Destin, FL

Day 1. The girls went out as soon as they could to get a taste of the beach. It had been two years since our last visit to FL.

They could hardly wait to play in the soft sand and to swim in the ocean. Meanwhile, Gerardo was playing golf.

After his game, we went to the marina for a father and child fishing trip. Gerardo would take turns to go dolphin watching and fishing with our daughters. Sofia would be the first one to go fishing with Dad.

Happy to go out to the ocean on a new adventure with Sofia, Gerardo got ready to go aboard the Little Nemo. It was overcast, and a storm was expected to approach, but nobody knew exactly how soon.

The boat was only half way through the canal when the captain announced that the fishing trip had got cancelled due to a heavy thunderstorm. Repeated lighting and heavy rain fell on the area a few minutes after the announcement.

But as usual in FL, most storms don't last more than 30 minutes. By the time we made it back to the hotel, everything was fine again, and with improved weather conditions, we took buckets, nets, and flashlights to go crab hunting with the girls.

The catch of the night were several tiny white crabs. They camouflage very well in the white sand, and at night, they can be noticed only when they are moving....

Day 2. Gerardo took his tri bike for a 20-mile ride first thing in the morning. Then came Stefania's turn to go out for her fishing trip. She was much more fortunate than Sofia. She was able to watch the Dolphins that wander the waters near the canal entrance, and then she tried her luck at fishing. Not being too comfortable with the whole idea, she asked Gerardo to help her out... The result was a happy Dad throwing lines and catching bait fish, and a happy daughter playing with the caught fish in a tank located in the rear of the boat.

Sofia and I waited patiently for both of them to return... NOT! We went to do what girls do in their spare time... yes, we went shopping...

We closed the day at the beach, playing with the girls and having some more fun.

"Be happy... you're in Florida!"

Day 3. Sofia's second attempt to go on a fishing trip with Dad worked out very well. She fished for the first time in the ocean, and here is a picture of the very first fish she caught. It's bait fish, so you will need to look hard to find where it is!

The day was much nicer. Gerardo took video and plenty of pictures. This is the view of the canal at the point where boats turn to go to the gulf.

Days 4-8. Lots of beach time. An approaching tropical storm provided nice waves for body surfing. All of us did some of it...

It had been four years since our last Florida hurricane... the tropical storm hit Destin at around midnight, and the winds lasted almost all night long... or it seemed to us like they did anyway. On Saturday morning there was debris all along the beach, and it was still overcast...

...but shortly after, even as soon as on Saturday afternoon, the weather went back to normality, and we went back out to enjoy the beach. The girls built castles and curious animal shapes in the sand, including dragons and sea turtles...

Sunday afternoon. Family picture time. I am not sure how many pictures we took, but what I do know is we took a good part of the afternoon posing, checking the pictures in the digital camera, posing again trying to get a better shot, and failing in almost every attempt... :-)

We had many laughs along the way... funny enough, the pictures I like the best are the ones where we just goofed around...

We continued taking pictures until after sunset. Then, we called it a day.

Sometime on Monday, the girls found a very strange creature near a sand bar that was formed during the storm. It had a short neck, it did not appear to have eyes, it had two frog-like legs with feathery fins at the end, and it had a long tail. It looked like a headless chicken - a swimming headless chicken, that is...

The girls had it captive for a night, and then on Tuesday morning, before we left the hotel on our way back home, they went back to the beach with Gerardo to liberate the creature in the water. Here we see Gerardo as he was cleaning the bucket after 'odd creature' liberation...

Time to leave our favorite Florida Beach. A ten-hour drive back home was the next item in our schedule. We were very fortunate to return home with many wonderful memories.