Marco Island

I celebrated my 32nd birthday with a florida Key Lime Pie! Yum!!!

Dad looking lovely!

We just returned from a week in Marco Island, Florida with nana and papa. They had rented a house on the inland waterway for a month. We had a blast and Abby played in the ocean for the first time! The house was beautiful and came with a crib and tons of things for kids so it was perfect. It even had a pool! Marco is a great island- only 4 miles by 6 miles so you can ride your bike everywhere and the beaches are great and very kid friendly w/ tons of shells to pick and playgrounds, etc. I would definately reccomend marco island for a family vacation w/ kids.

The first day we visited the Naples Botanical Gardens and Zoo. The flowers and foilage are just amazingly beautiful. Then we came back and swam for hours in the pool. Emma made such great progress on her swimming. By the end of the week she was swimming all by herself w. a noodle and putting her whole body under. The next couple days were cold (really, really cold for Marco standards) so we just hit some playgrounds and Mike, dad and I went deep sea fishing. It was a blast. It was too cold and choppy in the "deep sea" so we went into the mangroves and did backwater fishing instead. I am proud to say I caught the only "keeper" in our boat. This fishing was much more difficult than the jigging for walleye in MN or Canada. We really had to work for it. Our boat only caught 3 fish- but we had tons of bites. It was a blast.

The next few days really warmed up into the 80's so it was perfect beach weather. The girls played in the sand, and picked shells for hours. The ocean was still pretty chilly so we were only in up to our waists. People laughed at us "crazy midwesteners" for being the ocean at all. Abby only ate a few mouthfuls of sand before she decided it really didn't taste too good at all.

Auntie Pam & Nana on the boat dad rented!

Mike and I went into Everglades City for an airboat ride through the everglades. We saw some alligators and fed some crazy swamp raccoons. Nana and Papa watched the girls so Mike and I could have a few dates for margaritas and sunsets. It was a great vacation and too short, of course. On the way home we had just boarded the plane when they told us the airspace was clased because President Obama was flying into Fort Meyers right when we were supposed to take off! So it made a 3 1/2 hour plane ride into 4 1/2 hours, but the girls did really, really well. Abby slept for most of it. We did get to see Air Force One land right next to us! It was pretty cool. Back to reality now....