Welcome to Miami...

We woke up in our nice Fort Lauderdale hotel, crammed in as much breakfast as our free buffet could offer, and headed to...what else...the beach. (As an aside, I am pretty sure we are not the hotel occupants they have in mind when they offer the breakfast buffet...five hungry people can eat a fair bit. Plus, we book our hotels for cheap on Hotwire. Yeah, pretty sure we aren't what they are looking for...)

The beach in Fort Lauderdale was really nice, but it made me miss the more untouched and less urban beaches further up the coast.

It never gets old for these guys...

Sweet beach babe.

And this little mermaid...

We pulled out the snorkel, mask and fins for Finny. Even though she had the best that Walmart could offer, the equipment let her down. Despite that, she saw a giant fish.

I just noticed how nice the water looks in this picture. It was exactly that nice.

I love this one for the pose Eric is striking in the background. He and Molly were playing...something...in the ocean.

The kids were finding all kinds of cool things on the beach. This was a piece of coral, but there were tons of shells for the kids to sort through.

Lukey isn't too big on swimming in the ocean. He's a beginning swimmer and the waves alternately fascinate and terrify him. He is attracted into the water, then something happens that makes him a bit scared and he retreats up the beach. Actually, as a parent, it is quite nice. He is a sensible guy and I don't have to worry too much about his judgement. He is almost as conservative as I am, as far as what I feel comfortable with him doing.

When it all gets a little hairy out there in the waves, he comes up the beach and plays by himself in the sand.

While Lukey and I were hanging out on the beach, we saw this crazy thing wash up. Lukey picked it up and we investigated it together. It was a strange water filled sac with soft sides. There were funny flakes of stuff inside.

We decided it was very mysterious. I have looked it up on the internet but can't figure out what it is...maybe an unfertilized egg of some kind.

If anyone has any ideas...let me know.

After a couple of hours on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, we hopped in the car and headed further south to Miami.

We read about a pool called the Venetian in Coral Gables. It was made out of an old limestone rock quarry in the 20s. The pictures called to us. We had to go there.

It did not disappoint.

We got there at 3 pm. It was THE MOST perfect temperature. We had the whole place to ourselves.

The only person who wasn't thrilled was Lukey. They had a rule that under-fives had to wear lifejackets. He. Did. Not. Like. That.

There was sulking and there was crying. Then, there was a protest. Then, there was capitulation. It was very dramatic.

As you can see, he came around.

One of my favourite things was the old pictures lining the pool building. The pool itself really feels like it is out of another time. Seeing the photos brought the pool to life for me.

Look at these beautiful ladies and their fantastic swimsuits.

Thank goodness the high dive board has been removed. Finny would have been off that thing in two seconds flat. Literally...flat.

We ended the night with a great treat. Our good friend Lukas from Austria happened to be in Miami on business. We met him at his hotel and had a couple of beers and dinner together. We haven't seen him since Finny was a baby and he has never met Lukey.

Big Luki is a big reason we went with the name Lucas, so they were both happy to meet each other. We felt really lucky to get the chance to spend a few hours with Lucas. Happily, he is coming to Vancouver to visit in May.

We ended a very late night by heading to check in at our hotel in Miami Beach.