Working vacation in Fort Lauderdale

I can hardly believe a month has already passed since our trip to Florida! Time has flown by lately.

As soon as we found out that John was being sent to Fort Lauderdale to teach a class, we planned on me and possibly Aaron coming along. It is really wonderful that John has a job that is ok with me and Aaron joining him on business trips. Florida is certainly one of the nicer locations he has been sent. So we began planning a working vacation right away.

What a great way to take a trip together. Since it was trip for work, John's airline ticket, hotel and meals were covered. John was scheduled to work for most of the week.  We decided to extend the trip by a couple of days so that we could spend time enjoying the beach and sightseeing.

After a lot of discussion, we chose to have Aaron stay with my parents instead of joining us. I knew it would be really hard for me to leave him for a week. However, it was definitely the right decision. So much of the trip was spur of the moment, running from place to place and evenings at restaurants. It would have been tough to entertain him all day and keep him under control while out to eat with John's boss. He adores his Nan and Pops so I knew he would be happy and in good hands!

John and I had a wonderful time! John's teaching went really well. He got the go ahead for the next level of teaching courses for his company. I spent the week catching up on reading, catching some sun and of course walking up and down the beach. On John's off time we went to a bird refuge, Everglades National Park, visited a sea turtle rehab facility, enjoyed the beach, kayaked in the everglades and visited the Miami zoo.

The highlight of the trip was definitely kayaking in the everglades! We did a five hour trip that took us through mangrove tunnels, estuaries, a bird rookery and the bay. The mangrove tunnels were almost creepy, they were dark and very swampy. We saw osprey, anhinga, herons and even had a couple of dolphin swim near our boat.

Thanks to family and John's job for making it possible to go on fun vacations! We feel so blessed to be able to take the trips we get to take while only spending a small amount of money. We both love to travel and really wouldn't be able to do as much of it without ways to lessen the expense. Fort Lauderdale was quite memorable. What a treat to have some time alone together. Who knows when that will happen again!