracted by the water...

Cody feeling sad that he can't have daddy but refused to get into the water..

Well, i need more shells..

So, i recruited a shell collector

Mommy, there's a big hole here

How about this shell??

Checking out other shell collector's goods.. i got this huge one, said Cody!!

Florida Vacation - Day 2

Guess what the kids said the first thing they got up? "Beach???" Actually i have no idea what they said, because i was still in bed! hehee..

Anyways, after breakfast and Kumon, we hit the beach. The tides were a little different and the shells were not as abundant on the beach, so Tyler decided he was going to use his scuba mask to help his swimming.

At the beach again

Tyler with his scuba mask

Alan checking out the water

Cody running around

Splashing around

The big boys braving the waves

Tyler didn't think it was funny that i dumped the bucket of water over his head!

Anyways, to take a little break from the beach, we spent the later part of the day discovering other parts of Sanibel Island, namely a little refuge called Ding Darling. I left the memory card in the apartment, so no pictures of that little visit. It was a short drive around the refuge and we got out to check out some mangroves and some birds and a boardwalk and saw a black snake!

After that, we went to check out the Sanibel light house. Trying to get the kids to look at the camera is a pain, so we tried the jumping trick..

Daddy jump, tyler jump, cody NO jump

Cody jump, the rest NO jump .. *sigh*

Then we tried the "freeze" trick... Cody still doesn't get it.. darn it!!

For dinner, we check out The Lazy Flamingo. Food was OK. I thought my grilled grouper was actually quite good. Pretty fresh!! :)

A rare Cody smile

Tyler and mummy

Florida Holiday - Day 1 - Sanibel Island

After a quick lunch at Hoots, we continued out drive to Sanibel Island. The kids caught up with the rest of their sleep, so it provided us with peaceful drive. It was so peaceful that even i slept! hehehe..

So, when we got to Blind Pass Condominium where we rented the a spacious 2-bedroom apartment, the kids were fully rested and all charged up again. They were excited to check out their new room(they love staying at new places!). Cody was super excited that he got to have a big boy bed all to himself! They even had their own TV!!

the boys and their beds

After we unpacked and got settled in, we went to check out the long awaited beach! Tyler was particularly excited about because he's only been talking about it for a week!!! The beach is just a short walk away across a "alligator river" as Tyler calls it.

The beach itself was alright by our standards(we've been to lots of beautiful beaches) but to Tyler, it was perfect!! He saw all the shells and was picking them up by the buckets. I had to tell him that we can only pick a few. But shells could only excited him for so long. Soon, he was brave enough and started jumping in the waves and started wading in. The nice part about this beach was, it is quite shallow for quite a ways out.

Cody on the other hand was a little intimidated but soon was willing to wade in a little. We are hoping to get him by the end of the trip. He spent most of his time scooping stuff up with his bucket.

Alan looking all slim and cool..

crossing the alligator river

Another sandy path

We're there!!

Tyler scooping up shells

Shells by the scoopful!

See.. i'm not lying...

The kids having fun on the beach

Cody..

Florida Holiday - Day 1 - Everglades National Park

For our vacation, we chose to fly red eye to Miami so that we didn't have to deal with whiny kids on the plane for 6 hrs. And from Miami, we chose to take the slower but more scenic route to Sanibel Island and i think it was a great decision! :)

As soon as we started into the park, i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw an alligator swimming in the creek(ok, it's probably not a creek but the actual swamp, but it looks like a creek) by the road. And then i saw another and another.. this is better than a safari! And the swamp was so quiet and serene..

And at one point, Cody threw up in the car and we pull over to clean him up and i saw a few men fishing in the creek. The ever curious me, of course, had to check it out. Apparently they were crabbing(catching crabs) and with alligators watching!!! Seriously, there were like 5 alligators just swimming distance waiting. At one point, one of them said, "I think the gator got the bait". I was like "WHAT???" So, the guy tried pulling his bait and he said, "ooh.. it's heavy, i think it is a gator.." and he pulled and pulled and sure enough, there was a gator at the end of the line! And if it were me, i would have let go of the line and went running and screaming. But no, he just had a little tug of war with the alligator, the gator thrashed around and finally gave up the chicken.. yeah, they were catching crabs with chickens!! ha!! (by the way, i don't remember why i didn't video the scene, probably too busy freaking out that i'm 5 ft away from a thrashing alligator!!)

this is the crazy guy who was fishing alligators

That is no crab! That's an alligator!!!!

So, after the little adventure, i got back in the car to get back on the road because as exciting as it was, i was getting devoured alive by mosquitoes. Tyler was sleeping in the car unfortunately, otherwise, he would have enjoyed that little show!

The next little stop we made was at an airboat establishment. We thought it'd be fun for the kids and for us! We bought some ear plugs and suited the kids up and we were ready to go! I have to say, this airboat this was A LOT of fun! The kids were initially a little nervous of the speed but they got used to it and were soon settling down and enjoying it as the boat skidded and slid across the marsh. We flew over water and mud and grass.. even made me scream!! haha! I got a little video that i'll try to load.

And what did we see, guess.. alligators of course. Big, small, fat, skinny.. we saw it all..

Baby alligators at the office 

the kids in suits

We're ready!!

Cody holding to his sunglasses! Check out their hair!!

Tyler and I enjoying the speed

Some 10-ft gator by our boat

Enjoying the crazy driving

Beautiful reflections on the calm marshlands(but filled with gators, i guarantee!!)

Anyways, when we got back to the office, the captain had a surprise for us. The kids must have gotten used to seeing the 10 footers and this itty bitty thing was not as scary anymore!! Cody was particularly happy to pose with it and was even willing to hold it!!!!

Posing with alligator

cute little baby!!

I want to hold it, said Cody!!