My mother hurt her knee while we were visiting and was stuck at home quite a bit. One of the outings the rest of us did was to go to the Everglades. We enjoyed an air boat ride through the river of grass and saw a few alligators. The driver was doing all sorts of maneuvers to make the boat go fast and turn and wiggle, which we appreciated. We saw 4 alligators on the boat ride including one small baby.
After the air boat ride, there was a small show with a large alligator, and then for $3 per person, people got to hold a 5-year-old alligator named Snappy. This was of course the highlight of the day for our kids, and possibly the trip (besides opening up presents on Christmas morning). The kids still talk about how Snappy "waved" at them (the handler wiggled Snappy's arm as he walked past the crowd waiting to hold him). Snappy was calm and docile, and obviously used to being handled by random visitors. The kids have now kissed a moose in Norway and held an alligator in Florida.
Mimi celebrated his birthday with ice cream sundaes. He even got the COVID vaccine first shot the day before his birthday.
Derek was a great helper with watering plants.
Matheson Hammock Park has a nice park with pond, mangrove trail, and little beach, among other things. We went there to fly Karina's drone. She loved going to parks to fly it around.
It's hard to see, but the drone is chasing Derek in this picture. (It is camouflaged by the picnic table.)
Derek played soccer with Mimi and tried to hold his legs in place so he could kick the ball through them.
We saw pretty trees and colorful lizards at the park.
We also took a walk through mangrove trees. The kids collected what I call sea pencils because they are good for writing in the sand. I think they are actually mangrove roots.
Another day we went to the Miami Zoo. Apparently lots of people thought this would be a good socially distanced activity because it was unfortunately crowded. The tiger was surprisingly interesting walking around continuously both times we visited his exhibit.
Below is Karina by a dhole. A couple weeks ago, at home in Maryland, we watched a fascinating show on National Geographic about king cobras in India, and they also showed footage of a dog- or fox-like animal and Karina announced that it looked like a dhole. None of the rest of us knew what that was, and then the narrator on the show did indeed say it was a dhole. Karina said she learned about dholes at the zoo in Miami and I looked through our pictures and found she was right:-)
By some camels:
The zoo also had a large playground and a splash pad. Lydia and Derek enjoyed playing while Karina and Mimi explored more exhibits.
More pictures from Matheson Hammock from a different day:
At the beach at Matheson Hammock - Nate thinks Karina looks like a shorter version of me in this picture since we were dressed alike:
We traveled back to Maryland on New Years Eve, but had fireworks at home in Mimi and Mormor's driveway on the 30th.
Nate and Mimi tried to be safe lighting everything.
It was a bit nippy so the kids got wrapped up in a blanket, around their shorts and t-shirts.
When we arrived back in Maryland on New Year's Eve, Snoopy decided all by himself that Derek's bed looked like a good spot for him:-)
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