more photos

shopping is a pleasure with these trollies. For the parents they are about as easy to steer as reversing with a heavy truck with trailer, but it might be since the drivers don't really have syncronised steering...

Next time you are bored in a restaurant - try this!

Vero beach

hikes in another sanctuary, another board walk... can sometimes be too much.

Probably the most relaxing moment I had during this vacation.

Mangrove

"hugs for free!"

'gator (in the wild)

water moccasin?

tai chi in the botanical garden

workout

Beach bums

The beach in Naples is fantastic. Clean, fine, white sand, shells, child friendly waves, freshwater showers and toilets, life jackets to borrow for children... And the first day we had three dolphins jumping around maximum 10 m from the shore!!! At that time I was unfortunately too excited to remember to take out the camera, so at the photo they had already swam out to the pier - where Justus was standing and admiring them just below him.

How do you make a little girl who refuses pumpkin/carrot soup to open her mouth? Put a blueberry in it!

Naked in Naples

We are now staying in a villa in Naples which value we estimate to two million dollars, after studying the real estate ads. Today Alma and Junia ran naked around the pool while I was preparing dinner (wish we could spend that extreme critical half an hour like that at home to, the kids that five minutes before were crying of tiredness and hunger were now happy as Larry). Then Alma was very still and silent for a few seconds, and had then produced a sausage. I am so glad she did it before she went into the water...

Napels is - maybe even more than the rest of Florida according to our experiences - full of retired super friendly people. We have never spoken so much with oldies in our entire lives. I have not seen anyone at all between 10 and 30 here. 

Today we checked out down town, and enjoyed a jazz concert with a dixie band in a park next to a play ground. Junia and Alma danced, and their parents just enjoyed.

Tomorrow we will sign in to a gym for the day and do something to compensate that daily Ben& Jerry's.

Feeding birds in a zoo above Vero.

Dad's pancakes are better than American. We have by the way given up at trying to make Alma sit at meal times.

Double moral

Choose life, keep Christ in Christmas and Pro-gun.

Florida photos

There has been a lot of tex mex...

Art deco Miami

American breakfast

fun in splash park

BIG boat in Key West

Cuban dinner with Ming, Sandy, Jasmin and Sophie

Not everyone liked to cycle in Palm beach

... but swimming is always fun!

backyard climbing

manatee - sea cow

Law and order

All is well even if we have a really slow internet connection which prevents us from uploading photos. Lets see if Naples is better connected next week.

Forgot to mention that we have had some American law experiences. Parking ticket the 2nd day (if you have paid until 9 pm that means that you can not stay until 9 the next morning...) so we had to go to Miami beach police station and cash us out. In the end, the ticket was cheaper than the normal parkibg fee, so it wasn't too bad after all. Later, the same day, we all of a sudden have a police car with the sirens on behind us. Nothing to do but pulling over, and quickly remove the ipads from our ladies in order to have very high pitched screams from the back (and maybe some extra mercy). The sherif said that we had skipped a stop sign (which was totally true), but after turning Justus' drivers licence around three times he figured that the signs probably looked different in Europe, so he left us with a verbal warning. Thank you, we will never do it again, and the ladies got their ipads back.

Happy new year!

Time is flying, and we have left both the jetleg and three destinations behind. The girls are sleeping full nights, food is delicious, people friendly - life is good.

Some things I have found rather funny here. Ergo babies/ baby bjorns - for carrying dogs. Strollers - for dogs. The dolls in the shop windows that look like they had serious boob jobs. The size of everything eatable (twice the Swedish size). Massive bilboards along the road making publicity for attorneys. Also, how increadible well-behavied and child-friendly people are - compared to Swedes. 

Unfortunately we just had one day in Miami, which was spent doing the Lonely Planet Art Deco walking tour, a proper american breakfast/lunch at Gloria Estefan's place, farmers market and a swim. Unfortunately little havana and little haiti will have to wait until next time. A very nice thing with Miami was the amount of Latinos. I spoke more Spanish than English and ate ceviche, arepas, empanadas y caldo de azucar. Me gusta.

After Miami we continued down to the Keyes, and the time we spent there was not really in proportion to the time we spent getting there and away. Anyhow, Key West check. Also managed to have dinner with some old friends of Justus', and in the end of the day it is always the people you meet when you travel that matters. 

We then continued north to Palm beach, the 3rd richest city in the US. Stopped by an old travel companion of mine, from 11 years back - time flies... And our first home exchange on this trip was a hosted one, with a lovely couple and three energetic dogs to Alma's delight (Junia was a bit scared, even if they were yorkshire terrier-sized...) Interesting evening talks about everything from gun laws to in-laws, and we felt that we got a proper taste of some American culture.

Now we're in Vero beach, and have a rather chilled week ahead of us. If Junia could decide, it would probably be spent only at home, as we are lucky to have a home full with toys and a pool. Hopefully her parents can have a saying as well...