More July fun....Destination Miami

Just in case there wasn't enough to do in July, Jeffrey and Michael took off on their "Daddy date trip" to Miami. Months ago, Jeffrey prepared his report on Miami, and Michael booked the tickets. They had to get up at 4am to head to the airport for a 6am flight....sounded like a good idea at the time! :-)

Jeffrey waiting around at the airport... Hey, wait a minute....WHO are you talking to at 5:30 am???

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On the plane...

Eating Lenny's at the Memphis airport. The flight connected through Memphis both ways. On the way home, I picked him up in Memphis (Jonathan, Jeremy, Josiah and I had driven up to Memphis) for our week long visit with our friends in Memphis...

Finally making it to Miami, Jeffrey and Michael found out that their hotel had a Carrabba's inside it (a family favorite!)...

and it was right on the beach!!! Many hours were logged on this beach over the weekend!

The next day was the main event...an airboat ride through the Everglades.

Yep, that thing is ALIVE!! These are the kinds of situations that make me really glad these weekends are DAD weekend and not mom wknds!

My brave hubby!!

And as if the alligators were threatening enough, look at those clouds! They had to hold off their boat trip a little while for those to blow over...

It's finally time to get started. Look at that alligator swimming up to say "hi"...or was it saying "Come closer little boy!"

One happy boy!!! Love that smile!!

Jeffrey knew all the names of these alligators by the time the boat ride was over.

After the boat ride, Jeffrey and Michael met up with Uncle Morry and had dinner and played at this park.

Jeffrey w/ Uncle Morry.Jeffrey tried to make us belive this was their rental car....More beach fun!

And then on Sunday, Michael and Jeffrey went to the Miami Zoo. It's the only subtropical zoo in America. (Meaning it has animals from subtropical regions)

This part of the zoo had rubber/plastic animals in the spongy type ground.

Jeffrey thought this pedal car was awesome! Making the zoo even more fun!

Can you believe Jeffrey would pose like that??? Umm....YEAH!

Climbing at the zoo....not all the monkeys are in the cages! :-)

They had a very wonderful time! You can just see it on Jeffrey's face!!

Alamo camp

July was quite a busy month for the Dagerath crew! Right after the trip to Houston, Jeffrey got to attend Alamo Camp. For 5 days, from 9-3, he went to the Alamo to study Texas/Alamo history and he LOVED it!! In the middle of the week, the campers got to "run for office", where they had to make a campaign speech to their "public". Jeffrey was elected lieutenant. As Lt., he got to help inspect "the troops" at the end of the week demonstration to the parents and help pass out awards to fellow campers. Bossing people arounds, and giving gifts....right up Jeffrey's alley!

Here he is waiting for the demo to begin.

Inspecting the troops!

Here's the group shooting (wooden guns, by the way!) Jeffrey's hand is up in the air holding the sword.

This was a uniform from the Mexican army.

One of Jeffrey's favorite things, learning about and touching all this ammo!

We will most certainly do this again next year. I think Josiah may tag along, too!

A trip to Houston, part 3

So after a fun couple of days in hot, humid Houston, it was time to head home to hot, dry San Antonio! But first, we stopped off at Space Center Houston. Josiah's hands-down favorite thing was the huge play place called Mars Mission or something like that. Didn't get any pictures of that one, though. The travelling exhibit there this time was a George Lucas exhibit so there was some Star Wars stuff and Indiana Jones stuff which the boys loved.
Getting ready for the inflatable slide.

Racing down the slide. It was supposed to be a mock up of some Indiana Jones obstacles.

Here's Jeffrey driving the MMU trainer. That's Manned Manuever Unit for you non-NASA folks. It's similar to what the astronauts use to practice for space walks. There are buttons to push and turn all while the seat is moving around on the slippery floor. Pretty fun.

Here's Josiah landing (or um...crashing) the Space Shuttle on a simulator.

Then Jonathan did an Indiana Jones-esque ropes course. WAY UP HIGH!!!

It was a fun way to end our fun trip.