What a vacation! This summer my whole Heeb-side of the family got together for a wedding and family reunion. My cousin Monica decided to get married at Bonita Beach, my dad's family's favorite vacation spot. It had been 10 years since my immediate family had been to Bonita and 5 years since we'd been to Miami. This trip we got to do both. :)
Bonita Springs Beach is located on the Gulf side of Florida. The water is nice and clear, warm and small waves. There are shells all up and down the beach and tons of marine life such as porpoises, manatees, sand dollars, starfish, bait fish, snook, and other fish. The weather was perfect- gorgeous calm mornings, no rain in the afternoon, and the perfect amount of sun for tanning. :) And yes, I actually got a tan more then I got sunburned! It was a miracle. The entire family rented house-condos on the beach and inter coastal so we had our own little section of private beach all to ourselves.
Our days went like this: sleep in, wake up and put on your swimsuit, eat a nice breakfast with scents of suntan lotion mixed in, drag your lounge chair out to the water for the entire day, walk right into the warm water, float, snorkel, play with the babies, play in the sand, tan, grab some lunch and snacks, back to the water, watch the sunset, dinner, chit chat and movies, and bed. What a life for almost 4 complete days. :)
Monica & Sergio's Wedding was amazing as well. Such a gorgeous setting and of course a super fun reception with tons of dancing. My grandma and aunts totally get into it along with all the kids. I got my groove on and loved just letting loose with the fam.
We had to get some souvenir shopping in while we were there. I wouldn't recommend doing it in the afternoon since we were boiling and dripping with sweat, but we got some cool stuff and saw this pelican all up close and personal.
Then if that wasn't a good enough vacation, we took off to Miami where the majority of my extended family lives. We stayed with Aunt Kathy & Uncle Mike and enjoyed swimming in their pool and their wonderful hospitality, including her cooking.
So I've always wanted to go snorkeling in the Florida Keys and this trip we made it happen. The older kids and dad got in with a snorkel tour on the North White Banks Reef. It was only about 8ft deep and visibility was about 35 feet in front of you! It was amazing! The water was calm, especially for the afternoon. We saw lobster, barracudas, schools of fish, tiny fish that you could almost reach out and touch, a freaking SHARK-but I guess being a Nurse Shark they don't attack or something. But after one look at the thing's bright blue, scary looking eyeball, I was out of there! My favorite thing we saw was a HUGE bright orange slug with a conch shell on its back. I checked that one out the longest. Compared to my one and only other snorkeling trip in Cabo San Lucas Mexico, this one was the best!
We also wanted to check out a beach on Miami and the lighthouse on the Southern most tip of the main land. The beach was nothing compared to Bonita, but the lighthouse was pretty cool. Again it was WAY too hot to be outside touring a lighthouse and not in the water so we didn't stay too long.
I seriously couldn't have asked for a better summer vacation! I wish I could go there every year and take all of you that read my silly blog with me! It was the most relaxing, fun, amazing trip I've had in a long time. The only thing that was missing was Travis. He couldn't get away from school. I hope to get us there within the next couple years and then it will be the perfect summer vacation.
