Ft. Lauderdale.

Friday, December 14
We woke up about 5am to what is comparable to turbulence in an airplane.It was a very bumpy morning as we made our way back to Miami. So bumpy in fact, at one point I saved myself from rolling out of bed. We figured we might as well get up and start packing and getting our junk together to make getting off the boat easier. We ported about 8am and shortly after Nate and I went to eat breakfast so we could get off the boat. We were on land about 11am and weren't sure what we should do next seeing as we couldnt check into our hotel until 3pm.
We caught a free shuttle back to the Miami airport and decided to just go ahead and rent another car to make our lives easier.
Once we got the car (this time a Ford Fusion, which was by far our favorite because we had dual zone climate control. Yes, I had my heat at 90 degrees while Nate had his air on at 60 ;) and decided to go to the Miami Seaquarium.
The seaquarium was pretty awesome, we had a lot of fun there.
Things we did/saw:
- watched sting rays eat

- saw an ell up close

- watched Nate act like a fish

- wrestled an alligator

- caught a shark

- touched sting rays

- rode a seal

- a dolphin show and they had a little baby dolphin who was adorable!

- killer whale show (and yes, their trainer still got in the water with the whale)

- manatees

- watched sharks feed

- sea lion show

- watched flipper

- got attacked by birds while we tried to eat lunch

We got rained out while there. So once quickly walked around and saw the last of everything and left.
We drove up to Ft. Lauderdale and found our hotel, the Sandy Beach. It was less a block away from the beach and just a block or two around the corner from "the boardwalk" with all the touristy shops and restaurants so once we got our stuff unloaded we walked down to look at the beach and find something for dinner.
We ate at a place called the Margarita Cantina. It was outdoors and right along the ocean. The food was pretty delicious too. I ate some grilled fish tacos and Nate at shrimp jumbalaya.

After dinner we continued walking down the boardwalk and looking in all the shops. Most of the shops were pretty sales-y and wanted to give us "the best deal" we didn't buy anything. Except at one store, Nate was trying to read a shot glass and dropped it and broke it. Surprisingly, it was the only shop that didn't have any 'you break it you buy it' signs. He of course felt really bad and asked the lady how much it was. She said $5.99 but he could just give her $3. Being the honest guy he is he asked her to please just charge him full price. She was really surprised by that and asked where we were from. When we told her Utah she said "oh, that's why you're so honest. People from Utah are always honest." We ended up talking to her for quite some time and she was really interesting. She was from Russia and had actually been an interpreter on some cruise ship for a family from Utah which is why she knew people from Utah were such good people. We liked her a lot and she even remembered us the next day wen we walked back by and waved.

Satrurday, December 15
Today we spent the whole day at the beach. It was windy, maybe 75 degrees and pretty overcast but Nate was dying to play in the ocean!
Because it felt so chilly we ended up just walking down the coastline for a good half hour. The water was really choppy and had red warning flags out letting you know that it was a little dangerous, so we were skeptical for a bit about whether or not we should swim.
So instead Nate buried my whole body in the sand (since I'd never done that) and then proceeded to sprinkle potato chips around me so that seagulls attacked!

Then we had to get in the ocean to rinse ourselves off. It was surprisingly warm and I swam for a good half hour and Nate stayed in for at least an hour!

We ate dinner on the beach again and then went home early since we had to be up at 5am for our flight home.
We walked past this crazy statue made all of water bottles!

Sunday, December 16
We headed to he airport about 5am. Caught our on time flight to Chicago! And Even our on time flight to Salt Lake! We got home about 4pm and boy was it cold! We couldn't believe we had just swam in the ocean the day before.
We unpacked, ate dinner, and went to bed at 7pm which made us wake up about 5 the next morning...but at least we were productive.
And now were are back in the swing of things just in time to head to Arizona for Christmas!
We are looking forward to spending time with family, having a few days to relax, and definitely looking forward to more warm weather!