Bienvenido a Miami

We got to go to Miami for our: family reunion, vacation, graduation trip, trip to see graduation, and visit family!
We started out our trip out the same way we did last year... Dane's bag getting lost... It was unbelievable (in a frustrated way). This exact thing happened last year when we traveled out to visit Genie and Grant in Miami. We started out in the airport in SLC and were trying to get our bags through with out having to gate check them. They caught our bags, and said we had to check them, and they would meet us in Miami. So we get to Miami, and Dane is saying "just watch... now your bag isn't going to show up Aimee..." I told him that was a mean thing to say! So he changed his tune and said, "actually, watch, your bag is going to show up and my bag won't make it." So after a long time our bags start to show up... slowly... then we have all but one... and the same few bags have rotated by us a couple times and Dane's bag isn't there. Unbelievable! So we head back to the luggage office that we know so well, and start to file a claim. The lady is typing away, and says, "well it says that the bag is here." We know that's not right, so we pull out my tag and see if that's the right one. Well it turns out Dane's bag got put on the flight that was supposed to land before ours, but ended up landing right after us. So we walked out of the luggage office in time for the carousel to start rotating again and get Dane's bag. Disaster Averted.

The rest of our time in Miami wasn't less eventful. We were able to go to Grant's graduation. That was so great seeing Grant get hooded with his stop sign graduation hat. There was an invocation to which Cooper, their 20 month son, loudly chimed in "Amen" about 2 seconds after the rest of the crowd. That got laughs, and one lady started elbowing her husband to look at the little kid that knew how to pray. During graduation we had a fun time finding lizards outside (to keep Cooper occupied). We also had fun watching Toy Story on Grant's iphone for about 20 minutes, and looking through my wallet. Genie and Coop got to "Hood" Grant on stage. At the end of the ceremony there was benediction, Cooper didn't disappoint. This time he chimed "Amen, daddy." Grant's classmates knew Cooper and were laughing with us.

We also spent plenty of time on the beach, and had fun playing in the ocean.
I am so grateful for an ocean that doesn't feel like knives when you jump in. :)
Here's a snap shot of what we did for a lot of our time in Miami. The boys are throwing the football, Christina and I are trying to body surf, and "Millie" is floating around with Cooper...
...And Michael is spent!

Another eventful thing was that our two rental cars got towed. Camille was chatting on her phone out on the balcony, and see's two tow trucks drive right on by with our rental cars. We were told by the security guard that if we left the cars in the parking garage everything would be fine. But, he forgot to tell the new security guard... This was right as we were about to leave for family pictures. Family pictures turned out great!!!

GIRLS!

We also drove an hour and a half to go to the everglades and go on a boat tour to see the gators. On the way up we had a competition to see who could see the most gators in the canal by the side of the road. We found about 18. When we got there we were the only car in the parking lot... not a good sign. We walked into the shop and the ladies there told us that they were closed because of a drought. So we walked around and saw the alligators they had in the park. We even got to see these two fight... which is probably just playing for them. They were each biting the others foot. I guess that's what they have to do since their little limbs aren't big enough to put each other in a head lock! We had fun showing the little boys, Michael and Cooper, all the animals.
On the drive home Genie, Cooper and I were exhausted...
Courtesy of Grant.
We spent more time on the beach, and made a sweet dunk video... I wanted to put it on here but blogspot has a lame limit of only 100MB per movie... that's a short movie, and the dunk video is not. It's on Facebook if you really want to see it. What would a trip with the brothers be without a new video coming out! haha.

The finale of our trip was getting to the airport and through security an hour and a half before the flight was supposed to take off. Emphasis on the "supposed to." It ended up getting delayed another hour because of rain in Atlanta.
Even though there was many "eventful" things that happened to us, it was a great trip. It was so extremely fun to be with our family. We don't know if we'll get to go on another big family trip like this since each of our little families are changing and getting involved in different things. It was a window of opportunity that we were able to take advantage of. Thank you so much Brad and Camille for making this great family vacation happen!