Florida!

Ben signed up for a medical conference in Marco Island, Florida.  My parents were so nice to watch our kids so that I could go along too - we counted this as our 12th anniversary celebration!

I was feeling really excited when I realized that it was just me at the airport in Florida, waiting for Ben to show up (I flew from Utah and he flew from Arizona) - I love time alone with Ben, so I was so happy for the start of our vacation!

We picked up our rental car and drove about an hour from the airport to our hotel on Marco Island - the view from our room was amazing - the path down to the beach was right outside our door...

The next day after Ben's morning of conference meetings, we headed straight to the beach - it was so relaxing!

I didn't get any pictures from our visits to Naples - but twice we drove the 30ish minutes to Naples to eat dinner and explore the shops.  There was some really wonderful restaurants there!  One of the days we headed to Miami, which is about a 2 hour drive from Marco Island.  On the way, we stopped for a boat tour of the Everglades.  It was awesome!!  It started out as a cloudy day, but cleared up on the second half of our tour.  The scenery and wildlife was so diverse and different from what I'm used to seeing in either Arizona or Utah.

After going through wide open water for a while, we reached some small and skinny pathways through lines of trees growing out of the water....

Our driver and tour guide creeped me out by shaking some branches over hanging the boat and these little ugly tree crabs fell into our boat....

They were climbing all over the tree branches, but I hadn't noticed them until they were pointed out - it gave me the heebie jeebies!

As we drove further into the tree lined water, the colors of the mud and the water and branches became so amazing!  I was just in awe of how unique this was....

When we emerged from the trees, the sun was out!  The clouds reflecting on the water was so pretty...

I didn't even have to zoom in with my camera - this dolphin was circling our boat and really close...

After the tour, our tour guide recommended a spot where there are always crocodiles (since we didn't see any on our tour) - we drove down a dirt road nearby as he suggested, and there were tons of them!  It was so cool!!  I did zoom in on this guy, so I wasn't as close to him as it may seem :)

Look!  There's 3 crocodiles swimming in this spot of the water! I was so excited!  During this trip, I saw a lot of creatures that I had only seen in zoo's or at sea world previous to this... haha... it was so cool to see them in their natural habitats...

After our Everglades adventure, we finished the drive to Miami.  I had seen online about this crazy elaborate mansion, called Vizcaya, that is now a museum with its huge collection of European and American artifacts from the early 1900's.  We stopped in there and explored.  It was one of the strangest and impressive buildings and grounds I've ever seen - Ben and I agreed, we kind of felt like we were exploring the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, but on a grander scale.  It was creepy, awesome, and twilight zone ish.  :)  They didn't allow photography on the inside, but we did get lots of pictures from the gardens and exterior of the estate...

As we were wandering the gardens, we were walking up to the stone wall at the edge, and all of sudden we realized there was a huge iguana hanging out on the ledge.  I kind of freaked out and ran away... but Ben stopped for a picture...

After Vizcaya, we drove to Miami beach.... I was excited!

We walked down Lincoln Road in Miami Beach and it was soooo busy and crowded - but full of fun stores and some amazing restaurants.  We had dinner at Meat Market!  It was awesome!!

We eventually made our way to the actual beach, but by then it was dark... but I made it!  This was my first time touching the Atlantic Ocean!

Miami at night...

We made it back to our hotel very late, but all the driving was worth it - it was an amazing day of sightseeing!  The next day after meetings, we tried out some watersports - parasailing and paddleboarding.  Both were so fantastic!

This Florida vacation was perfect - I love a good trip!  It was just the right amount of relaxing and exploring and alone time with my Ben.  :)  Thanks mom and dad for keeping our kids for us :)

The pic above makes more sense if you know that our hotel room had an attached conference room.  It was so weird, but the location right next to the beach on the bottom floor was awesome.  It wasn't booked for the nights we were staying, so they upgraded us for free.  So, yes, we had our own private meeting room - stocked with sodas!  :)