Caribbean Vacation - Part Five

The next day we had to get off the boat pretty early. So we headed over to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale. We hung out by the pool for awhile. And went to look at the boats in the marina that was next to the hotel.

Then in the afternoon everyone but Silje and I went on an airboat ride in the Everglades. It wasn't recommended to take kids as young as Silje because of the noise, so we stayed behind. It's too bad because I've always wanted to go on an airboat ride in the Evenglades. On the other hand, I'm totally terrified of alligators, so it might have been for the best. It looks pretty neat in the pictures though.

Eeek! There one is!

While they were all off doing that, Silje and I were doing this:

Well, Silje was anyway. After her three hour nap, we went for a walk along the beach.

Then we went boat shopping.

And with that, our vacation was over. We flew home the next day. It was a very nice vacation!

Caribbean Vacation - Part Four

The evening after our visit to St. Thomas was another formal night. Here's Stian rocking the tie again.

The next day we were at Grand Turk. This was a new port for us. In fact I believe it's a new port for cruise ships. It was quite nice. You just walked right off the boat and there were nice shops and bars and a pool and beach just right there. It was pretty busy along the beach where we stopped, but if we had walked a little bit further it would have been less busy. Unfortunately we didn't get to Grand Turk until 1:00, so by the time we got off the ship both kids were already a little tired and cranky. So we stayed close to the ship. It was a very nice port though.

Apparently we didn't take many pictures in Grand Turk as that is it. Our last day was another sea day and we don't have any pictures other than these two taken at dinner.

I have no idea why Stian is snarling while holding a butter knife. Who knows what goes through the head of a four year old.

Caribbean Vacation - Part Three

The third day we were in St. Thomas.  I just love St. Thomas.  It's such a beautiful island and being part of the Virgin Islands there are so many beautiful islands around it.  I really need to come up with a research project that would require me to collect data in USVIs or BVIs for 6 months or so...

Stian started the day with brownies for breakfast. Gotta love vacation. Stian loves chocolate. So he was in heaven on this trip as we let him eat a lot more sweets than normal. His favorite dessert after dinner was the Princess Love Boat Dream, which is a chocolate mousse. We didn't typically let him have brownies for breakfast, but he had brought a brownie and some cookies back to the room the night before after the show and he wanted them when he got up in the morning.

As an aside, Stian loved the shows on the boat. Every night after dinner Kris and Betsy and Stian would go to a show. It surprised me how much Stian seemed to enjoy them. I guess we need to start taking him to the theater!

Silje and her crazy hair check out St. Thomas from our balcony.

The iguanas were everywhere.

Anyway, we decided to go to Coral World while in St. Thomas.  We've been to St. Thomas a number of times, but we've never done that.  I thought Stian would enjoy it.  So we got in one of the open air taxi trucks and he took us up over the island to the other side where Coral World was located. It was a beautiful drive.

Do you see the stingray hiding there?