Today, we spent the day just wondering around the city in search of landmarks, kid-friendly activities and “gotta see” stuff. It was a really relaxing day despite the heat. However, we found plenty of indoor places to cool down and intermixed them throughout the day.

For our history lesson today, we visited Harry Truman’s The Little White House. It was initially a naval station’s command headquarters during the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman started using it as his winter home. [Read more…]

We spent the day exploring Key West. Jenny, Kate and I visited the Old Town, had Key Lime pie from Key West Key Lime Shoppe, toured the Shipwreck Treasures Museum, visited the Key West Aquarium and then found our way back to South Beach and Southernmost Beach Cafe & Bar for fun in the sand and food in the bellies.

Kate had such a find time today. As we walked through the Old Town, she got to touch sponges from the ocean, we bought her a very bohemian dress, and her little mind experienced new sites, sounds and American Capitalism at is best. She has always loved fish and the aquarium was probably her favorite spot. She touched her first star fish, nurse shark and silver dollar. Also, she loved meeting the rock crabs, shrimp and lobster, turtle, jelly fish, Clownfish (“hey, there’s Nemo), the various anemone, lots of shellfish, seeing the big shark.

Oh, and most importantly, Kate rode her first surf board. While it was on sand, she “hung 10” better than any other almost 1.5 year old.

Here are some pictures from our day: [Read more…]

Jenny, Kate and I escaped the daily grind in Houston and headed for Southern Florida… We all agreed (especially Kate) that it was time for a family vacation and a post-birthday celebration for Jenny. Over the last fifteen months, we’ve taken Kate to Los Angeles, Austin, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Orlando, Chicago, and Tahoe. So for a change, we decided to head east (and south) to Key West.

Our trip started in Fort Lauderdale as we decided to break up the long travel days into bite size pieces. So, we booked a room at The Westin Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale for our first night. We arrived around 1PM and made our way to the hotel. After some refreshing we hit the beach and Kate got to put her toes in the Atlantic for the first time. Note: Kate did not like bare feet on sand. After our beach trip, we ate an early dinner at Shula’s on the Beach. Kate is a Mac-N-Cheese nut, so she was in heaven when her Lobster Mac & Cheese arrived. Jenny and I enjoyed a few glasses of wine and fish. We retired early to get rest for our leisurely drive to Key West.

The next day, we loaded up and hit the road. We stopped for lunch and play in Key Largo at The Island Grill. This is such a cool restaurant, overlooking the water with beach access. After eating Mac-N-Cheese, seaweed salad and a tuni steak, we hit their beach and just relaxed. This trip has no time tables and is simply a “play it by ear” vacation. After a while, we hit the highway and arrived in Key West in the early afternoon. [Read more…]