Our tropical getaway

WARNING- the following contains images of beaches, sun, and palm trees that may leave you feeling, well, cold (especially you buffalonians). Proceed reading at your own risk.

*this is a picture-ful posting (for the family)

Here is our experienced traveler- Dayton's 3rd flight!

We flew through the Tampa airport and ending up at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. The sun was a welcome view.We were on the ship MSC Orchestra- a Italian ship pretty new to american sailings. Here is our first night on the cruise. The ship was beautiful. This was also the start of Dayton eating EVERYTHING (with breadsticks being his favorite)Most of the waiters were from Bali and are on the ship for 9 months at a time and away from their families. They loved Dayton and told us all about their kids at home, reminding us how blessed we are.

Day 2:

KEY WEST, FL

This is ONE tree- amazing!Dayton's first day at the beachAnd for playing DRESS UP

Day 3:

Cozumel, Mexico

Day 4:

Georgetown, Grand Cayman

This was definitely our favorite place. The city was so clean and the water so blue. The "7 mile beach" was landing spot, followed by a shore side snorkeling area of "cheeseburger reef". And I love this picture of my surfer dudesDay 5: At sea

We decided to sneak out of dinner early and take sunset pictures. It was well worth it. Everyone was at dinner so we were some of the only people on the deck (except, of course, for the couple taking our pictures)

Day 6:

Cayo Levantado, D.R.

When the main beach started getting crowded, when went to a small side beach, where we hung out with the ship "magician" who was an experienced "shell finder". After helping Ben find shells, a small boat pulled in with some of the locals. They showed us the fish, shells, and crazy crab "thing" they caught. They showed us how they clean the crabs out of the conch shells. This was definitely our favorite part of the day.Going . . . going . . .Gone!Day 7:

At SeaI don't know about other cruises, there were two pools with a couple people swimming and hundreds of people laying out around them. Well, we were the couple of people in the pool. There was an edge around the pool about 5 inches deep Dayton crawled around in.Our second DRESS UP eveningSo, Ben has made the observation that wherever we go, Dayton and I attract older ladies (and gentlemen) while he is left waiting. Well, here are some of our pseudo grandparents from New Jersey who couldn't get enough of Dayton.

Raymond and EsterDon and LoisOn Saturday morning at 9 am we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale. Our plane didn't leave until 6 pm. So, with luggage in hand, we decided to walk and see what we found. We hopped on a trolley that took us to the beach. There were WAVES! As I was in the water with Dayton, a sweet old lady- Norma- started talking to me. She offered to watch Dayton while Ben and I swam together then she invited, no, insisted that we come to their condo to shower/get dressed. So, we ended up in a condo on the 13th floor, overlooking the beach. Crazy! When we got out of the shower, she had sandwhiches waiting and helped us eventually call a cab back to the airport. Vinny and Norma
It was a great week. Dayton loved all the people and slept great at night (because he didn't sleep during the day!). I think we wore him out.