Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in St. Louis this year. I had to be at work by 7am the day after Thanksgiving, so unfortunately we had to leave after a late lunch at my family's house. Owen had fun playing with my cousins Jenna, Shane and Brynn. It was so great to have all four generations together. Steve, Betty and Shane came in town from Florida, Meredith and Liam were in town from DC, Maureen and Sean were home from college and Jeff, Owen and I came from Kansas City. It was great getting a picture of Papa with all his grandkids and Owen.

Not a great picture of Owen but it shows off his cute Turkey shirt!

Florida Day 1

Florida day 1 was a travel day. We left KC on a 9 am flight and made it to Fort Lauderdale about 3 or 4. Owen traveled pretty well. He would not take a nap on our second flight even though it was nap time. I guess there was just to much excitement. He loved playing on the electric walkway during our layover. He ran and ran and ran on those walkways. He thought it was pretty cool that he could move that fast. Unfortunately when we reached Florida we still had a 3-4 hour drive to get to Hawks Cay resort. Owen fell asleep the second we got on the highway. We made it to Miami during rush hour and the traffic was HORRIBLE!!!! We were moving at a snails pace. The odd thing was the traffic in every direction was that bad. We made it to the resort about 9pm. It was just enough time for Owen to check out his surroundings, jump on the new beds and pass out! We were all tired from a full day of traveling and followed him to bed pretty quickly.

Look Mom...plane!


Little boy big sandwich!

Florida day 2

The second day in Florida we woke up and went out to breakfast at one of the restaurants at the resort. A common theme through our whole vacation was that Owen would not sit still though a single meal. There were views of pools or Ocean views from everywhere we ate and Owen could not concentrate on anything but the water and trying to get in it! After breakfast we got changed and headed to the kiddie pirate pool. It was a zero entry pool and had a big pirate ship in the middle for kids to climb and slide on. Owen had a great time playing in the water and even made a little friend that we saw at the pool a few times. After swimming a few hours we headed back to the condo for Owen to take a nap. Jean stayed with him and Jeff, John and I headed to the island of Marathon to get some groceries for the condo.
That evening we headed to the island of Islamarada for dinner. We ate outside near the water. Owen could not sit still for 2 seconds. We spent the majority of the time in the parking lot throwing the gravel rocks.

Florida day 3

Wednesday was the guys big Deep Sea fishing day. They were trying to catch Sail fish, but had no luck with that. Jeff caught a barracuda and John caught a Mahi Mahi. Jeff threw back his fish and John got to keep his. I don't have any pics from their outing because they did not have my camera.
Jean and I took Owen back to the pirate ship pool for the morning. We packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed it at the pool. When Owen was tired of swimming we headed to the playground for a bit. We headed back to the condo for Owen's nap and by the time he woke up the guys were back from their fishing trip. Jeff told me that there were "baby" tarpon fish at the marina that you can feed. They just come right up to the dock. Jean and I decided to take Owen to feed them because he loves to feed animals. Call me stupid...but I was not expecting that we were going to be feeding these 2-3 foot long "baby" fish dead fish. Owen was just as surprised. Owen decided to feed them one fish, but once he looked at it he kind of freaked out. I think he realized that he was feeding little fishies to the big fish. I don't like touching fish, so we made Grandma feed them the rest. A couple times Owen acted like he wanted to feed them. He would reach his hand out to the bag of fish, but once Jean tried to give him a fish he pulled his hand away!
We had the restaurant on the resort prepare the Mahi Mahi that John caught for us for dinner. I ordered a steak because I don't eat anything that lives under the water. I did try one small bite dipped in a lot of ketchup and it did not taste too fishy which was nice! Owen took 2 bites of dinner and then we were outside making laps around the pool! For desert we had a piece of Key Lime pie which was sooo yummy. Owen took one huge bite of it and spit it right out! I don't think he was expecting the tart flavor.

Florida day 4

On Thursday we did the Dockside Dolphin program. The dolphins were right on our resort. We had been watching the trainers feed and train them for the last few days. Owen really liked when they would jump. He always said "football" when we saw the dolphins because sometimes the trainers would throw a football for the dolphins to play with and he thought it was so funny to see the dolphins playing with a football. I was not sure how Owen would react to being so close to the dolphins. I figured he would either love it or be terrified. He was kind of in between. He liked feeding them jello, but would not touch them. The dolphins are fed a special jello mixture because since they only eat dead fish they do not get enough hydration from the fish. After the dolphin program we headed back to the condo for lunch and a nap for Owen. I then slipped off to the spa for a massage. It was very relaxing.




Owen feeding the dolphin jello
Making the dolphins clap

Thursday afternoon Jeff's friend Tom met us at the resort. He lives in Miami and took the couple hour drive to hang out with us for a day. Owen really loved Tom and talked about "Tom, Tom, Tom" all the time. We went to the lagoon at the resort and swam for a while. Jeff and Tom were playing frisbee and Owen kept running between them trying to get the frisbee. He wanted to be one of the guys!

Owen and Tom (not a great picture. The other one I have Owen has his eyes closed also)

Owen trying to play frisbee with the guys

If you cant have a fruity beverage you might as well have some fruit!

Jeff and Tom





Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to babysit Owen for the evening and Jeff, Tom and I went out for a nice dinner.

Florida day 5

Today the winds started blowing and brought in some cool weather. We had been spoiled with wonderful swimming weather thus far in our vacation. Owen woke up and wanted to go to the pool, even though it was windy and only in the 60's. Jeff and John went golfing today. Jean and I took Owen to the kiddie pool despite the cold weather. He played in the sand of the sand volleyball court but never ventured into the water. He then played on the swings for a bit, but it started getting too cold to be outside. We went into the kids club building. He played with the Lego table for a bit and we then taught him how to play air hockey. He fell in love with the baby turtle or "tutu" as Owen called it. He liked to watch it eat and he kept asking to touch it and hold it. After Owen's nap we decided to go to the island of Islamorada to shop a bit and get dinner. When we were getting into the car Owen was standing on a parking curb. Jean thought that he was going to fall so she went to grab him, which set him off balance and he face planted in the parking lot :(. Owen cried and Grandma felt vey bad!

We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. I took Owen to the bathroom to change his diaper. On the way to the bathroom you have to walk through the party room. There was a party there full of teenage/college age girls. They had tons of balloons and Owen freaked out wanting a balloon. I changed his diaper and was really dreading having to walk through that room again. When we walked out of the bathroom one of the girls was standing by the bathroom door with a balloon for Owen! She said they noticed that Owen was crying about the balloons and they wanted to give him one! It is little things like that that really make a parent's day so much easier! Such a simple thing can really make a little boy happy!





Owen's boo boo!

Florida day 6 and 7

The last day we were in Florida was still pretty windy and chilly. Since there was not much to do with the cool weather on our resort we decided to drive to Key West. It was about an hour and a half south of where we were staying. We tried shopping on Dupal street, but Owen was TERRIBLE!!!! I had a feeling that may happen. He normally does not like to shop and after being out of town for a week he was getting pretty sleepy from all the vacation excitement. As I expected he cried and whined the whole time we were shopping. We then decided to go to Mallory Square. Mallory Square is the best spot to see the Key West sunset. In the evenings it becomes the hot spot to be with live entertainment and people selling things from little stands. Before it became busy we let Owen chase around the pigeons and wild roosters. I have never seen wild roosters before! We then started watching a guy do juggling show. Owen thought that was great. He kept saying "ready" meaning that he was ready for the guy to juggle some more! We did not stay for the sunset because Owen was obviously tired. On the way home we drove by the southern most point in the US.

The next morning we woke up and drove to Fort Lauderdale for our flight home. Owen was great on the plane and took a nap for over 1 hour. We had a great vacation but it is always great to get home!