Welcome to Miami

Two weeks ago we boarded a plane and flew to Miami for a family cruise.  It was my entire side of the family so we had 12 adults and 9 children in tow...Miami didn't know what hit it.  As much as I love to travel...I HATE FLYING...but I was excited for our first flight because it would be Phin's first flight.   He loved running around the terminal with his cousins...good news he was small enough for us to carry on the flight. 

He also loved watching the airplane as it landed and as we prepared to board.

Our first flight was to Los Angeles...then we had a red eye flight to Miami.  Phin decided to make this a very momentous trip and grew some molars just in time for our departure.  He had been up most of the night with a high fever.  He got pretty warm on the flight to LA and we ended up stripping him down to his diaper and putting a cool cloth on his body.  When we landed in LA we changed him into PJs and searched for some milk during our quick layover.  The red eye lived up to its name.  I gave up on sleeping...mostly because I can't sleep sitting up...and I was pretty worried about our little guy.    

We landed in Miami around 4 in the morning Utah time and hit the ground running.  We decided to brave public transportation to downtown Miami.  First we got on the airport mover.  It was a lot of work moving all of our luggage.  We had two backpacks, two carry-on pieces, a large rolling suitcase, a stroller and our Kelty Kid's backpack.

Next we bought tickets for the Metrorail and rode it to the Goverment Station

Then we loaded the Omni loop to our final destination.  We noticed a lot of people wearing pink...we figured out quickly that the Susan G. Koman run was taking place...and that we were headed right to its epicenter.  We asked some of our fellow riders about where we could get some breakfast...two of them started to verbally sprawl in front of us.

Once we got off the Omni loop we walked a couple of blocks to the water.  We had a lovely breakfast overlooking the boats.

We had a few hours to kill so everyone took turns watching the luggage while others explored.  We walked down to where the race started and enjoyed spectacular views of  the water.

Seth was wishing we had brought his hammock.

We also found some very cool trees.

Seth is able to sleep anywhere...me not so much.

When we had killed enough time we hauled ourselves and all of our luggage over a bridge to the cruise terminal.  It was quite a trek...especially in the humidity.

We boarded the ship and set out to explore before we were allowed in our stateroom.

Phin loved the small spaces in our stateroom.  I loved washing the flight and trek to the ship off of us.

Phin was a dream sleeper on the cruise.  He slept 10-12 hours every night and most of the time we had to wake him up in the morning.

We had two days at sea before we arrived at our first port.  We spent quite a bit of time around the pool and also played a few games.

We only had one towel animal awaiting us in our stateroom the entire cruise.  Phin took very little time to rip it apart from limb to limb...or towel to towel.