The next day we drove a short 3 hours to Ft. Lauderdale.
This girl was so excited to see these signs on our door when we checked into our hotel- the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Marina. This was the host hotel for the USTA Tumbling competition and a short walk to the venue.
We had an amazing view of the marina and yachts coming in and out all the time. So awesome!
#thoselegs
After settling into our room, we decided to check out the hotel. It had an awesome pool area!
There was a little trail with things set up- the kids liked this steering wheel
Next we drove down the beach and checked out the ocean! We took this picture for Ga Ga!
So much fun exploring!
I think it's in the kids rule book that when you're in sand, you have to dig a hole. Ha!
She had to practice her tumbling pass on the beach!
Collecting seashells
All of a sudden we heard Daddy yelling from down the beach and we ran to see what he wanted to show us! Andrew couldn't get there fast enough!
Yes, that would be an actual, very mean looking sting ray just hanging out along the shore!
#yikes #nothankyou
I will say I was nervous because I had taken this picture just before that sighting!
We took a little walk along the beach and they posed by this huge ice cream cone!
That made us hungry so we found the neatest little place to eat dinner right across the marina from our hotel called 15th Street Fisheries.
It quickly became our favorite restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale
And guess what? We all ate alligator!
This was a first for all of us!
We all gave it a thumbs up!
It tasted just like chicken!
So the best part was, the waitress quickly brought us boxes for our leftovers and told us to head outside if we wanted to feed them to the fish.
We were a little confused, but quickly caught onto this neat little tradition!
They would literally throw a tiny piece of food into the water and a million fish would jump at it and make the biggest splashes. It was so entertaining and hilarious!
We had an absolute blast doing this and could've stayed the whole night!
Best.restaurant.ever. We WILL be back!
We headed back to the hotel for an evening swim! The weather was perfect!
You just can't top this excitement
#thosemuscles
We swam until dark and the pool was just gorgeous
We ran into several tumbling families and had fun visiting
Daddy took Kerigan back to the room to get ready for bed since she had a big day the next day! My little man and I stayed and swam and had so much fun. That's a little restaurant and bar behind him.
When we got back to the room, these two were crashed! It was such a fun day and evening exploring Ft. Lauderdale!
Up next, Kerigan's big day!
