Florida

For the second time in 2 days, Wednesday saw us cross a country from West to East, in fact it is the second time in 2 days that we have actually crossed a continent! We got up nice and early to get to the airport in time to get through all the rigorous security checks that are now commonplace in America. We got through with plenty of time and went to 'Chili's' for breakfast. Only in America could I have a choice of burritos or tacos for breakfast! The 5 hour flight was pretty turbulent but passed easily enough, we're so used to long journeys now! On arriving early at Miami we eventually managed to find my Aunt Lisette and her two boys (Lucien, 11 and Réné, 8) outside and drove to their place near West Palm Beach which is about an hour or so north of Miami itself. Wednesday evening Lisette took us for a little drive around the local area of Lake Worth, showing us the lake, shops and the beach where we were just in time for a nice sunset, complete with cool pink clouds!

For the next 2 days we had some time to ourselves as the boys were still at school and Lisette was working. We took the opportunity to chill out after all our travelling and check out the local mall and cinema ("Sex and the City" if you must know!!). On Saturday Lisette had a wedding to go to so we had our first day looking after the boys and I had my first time driving a car in America! Lisette has a massive Ford 4x4 which is automatic and real easy to drive so I was pretty happy driving around. We went off to a local swimming pool where some of Lucien's friends were celebrating the end of school for summer. It was a nice day, the sun was out in force and the kids enjoyed the pool, we ended up getting back at about 3pm when the heat got a little bit too much for itself and the clouds started to look ominous as is typical for Florida!

Exactly the same happened the next day when we were at the beach, the clouds started to build up out at see and you can see them moving in. We got off the beach just as they came overhead but this wasn't until about 4pm so we still had a pretty long day of sun, sand and sea!

On Monday Lucien and Lisette were visiting Lucien's new middle school, a specialised (ridiculously hard to get into) performing arts school where Lucien is part of the "Band School" playing the flute. This meant that we looked after Réné, spending most of the day playing games, throwing a ball about and going for a ride around the lake which he didn't want to do because it's "boring" but he actually enjoyed in the end!

When Lisette got back we took the car and took Réné to the cinema, the only possible way to shut him up talking about "Kung Fu Panda"! It wasn't too bad actually but I'm sure he enjoyed it more than us. In the evening we went and joined Lisette on a night of dancing, one of her hobbies. It was a salsa class, Cuban style, which we both really enjoyed passing our Level 1. There are 10 levels (which Lisette has completed!) so now we can go back and continue up the ladder which hopefully we'll do over the next couple of weeks.

Today we took the boys to play mini-golf just up the road which was pretty fun. Megan and I drew with joint top scores of 1 over par. Today has been the worst weather-wise and we are currently sitting in a tornado-warning! This came on pretty suddenly as only 30 minutes ago I was outside in the sun playing basketball with Réné! I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow but hopefully Thursday we'll go to the Lion Country Safari which is a drive through safari park and on Friday we're going to the local water park which the boys love and are very excited about!