After our exploration into space (well, almost) we took the next few days to enjoy the peace and quiet before the kids were back. We went to the beach, played golf and a little more baseball as well as continuing to watch the tennis and football.
On Tuesday morning our 2 weeks alone were up and we went off to Miami International to pick up Lisette and the boys. We left with plenty of time to spare but by the time we'd eventually found a parking space and got lost in the maze that is Miami Airport they had arrived. It at least meant that we didn't have to wait around for ages! Everyone was very tired by the time we got them home meaning an early night for all.
For our last 2 days with the boys we had planned to take them to the cinema to see the newly
released "WALL-E" on Wednesday which we all really enjoyed and on Thursday we went to the 'Rapids' water park again. The 'Rapids' was a slight wash out, we managed to get about 4 or 5 rides in before the lightning came and everything was closed. We thought that maybe we could wait it out but there was no such luck there and after about 2 hours of sitting, waiting and hoping we decided to call it a day. It was a shame but there was nothing we could do about it!
This gave us one last day before we left and it was 4th July, Independence Day this is one of the biggest days of the American calendar so there is always a lot going on. During the day we all went to a place called 'Peanut Island' where there are beaches all the way round the small island which can only be reached by boat. To begin with the weather was beautiful, we decided to leave our stuff and go for a walk round the island. When we got pretty much as far away as possible it started to rain, heavily! Unfortunately, both Megan and I had left our towels, t-shirts, books and bags out on the beach meaning they were absolutely and horribly soaked by the time we got back to them. The storm didn't seem to be going away so after some lunch we decided to call it a day early for the second day in a row!
After eventually drying out and getting ourselves sorted we
headed out for the evening celebrations. We were taxi for the
night so dropped Lucien off at his friends sleep-over, then took
Lisette and Rene to one of her colleagues houses (mansion, more like!) before heading to downtown West Palm Beach
where we had decided to spend our evening. The celebrations here were good but I think there weren't as many people as there might have been due to the crummy weather earlier. There were lots of stalls here and a band on stage, followed by the excellent local youth orchestra who finished their set with an 'American Compilation' culminating in the National Anthem whilst a four storey high flag was unfurled on a local building by the fire department. At 9pm the
fireworks began and went on for at least 30 mins, these were as excellent as we had hoped from the 'biggest celebration in South Florida'. The traffic was relatively busy getting out of town but nowhere near as bad as we'd expected meaning we made great time doing the rounds to collect everyone again.
We had an early start on Saturday as we had a busy day planned. We were driving all the way across Florida to the west coast town of Naples which is a 3-4 hour drive in itself but we were making a detour halfway across the state to go deeper into the Everglades and go on a safari.
The area we stopped was a 'Seminole Indian Reserve' where our first port of call was the Ah-Tah-Tee-Kee Museum which gave us an interesting insight into the history of native Americans in Florida. We then went on to the 'Billie Swamp Safari' where they offer air-boat rides, swamp buggy rides and other animal shows. We went on an air boat ride first, this lasted about 20 minutes and we saw loads of alligators. At one point we went in towards some trees where there were a few hiding out but unfortunately as air boats don't have brakes we didn't exactly stop in time and got stuck in an overgrown area surrounded by about 10 'gators! The driver had to get out and try and push us away with a big pole but this was proving difficult as there were alligators apparently holding us. Eventually we got ourselves free and headed back to the jetty after being so close to the alligators that I could have leaned out and touched one, probably not recommended though!
Next up was the swamp buggy ride which took us right through the swamp and showed us a whole variety of animals including bison, water buffalo, lots of deer, pigs, wild horses and ostriches. This lasted about an hour and was really quite interesting. We were very lucky because on our return all the tours were stopped due to lightning (it's becoming quite a theme here!). We continued our drive towards Naples, eventually arriving at Gemma and Marks at about 5pm. We had a nice relaxing evening sitting out on the balcony, eating, drinking and chatting whilst overlooking the beautiful sandy beach and the Gulf of Mexico. The apartment itself is absolutely gorgeous wit lots of large windows to enjoy the amazing views, it definitely won't be a problem spending our last 2 weeks here.
Today was spent mostly watching the long, classic Wimbledon final which was made even more interesting by Megan's Spanish cousin, Antonio, being here cheering on Nadal. Unfortunately we couldn't watch all the match but "Tivo" is a great invention so we were able to record it whilst we were having a beautiful Sunday lunch with Marks brother, Steven and his wife, Claire and their (almost) 1 yr old always smiling daughter Annabel. We eventually finished watching the final at about 6pm, it really was a whole day of tennis! We finished off the day with a quick visit to the gym and swimming pool followed by some American Football on the beach with a beautiful sunset in one direction and a sea-based thunderstorm in the other!
