What We Did On Our Summer Vacation

Our 2003 Summer Vacation in Florida

Still under construction...

Our 2003 Summer vacation was spent in Florida. We stayed for in a pretty nice resort on Marco Island which is about 20 miles south of Naples on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Since I live in Arizona and my kids and parents live in Indiana, my parents were nice enough to meet me in Florida with my kids. This saved me from having to fly to Indiana, pick up the kids, and then fly to Florida and then reverse the route at the end of the vacation. My parents have a place on Lake Okeechobee in the central part of the state. My parents picked up the kids from their Mother and they took a couple of days driving down there. They got there about a day or so before I arrived so they could spend some time together before I got there. From what I hear they got in some pretty good fishing before I arrived.

I flew into Ft Lauderdale and picked up a rental car and drove to my parent's place on Lake Okeechobee arriving about midnight. Everybody was asleep by then but I was so excited to see the kids I had to wake them all up.

The next morning Tyler couldn't wait to get up to go fishing. Here's a few pictures of Tyler and Rockzan fishing in the canal behind my parent's place. Wylie was just watching and hanging out with Daddy.

Tyler doing what he loves - fishing

Wylie still in his jammies

Rockzan fishing

My bait is getting away!

Wylie and his catch

Tyler fishing

We hung around a little while that first day (Saturday) and then headed over to Marco Island and our resort.

Our room was a little small for the four of us but we managed. We were always out running around seeing the sights and of course we spent a LOT of time in the pool

While staying on Marco Island we went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" at a pretty cool theater. It was like a movie dinner theater. All the seats were at tables and waiters came and took your order and everything. Pretty cool. The plan was to see that movie and then go ride the ride at Disneyworld. Well, it was a good plan anyway...

Naples Beach

One of the first things we did was go to Naples Beach. The kids didn't really want to go (they would have rather have just hung out in the motel pool) but after we got there they had a good time looking for shells, sand dollars, and playing in the sand.

Everybody swimming

Very cool

Disneyworld

We drove up to Orlando and spent the night in a motel, then were at Disneyworld from the time they opened until they closed. Wylie decided at the last minute he didn't want to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but that's OK. We still had a great time.

Go faster!!

So fun

Riding the train

The Kennedy Space Center

After spending another night at the Orlando motel, we got up and went o the Kennedy Space Center. Tyler had been before but he really wanted to go again and Rockzan and Wylie hadn't seen it before so we went. Pretty cool of course. They wouldn't talk much about the space shuttle Columbia although the tour bus driver did point out the building where they are reconstructing the millions of pieces that they've found trying to determine what caused the disaster. We took a lot of pictures there.

Riding the train

The last picture is the granite wall with the names of all the people who have died in the space program. Right in the middle the have removed two of the squares to put the names of the Columbia astronauts.

The Everglades

We went to the Everglades and took a really cool airboat ride. Unfortunately the batteries on my camera ran down while I was attempting to take the first picture. I now carry spare batteries at all times...

A Boat Ride in the Bay

We rented a pontoon boat and rode around the bay all day just enjoying the nice day. Everyone got to drive the boat. Some dolphins were following us around.