Florida Good-byes

Before heading to Denmark, we were able to spend a week in Florida with Chad's parents. It was so nice to get out of the cold weather and spend time in 70 degree weather. Not all days were that nice, but still, no winter coats needed! We spent a good portion of the time there just relaxing and enjoying each other's company. We walked along the Sandbar in the Intracoastal a couple of times-looking for conch's, starfish and other sea life. We even saw a couple of Manatee's poke their heads up out of the water. On another day, we went to "Engagement Island". I'm not really sure what's it's called for reals, but that's what Judi calls it since that's where Jordyn and Ben got engaged. It was beautiful. I especially enjoyed the part when we were sitting on a low wall and we were going to take a little family picture, when suddenly we hear this snort behind us and there was another Manatee. Then, as we were leaving, we saw another Manatee just beyond the shore and we were able to follow it for a while and got some decent pictures. We also went swimming in the ocean a couple of times. The kids mostly loved playing on the beach in the sand. We also had a manatee swim by us about 10 feet away. Crazy! A little side note on Manatee's, they are endangered and not seen very often. But, this time of year, they are in the area. Chad's parents have lived in Florida around 6 years now and haven't seen any Manatees up until now.

On another day we went to the Florida State Fair. Weird that it's in January, right? We had a fun time eating greasy food, watching the kids ride the carnival rides and enjoyed the petting zoo that was complete with Zebra's, a camel, llama's and a variety of other animals.We also did our old stand-by favorite of visiting the Turtle Rehab center. They always have these sea turtles that have been injured that they are working on rehabilitating so they can put them back in the water. We've always enjoyed going there.
The best day though was our last day in the States. Chad and Kent went out golfing that morning, while Judi and I took the kids down to the Intracoastal one last time. It was just perfect weather. We saw a bunch of starfish and a few other sea creatures, but mostly we just enjoyed walking around in nice weather. Then when the guys got back, we loaded up the waverunners and headed down to Peanut Island. It’s actually a man-made island in the Intracoastal that is supposed to have a lot of Manatees around it this time of year. We rode around for a little while and spotted a few manatees before docking the boats on the beach. As soon as we got off the boats, we saw a few more manatees in the water. We were able to go right up to one of them. We spent the next 2 hours snorkeling with this one super friendly manatee. It let us touch it and even as we would swim away from it, it would follow us and come right up to us. It was so amazing! I wish we’d had an underwater camera.

(We didn't take this picture, but I wanted to show what they look like under water.)

It’s really hard to see it very well from above the water. The Manatee even came close enough in so that Myra was able to pet it. So neat!

Well, that was a great day to end our time in the states. The next morning we got up early, headed to the airport and flew off to begin our stay in Denmark.