Our trip to Marco Island, Florida

So we went on a free trip to Marco Island, Florida because Tracy qualified for President's Club. It's for the top performers in the company. If you qualify they send you on an all expense paid trip. This year it was to Marco Island, Florida. In the past it has been in Jamaica, Hawaii, Cancun, Arizona etc....The best one ever was the one to Hawaii. That rocked. We decided to "opt out" of the Jamaica trip back in 2002 and took the money instead. Arizona was the trip when I was pregnant. Anyone who knows how great my pregnancy went will pretty much know how that trip went. This was our first time going with Xander. What a totally different experience to go on a vacation with a toddler. By the first couple of hours on the island, we were thinking we wanted to take a vacation from this vacation. Xander is at the stage now where he wants to go go go and it is always in the wrong direction. And if we try to steer him into the right direction, a tantrum will erupt. Or if we pick him up and try to carry him back to where we need him to be, a tantrum erupts. So we have renamed Marco Island and now it is lovingly known as Tantrum Island. So anyway, here are some pictures of our trip.

Here is Superman....er...Xander at the airport checking out the airplanes and trucks through the window. We had a little bit of a wait to board our airplane but Xander didn't mind at all. We had to wake him up to go to the airport so he is in his jammies. Lots of people on the plane were very happy to see that Superman was on our flight. LOL




There was a dinner that night outside by the beach. We were chasing Xander around the whole time so we didn't get any pictures. Chasing Xander around ended up being the theme of the whole vacation. After a night of no sleep...for any of us...we went on a shelling excursion. We took a catamaran ride out to Romano Island to collect sea shells.

Here are some pictures of Xander and Daddy on the beach...waiting for the catamaran to pull up to shore.




Here are some pictures of Xander sporting his life vest. (just in case there are any Florida law officials checking out my blog. See? He wore the vest the whole time he was on the boat!)





We were able to see pods of dolphins while we were on our way to and from the island. This was the coolest part. It was so cool to see them in their natural habitat as opposed to dolphins at Sea World- which is also very cool...just different-cool. It was mating season and the Captain told us the day before he actually saw dolphins mating. Apparently, we were not on the dolphin porno tour. Thankfully. But we did get to see some dolphins racing the boat...it was neat. The Captain said males will do that during mating season since they are extra frisky.






Xander didn't have any interest in picking up sea shells- which were more abundant than the actual sand on the shore of Romano Island. But he did like the water coming up and covering his feet. Oh, and he also liked to wash his bus in the water.





The next day we took him swimming in the heated splash pool. He really liked it. Of course, this was the best picture I got. It was kinda raining and the lens of the camera fogged up and I didn't realize the problem until it was too late. UGH!


Then we spent some time on the balcony of our hotel room.



Then we got ready for the black and white gala. It was the awards dinner where Tracy got his award for being awesome.
This is what Xander wore. He was the hit of the evening.



Then back in the room and ready for bed. He played on the floor (which I am sure is just so clean and sanitary...I don't even want to think about the crap that was on that floor!) while we packed to leave in the morning.


It was a fun and exhausting trip. It was fun to see all the stuff the way Xander was seeing it- for the first time. But it was exhausting for the same reason. I don't know how he has so much energy! :)