Ft. Lauderdale in pictures

Simon loved the beach!But not as much as Maya and Jonah.
This is the view of the pool from our 10th floor hotel room.This is what the hotel looked like from the inside.
Simon didn't like that he had to wait for me to go in the water--here he is wistfully watching the two heads of his siblings while he is stuck on the sand. We discovered that if we went to the beach in the evening the temperatures were just perfect. And no pesky sun to worry about.
One day we spent a long time building a huge sandcastle fortress.
Happily, we ran into my old college friend Jill and her kids, same ages as my first two.
The four big kids had a lot of fun together! We visited each others' hotel pools, spent time at the beach and one day went to the science museum together. Too bad we live on opposite coasts...
Maya snapped this of me while I was struggling to get dressed on the beach under a towel.
Happy boy--he had so much fun.
Our trip to Florida was a last minute decision. Mostly because we had just gotten back from a road trip down to Atlanta, where we had gone because I, in particular was feeling a burning desire to get out of NYC for a bit, and Brett was wanting to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail. So I talked him into starting at the beginning. We took two days to drive down and two to drive back up, and in the middle Brett hiked 70 miles. Over only THREE days. Crazy! But super fun to have a goal like that, to hike the entire 2181 miles. He's done most of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York sections...and now most of Georgia too. While he was hiking, the kids and I went to Stone Mountain, and explored downtown Atlanta. We had only been back a couple days when Brett found out he was scheduled to dive in Ft. Lauderdale less than a week later.
So we mobilized again.
I'm so glad we went too--it was a lot of work for Brett though--he dove every day for two weeks and he's been dog tired ever since we got home. The logistics of diving for work are tremendous, and he had NY work to tend to in the evenings, so it was a hard trip for him. One of his co-workers went to the hospital with an ear infection (from diving), and they spent the last night we were there packing up the boat and gear in the pouring rain.
There are still things we haven't finished unpacking, and I must somehow manage to get the last bit of schoolwork done that we left hanging before we left. Jonah had to miss his last baseball and soccer games, Maya her last art class. But now the schedule is relatively free except for visiting friends and loosely scheduled playdates. I think it will all slowly get done.