Spring Break 2014 - Day 1: Miami

I slept like a rock last night and ended up getting almost 12 hours of sleep.  Just what I needed to get this vacation back on track.  It was Sunday and we were headed to the beach.  But since we were in Miami on Spring Break week (this week was also the state of Florida's Spring Break), we were worried that all of the popular beaches would be especially packed.  Clay had heard some good things about a spot south of where he lived which we figured wouldn't have the normal tourist traffic.  The location was Biscayne National Park and off we went...

We soon found out that it was not easy to find Biscayne National Park.  We knew something was wrong when we got to a bridge that went to the Florida Keys.  So we had to backtrack and ultimately arrived at our intended destination late in the morning.  We thought we were going to a beach and what was actually there at Biscayne National Park was a lagoon.  And not just any lagoon, but a lagoon frequented by crocodiles.  (Yes, you heard me correctly...crocodiles.)

Even though the lagoon was not exactly what we had in mind, we all had a good time there.  It was fairly low-key (which I appreciated), though we were one of the only families there that spoke English.  We did not stay there all that long before deciding to pack up to grab a late lunch at a decent restaurant.  We ended up at a really nice waterfront place (Black Point Ocean Grill) which was exactly the type of restaurant I like to go to when "at the beach."

We were mildly disappointed though to learn that the wait to seat our party of 10 would be about an hour, but were quickly put into good spirits by a flurry of texts from people back home informing us that Kansas had just gone down in flames in the NCAA Tournament to the mighty basketball power that is the Stanford Cardinal.  Things were really looking up when the hostess then informed us that our table was ready after only a 10-minute wait.  This was a really nice lunch.

After enjoying our time at the Black Point Ocean Grill, we went back to where Clay lives.  Only instead of going to his home, we went to the neighborhood swimming pool/country club.  We spent more time here than we did at the lagoon earlier.  This was a very nice facility and we enjoyed all that it had to offer (which included hot tub, sauna, steam room, etc.).  Clay was great with the boys as you can see from the photos below.

After a fun-filled day, we finally returned home at 7:30 PM.  The kids ate some pizza while the rest of us nibbled at left-overs from lunch and previous day's meals.  Serai and I casually watched some of the basketball games before we all retired for the evening.  It was a good day.