Look Who Showed Up in Miami!

It was so much fun to have my little brother Jason and his girlfriend Kaylee come to visit! They arrived Monday night (August 19) and stayed until Saturday. We kept pretty much every minute busy.

Day 1:

They didn't fly in until 8:30pm, so we cleaned the house a little bit. Marc had the day off (which was really unfortunate, because then he got to help me clean, but didn't get to go out with us).

Marc has been working ALOT lately, so I told him he could just take it easy while I cleaned. He insisted he wanted to help, but when I turned around he was out! I guess it was a good compromise- he slept while I threw the warm sheets out of the dryer on him. Eventually he woke up and tried to learn how to put the duvet cover on our duvet. Thanks hun!

The time finally came, and we drove up to Fort Lauderdale airport to pick them up. We stopped at Aruba's on the beach to have a good seafood dinner to welcome them. If you read my other posts you will see pictures at Aruba's, right off the ocean. After dinner we went down along the beautiful beach for a lovely evening stroll.

 This time I tried the Mahi Mahi, cooked in garlic butter. It was pretty tasty!

 Jason had some delicious cod, and Kaylee went all out with her cheeseburger. :)

Day 2:

I let them sleep in a little bit. (They were out until 9:30am) And then we headed to the Miami Seaquarium. I'm going to put in a lot of pictures, but Jason also took some video footage, so you can check that out at:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By5wq-mfLiDwd2ZZQzFfelNJNzg/edit?usp=sharing

We learn two of Jason's fears in this video: Jellyfish, and Spiders. "I hate jellyfish!!"

We got to see the sea lions, killer whale, and dolphins perform. It's pretty crazy some of the tricks they can teach them to do!

This trick was crazy. Watch it on the video. She jumps in the water, and the whale pushes her out straight up and brings her straight back down. Wow!

While we walked around we also found one of natures ugliest animals. I never realized what big globs manatees are. Or in Jason's words: "Is there an elephant around here, because these just look like big poops!?"

Then we have:

Sharks

 Lizards

 Crocodiles

Turtles

Lots of different types of fish

And some pretty plant life

We continued the day over at Miami Beach. We stopped for sandwiches at a tasty sandwich/smoothie shop called Le Sandwicherie. The sandwich guy got a bit offended when Jason didn't want any of the vegetables. I think it guilt-ed Jason enough that he decided he could take lettuce and green peppers. The beach was pretty and not super crowded, though there were plenty of people. 

Kaylee and Jason as they head into the warm ocean waters.

It was a beautiful day to be at the beach.

Day 3:

Alligators.

Ready to embark on childhood... or in Jason's case adulthood, dreams!

Can you spot the alligator lurking in the water, hidden back in the grass?

A baby alligator hanging out on the right.

Everybody gets to hold an alligator!

After the airboat ride we headed down to the Everglades, stopping at Gator Grill of course to try some 'gator. Jason found it pretty delicious, and Kaylee... well maybe next time you'll try some!

Walking around some trails in the Everglades. 

At one point, we were on a bridge over alligator infested waters, and Jason leaned over to look closer at an alligator and plop! his sunglasses fell right in. As he looked down in disbelief, watching the sunglasses sink to the bottom, a nice ranger stopped by and asked if there was something in there. Jason responded, "yes, an alligator, and MY SUNGLASSES!" The ranger said they had a long claw for that if they were worth it for him. So we waited while the ranger went and got the claw, and after a few attempts, Jason pulled his sunglasses out. The alligator watched on, and swam a little closer, but still stayed his distance. Thanks Mr. Ranger! I should have taken a picture of that, but we were all trying to help find the sunglasses in the murky water.

Day 4:

We woke up bright and early, to everyone's dismay (7:00am) and headed down to Key Largo. We got down there just in time to barely make the 9:00am snorkeling trip. We went in to the state park, John Pennekamp, for a 2 1/2 hour snorkeling trip.

We got on the boat and headed out for open water. A fact I apparently hadn't shared with Jason. His face got a little pale, as he realized snorkeling wasn't just a swim off the beach. I didn't know that open water is one of Jason's biggest fears, (along with spiders, and now jellyfish) and he had sworn to himself never to go out in the open water, where hurricanes and sharks can kill you quickly. I reassured him people were watching the weather, so no hurricanes. And they take tons of tourists out, with limited deaths by sharks. ;) Maybe he felt he had to be a man, since he brought Kaylee along, but he sucked it up well and jumped right in!
I should also note, that due to a storm in the ocean we did have pretty high waves. It was pretty tough snorkeling, through the waves and avoiding the jellyfish. We all made it through and had a good time! Though Kaylee and my stomachs didn't agree too well with all the ups and downs of the waves.

Afterwards, we walked around some trails, and found some crabs. Can you find the crab in this picture?

And then we were off to find more animals in the Miami Zoo. It was large and well kept. We saw lots of fun animals, many were up and active. We only had 2 1/2 hours there, and unfortunately didn't make it all around the park. I had to go pick Marc up at work and take him to a meeting, so I made it through even less. I just left them at the park, and unfortunately Marc's meeting went a bit long, so they were there until it closed at 5:30 and then had to wait for awhile. It was a bit crazy sharing the car. I ended up driving all over the place through lots of crazy Miami rush hour traffic. Not my favorite thing, but we all made it through okay.

Some of the animals Jason took pictures of. I think we were too busy watching some of the more interesting animals to remember to take pictures of those.

Day 5:

This is the last day Kaylee and Jason got to spend with us. We happened on one of Jason's best friends, who is serving in this mission. Elder Trekker Burt. As a member in his mission, I figured I could by him and his companion lunch.

They couldn't stop grinning the whole time! How fun.

Then we stopped by the Dolphin Mall and did a little shopping. It's a HUGE mall, and so took us quite awhile to make the loop through it.There are very easily 200 stores inside, as well as a bowling alley and miniature golf course upstairs. 

This is where we got my nephew Camden's sweet birthday present! Can't wait for him to open that. Thanks Kaylee for being able to squish it into your luggage.

Marc was finally able to meet up with us Friday night, and we all went out to Anthony's Coal-Fired Pizza. It's pretty tasty!

Day 6: 

We dropped Marc off at work at 5:00am, (thanks for working the opening shift so we could get them to the airport in time) and headed straight up to Fort Lauderdale. Saturday early morning traffic is wonderful. I made it up, dropped them off, and got back home by 6:40. Much less stress than all the rush hour traffic. There went our first visitors. Thanks Jason for being the first to come! We had a blast.

Also worth noting, during this week we got a new addition to our household. 

We finally have some real furniture! Since we aren't staying here permanently we haven't really gotten permanent furniture. However, a couple in our same situation moved into our ward, but then change jobs and moved out a couple of weeks later. They had just bought this furniture, and didn't want to have to move it across the country. So they sold it to us for a pretty sweet deal. I'm loving sitting in comfy chairs again!