Florida Day 4

After a rainy Friday, we awoke to a beautiful sunny Saturday.

The convention we were attending had officially ended the day before, so we were free to just play. We threw on our swimsuits and headed down to the beach to swim.



Some of our friends who were attending the convention had also planned to stay an extra day to play, and we saw them down on the beach. They had some extra boogie boards that they offered to us to use. It was so much fun. The beach leading up to Captiva Island is a very gradual drop, so we could go out a long way and still touch. Boogie boarding was a blast. While we were out with the boards, one of our friends shouted at us to look at some dolphins swimming past. Dolphins! Just swimming not very far from us--it was amazing. We watched them for a while, then swam back to the beach and got the camera to take some pictures.



When we decided we'd had as much sun exposure as we dared, we tore ourselves away from the beach and went back to our room to get showered and dressed for the day.

We headed to the other end of the island and got lunch at a fast food pizza place (which actually had really good pizza). Then we did some souvenir shopping at a fun little shop named "She Sells Sea Shells". Then we headed over to the wildlife refuge. We did the tram tour our second day there, and our tour guide told us that if we had time, we should do the boat tour of the back bay waters. We were actually hoping to just rent a canoe and explore ourselves. But we got there too late in the day (they stop renting out canoes at 3 in the afternoon). So we paid a little extra and took a guided boat tour. It was worth it.

A funny little side story--when we were paying for our tour, I said we were there for the 6:00 tour. The lady (who was going to be our tour guide) said, "You mean the 5:00 tour?". I laughed and said that I did mean the 5:00 tour, that it had just been a long day. She said, "That's alright. You've got pregnancy brain, so it's allowed." I was a little taken back and didn't know what to say, so I just didn't say anything. I knew I had been eating a LOT on our vacation, but I didn't realize I'd eaten enough to look like I was pregnant. As we walked away, I asked Scott if I really looked pregnant, and he assured me I didn't, but still I was pretty paranoid. A little later when we saw this lady, she asked if we knew if we were having a boy or a girl. Scott delicately told her that I wasn't pregnant. She turned red and apologized profusely to me. She said, "I thought you said you were--I heard you talking about buying something for the baby..." And then it all made sense. As we were heading over to pay, we walked past a display of really cute onesies and we stopped to look at them and talked about getting one for Owen. Instead of thinking that we already had a baby at home, she assumed we were expecting a baby. She assured me that I didn't look at all like I was pregnant and apologized again. So then I wasn't quite so paranoid about how much I'd eaten while on vacation...but I still was just a little bit.

The tour started indoors with information, aquariums and touch tanks.





Then we boarded the boat.






The "sunset cruise" took us out past the Rookery Islands. They weren't so much islands as much as just shallow water where mangrove forests were growing. This is where the birds come home at night to rest. When we were headed out past them, there were only a few birds spotting them.






By the time we came back past them, they were full of beautiful birds seeking refuge for the night.



We saw several dolphins while were out.



We saw lots of birds.




We got some rain, which resulted in a beautiful rainbow.



We got to watch the sun set over the water. It was magnificent.








It was the perfect way to spend our last evening together in Florida.


We ended our night with dinner at the Bayside Restaurant back at our resort (the same place we ate the first night). This time I went for a salad and no dessert (still feeling just a little paranoid about being mistaken for being pregnant). After dinner we stopped by the candy store to get more presents for the kids. Then we went back to our room and I started packing us up to leave the next day.

It really was a perfect day.

Florida Day 3

This was a day of no pictures because it was a day of staying indoors all day long. A tropical storm moved through, and it rained the entire day. Scott had to get up and go to meetings early (at 8, which was 6am Idaho time), so I slept in. After I got up, I put my swimsuit on and headed over to the pool, hoping to get some sun (I wanted to come back tan). But, 20 minutes into laying out, it started to rain on me, so I went back to the room. Scott didn't get out of meetings till 3:30, and the rain got progressively worse through the day, so I just camped out on the couch with a blanket and relaxed and watched TV (something I never do at home).

After Scott got home from meetings, he joined me relaxing till it was time for dinner. We were supposed to be having a luau on the beach, but the rain forced us indoors. We didn't have an umbrella, so I used a newspaper to keep myself dry (didn't work so well), and we made our way in the rain to the ballroom where they had moved our dinner. Once again, I ate way too much food. After dinner, we checked out the candy store that was right by where we had dinner. They had walls of candy--every child's (or adult's) dream. We stocked up on candy, then went back to our room to watch TV and snack on candy. It was a great lazy day.

Floriday Day 2 (the second half)

After our stroll along the beach, it was time for our wildlife refuge tram tour. The whole group went. We had an hour and a half long tram tour through the J. N. "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge. It was great having a tour guide to pass on his wealth of knowledge about the area and the wildlife.

There were a lot of beautiful birds.








We stopped and walked out by the water.







We got to have a close up look at the mangrove trees. These trees are amazing. They defy the laws of nature by growing in salt water (salt kills plants). They have little orange pores that open to take in oxygen when the tide goes down, and then when the water rises, the pores close to keep the salt out. These mangrove trees were everywhere, and I never got tired of looking at them--they are beautiful trees.




Some horseshoe crabs that got stuck when the tide dropped (which, by the way, aren't in the crab family at all, but an ancient relative of the spider family--I was little creeped out by them once I learned they were a spider).


We were lucky enough to spot an alligator on our tour.



A gopher tortoise.


The point they think Ponce de Leon's ship must have come through.

Some of the scenery from out tour.




It really was a great tour. But, while we were out by the water, we were introduced to the little "no-see-um" bug. It's tiny, but it bites like a mosquito. Except their bit hurts so much worse than a mosquito. You'd feel the bite, look down and only see a tiny black dot--thus the name "no-see-um". And you'd think, that little thing can't be the thing that's causing such a painful bite, but it is--it's vicious. And the bite itches so much worse than a mosquito bite. My bites continued to itch clear through this whole week, and now are all scabs from me itching them raw. Seriously an annoying bug. They were the only part of Florida that I didn't love.

After the tour, we headed into town for our group dinner at a restaurant. It was a buffet, and I ate way too much food (mostly too much desserts from the dessert buffet). But it was very good food. After dinner, we headed back to the other end of the island to our resort. We called the kids to say goodnight and tell them about our adventures. Then we went for a late night swim in the pool that was close to our room (trying to work off some of the desserts we ate). It was an amazing day!