Florida or bust

so this past week john and i got to go down to hollywood florida for a company "reward" trip. my mom was nice enough to come down and watch jack so john and i could have some time together. when i first heard that he won this trip i was very excited a chance to relax and hang out at the beach and then as the trip got closer i find out that there are mandatory meetings every morning not only for the employee but for their guests as well. me in a meeting, no way!! these meetings were at 5 in the morning arizona time and breakfast was at 4 in the morning arizona time. we all know that i'm not a morning person. needless to say i skipped breakfast. i don't mean to sound ungrateful because i'm not. i loved being there with john and having a chance to be husband and wife and not just mom and dad, if that makes any sense.



so we arrived wednesday afternoon and went to the mandatory dinner so we could "have the chance to meet upper management." after dinner we went out with some friends and saw a movie, 10000 b.c. (not my choice but it was actually ok.) thursday we went to the meeting and then to the everglades. that was really cool. just being on the air boats going over the grass was really awesome and yes we actually saw some aligators (pictures to follow.) our guide on the air boat is a serious gator hunter and we found a big old male 13 footer. he thought it would be really cool to swing around on the gater several times to see if he could get him mad and have him charge the boat. the gator didn't charge the boat but he did ram his nose into the side of the boat and then at this point our guide thought it was also a good idea to make him mad and see if he would raise up on his tail and launch himself on the boat. again thankfully the gator was smarter then our guide and did not fall for his tricks but it was crazy to see the gator blowing bubbles out of his nose to show us that he was really unhappy with us being there. oh i have to add, while our guide was trying to aggitate this gator he was doing this on my side of the boat like a foot away from me. surprisingly enough i wasn't all that scared. but i was really scared when i got to hold a baby aligator (again a picture to follow.) that night we got to have some fun at dave and busters playing arcade games. we won over 800 tickets, thats right tons of useless toys for jack.



friday was our free day after the morning meeting. we were lucky enough to have our friends brent and sarah and their girls come over from cape coral to hang out with us. we had a great time at the beach and pool. they have really cute, sweet girls. saturday we went to the hamburger joint made famous by oprah's best friend gale called le tub, let me tell you that their mozzarella sticks are FANTASTIC, maybe they were really good because you have to wait forever to get your food and i was starving but whatever i enjoyed them throughly. after that i went to the spa and got a pedicure and my hair styled. i hated my hair so there is definatly no pictures of that. that night was the big gala which was lame but there it is.



we came home on sunday to a very onery jack. he was not happy that we left him and he made sure we knew it. but none the less we are home and grateful for the opportunity to be together and then come home to a healthy jack. thanks mom for watching our boy and letting us go. now the pictures...

this gator did not like me at all. he was wiggling all over the place and i thought he was trying to claw me but i think that was all in my head
once john held him he calmed down
cruising through the everglades. as you can see it was an awesome day upper 70's low 80's.
here he is the star of the show. we hung out with him for about 20 minutes and he was not happy about it.
here is our crazy gator hunter/guide. he has to be one of the coolest old guys i have ever met. he kept touching the gators noise trying to get him to open his mouth for us.