A Wonderful Vacation

I never made time to tell you about our vacation! Sorry - stuff got a little wild there for a while...

We Doyles made our way to Florida to meet up with the British contingency in order to celebrate Kittyn's 40th birthday. What with my diseased gallbladder, Kittyn's deteriorating back condition and BOTH of us being in our first trimester at the time (:-0), it wasn't your typical Florida vacation. It was WONDERFUL, though.

The weather was colder than we had originally anticipated. Sandy had blown past Florida a day or so before, and was on her way to decimate the Northern states. In her wake, she left very little damage to Florida, but the temperatures were much lower than the seasonal norm. Kittyn and I had specifically planned lots of sunny beach loll-ing time, and we did not get it.

What we did get, was lots of other cool stuff.

A visit to a real swamp with real alligators who were standing RIGHT NEAR US. Now, despite the slightly cheese website and terrifyingly sulfurous entry, this ended up being an incredible day with a great guide at Jungle Adventures Nature Park.

A very cold gator - too cold to move!

So very, very close to the fence :-O

An encounter with giraffes who were, quite frankly, cracker whores at the Brevard County Zoo.

Matt and his new... um... girlfriend?

GIMME THE CRACKER, MAN! 

An unexpectedly fun Halloween spent at the mall (??!!) and at "home".

A bit overwhelmed by her candy haul and all of the costumes.

A Zombie, Pirate, Skeleton Ballerina  and Peter Pan scoop out the pumpkin

 A fun day at Disneyworld complete with princesses and stolen moments.

Wuv... Twu wuv...

She's so happy, but so nervous! The face is PRICELESS!

A great day at beautiful Cocoa Beach. Even in November, just days after a big storm, it was still warm enough to frolic on the sand and in the water. A good thing, because it ended up being our only beach day.

Turning Maddie  into a mermaid on Cocoa Beach

A Lily Ruth Mermaid

A wonderful birthday dinner for Robyn.

They just had to squeeze into the picture!

 

Another unexpectedly neat adventure on a boat tour... another day that we were afraid was going to be cheesy and ended up being awesome. I would show you dolphins and manatees, but we were too busy watching them to get any pictures!

And last but not least - a day at Sea World. My favorite bit... because of this:

That's right, people - I WAS PETTING DOLPHINS. Now, I know that this is not earth-shattering. In fact, I've done it before - we have a Sea World here in town for heaven's sake. But it never gets old. Marine mammals hold a special place in my heart :-)

I could bore - I mean bomb you with more pictures of our adventures, but I have grown weary of uploading. If you want to see more, you'll have to come over to my house... Alright, alright! Stop begging already! You're embarrassing yourself! :-P Here are 3... o.k. 4... more that I found on Don's phone :-)

He likes this one too :-)

I absolutely cannot resist a "kid squatting to play in the sand" picture 

There are 4 children and 2 adults in this picture ;-)

Tired but so happy :-)