Florida Family Winter Vacation

 We had such a great Florida vacation!

First stop, cookie dough flautas at Tijuana Flats, so good, I wish we had a franchise here!!

And over to the beach before driving to our airbnb

Next morning out for cinnamon rolls and then down to the beach

We stayed in Homestead and planned to drive down into the Keys most days, as it is super expensive to stay in the Keys. So our first day got frittered away kind of on errands and then a traffic jam, so we didn't end up going as far south as we'd planned and just went to a different beach instead. 

The next day we got an earlier start because I wanted to spend all day at Theatre of the Sea.

This was probably one of my favorite days of our trip, and they had a little beach too where Doug and August snorkeled.

The dolphin show was amazing, we went twice. Normally I am against animals in captivity, except this one these sea animals are in a natural spring, and come on, these dolphins seemed like they were really having a blast! (and the sea lion and turtles were rescues that couldn't be rehabilitated.)

The next day we went down to Sombrero beach, this was our one real beach day. We didn't plan a lot of beach days since we mostly want to hide our little white babies from the sun!

Baby's first toes in the ocean.

Afterwards we went to feed the tarpon at Robbies

Ended our fun day with dinner on Key Largo, they had a band singing and even invited August up to play the shaker :)

The next day was a bit of a downer. On our Keys trip last year we went on a airboat ride and it was so fun I wanted to do it again. This time I guess it was an airboat "tour", they didn't provide earmuffs (the last place did) so it was SUPER loud and it was just a big production with over a hundred people waiting for their boat rides and it just felt not as great. We pretty much paid over $100 to watch our son sobbing cause it was so loud :(

We did see one alligator.

Then out for cookie dough flautas again!!! 

Then we went to Flamingo Gardens and walked around there, it was nice to do something more fun after our morning was kind of a bust.

(Doug wanted his picture with a peacock, haha)

The next day we went to Fruit and Spice something or other I forget the name, but 40acres of things that grow there. You were allowed to eat fruit that had fallen off the tree, but not pick. Since it was February tho, not much growing yet :( you forget they have some sort of "winter" there too I guess.

bananas

And then we went to Pinecrest Gardens after our picnic lunch.

(August was still in grump-mode because I bought regular kettle corn at the farmer's market outside the gardens instead of the blue one he wanted- and he refused to eat any of it. Too bad, more for mama!)

This place was really beautiful.

We went out to Pollo Tropical, which was an experience. I had to break out my high-school Spanish to even order the food (how do you not hire an English speaker in the United States when you're working an order-taking position??) waited over 1/2 an hour for our food, no utensils, had to wait even longer, and then they just didn't give us parts of the kids' meals. So it was annoying. Back to our airbnb, kids bathed and to bed, laundry and packing, and then up and out in the morning after breakfast. 

Doug was so excited for fresh coconut water from a coconut he found in the yard. 

There was a medical emergency on the flight on the way home, but no one needed me, so otherwise an uneventful flight home and back to life!

All in all, the first days of our trips always seem to be a little rough and Doug swears off all future family trips, but then we get in a better groove, kids get naps, hungry people eat, and all is well again :) And it really does seem a must to have a sunny getaway in the middle of our cold, gray Michigan winter.