We stayed in Deerfield Beach, just down the road from Dad and Ina's place in Boca Raton. In the past, we've stayed at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, home of the "pink tower." It's a nice place, but during the February break it is absolutely overrun by pushy Yankees fans (no offense to my NY blog readers, right??) who claim every available lounge chair by 6am with their Wall Street Journals. We're just simple Boston folk, so this year, we decided to try another location, and we really loved our hotel - it had a great view, and was located on one of the nicest public beaches in the area.
Our room overlooked the pool, and Gemma loved to peek out to see the action below.
Look mom - Edie is swimming in the pool!
And Chris is watching her with his eagle eyes... actually, it was Gemma who pointed out to me that "Daddy use blackberry." Caught in the act, Daddy - from seven stories up and a zoom lens! At least someone was paying attention.
We spent one afternoon at a fabulous playground that included a three-level wooden play structure, lots of climbing equipment, and interesting science activities.
The girls would have stayed for hours and hours, but we also wanted to visit the carousel and take some time for lunch before Gemma collapsed into sleep!
Another day, we visited the Miami Seaquarium, which was a surprisingly manageable and small amusement park. The girls loved watching the dolphins and sea lions, and playing on the various play structures in the park.
We saw some lovely birds, sea turtles, and crocodiles in one part of the park. We were interested to see deer living on a small island next to the crocodile enclosure - dangerously close it seemed to us! We didn't get any photos of the crocs or deer, but we did get some of the other inhabitants.
We traveled back to Boston on Friday night. One quick vignette from the flight home - Gemma was a little sick with a cold and slept most of the flight. She woke up just before landing and looked a little dazed, possibly grumpy. We had a smooth descent into Boston, but had an unexpected hard landing on the runway that caused people around us to gasp, then Edie started to cry, but little Gemma suddenly perked up and said with a huge smile: "That was fun. Do it again!" So we will - next February!
