Florida!

Recently I was accepted to present at a conference in Miami.  And as luck would have it, the same week I was going to be in Florida, our exchange student from this summer, Florian would also be in Florida on vacation with his parents.  So Kevin decided to go with me, and we went a day early, and drove from Miami to Sanibel Island to get to meet Florian's parents and to see Florian again. 

It was a really nice day....Here we are driving across the bridge

 

 As we got into town, we saw this sign, it made me laugh....Now, in CO I guess we have don't feed the wildlife signs, so this isn't any different, but still not something I see everyday. 

First we met Florian and his parents at their condo and sat and visited and exchanged gifts.  Then we went to lunch: 

This is the pier at the restaurant we ate at...

 Then we went to the beach.....can you see this, this is entirely shells....

The GULF!!!  This was the first time I had seen the gulf up close and I got to put my feet in it :-)

Then we went to ice cream

Then we went over to see the lighthouse and more beach

 

Driving along alligator alley....didn't see any, but I did like seeing the palm trees and the evergreen trees together.  

It was really wonderful to meet Florian's parents!  They are very nice people and we had a great day with them.  I wish we would have had more time, as both Kevin and I enjoyed our visit.

I had said we exchanged gifts, and Florian's parents were very very (too much so) generous.  Here are all the things they brought us....

You see the Coo Clock in the box, where here it us hung up on the wall:

You can hear what it sounds like here:  I am not sure if Stormy yet gets it :-)

What a wonderful (but short) vacation, before my conference.