Home from Miami!

Hi everyone. I just wanted to send a short note to let you know I arrived safely back in Iowa last night.

My trip home was uneventful. But, I did want to share two more photos with you from my visit in Miami.

I always look out the window when I wake up in the morning because I like the view from Kristin's room. This is what I saw yesterday when I woke up.

Can you see the rainbow? It was really COOL!

Just after I saw the rainbow, Kristin took me across the street to an outdoor mall. I didn't want to go shopping but Kristin told me we were going to see something interesting. I wasn't so sure I would see anything all that interesting at the mall. But Kristin was right again! The mall has several small ponds FULL of Koi. Koi are like super-size goldfish. Do you remember I saw Koi fish at the hotel in Dubai? Well the Koi at the mall in Miami were even BIGGER. Here I am near one of the Koi ponds.

I want to thank Kristin and her friend Sherif for taking me with them to Miami. I had a great time and I hope I get to visit Miami again some day.

Until my next adventure.....

Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean

Hi again.

I had another great day here in Miami thanks to Kristin and Sherif.

Earlier this week Kristin and Sherif took me to the beach behind the hotel so I could "get me feet wet" in the Atlantic Ocean. It was REALLY cool but I didn't get to actually swim in the ocean. I really wanted to swim in the ocean since I've never done that before.

I think Kristin knew I wanted to swim in the ocean so this afternoon after her class was over, she took me to the beach.


Can you see that the water was a green-blue color today? It didn't look like that yesterday. Kristin says sunlight can make the water look like a different color. I had no idea!

It was really HOT and sunny today. Kristin made me put on lots of suntan lotion so I wouldn't get sunburned. I don't like suntan lotion but I decided not to argue with Kristin since she took me to the beach. After what seemed like an hour of suntan lotion Kristin FINALLY took me out into the ocean.

How awesome is that picture?!!! (Big thanks to Sherif for taking my picture with Kristin). Kristin wasn't very far from the beach and the water suddenly got deep. Don't worry, Kristin made sure to hold onto me real tight.

It is SO FUN to swim in the ocean. The water was warm and the waves were crashing all around us.

Once I actually got a little bit of water in my mouth when a big wave crashed near us. Guess what? The water tasted like salt. I was surprised because the Mississippi River doesn't taste like salt. Kristin says that's because the Mississippi River is something called a "fresh water" river. She says the Atlantic Ocean is a "saltwater" ocean. Who knew?

And, it was much harder to swim in the ocean than I thought. That's because the water was moving so fast that we couldn't stay in the same spot. The water kept pushing us around.

After my big swim in the ocean, I played in the sand for awhile and even found a few sea shells before we went back inside the hotel (I think the hot sun made Kristin very tired). As we walked back to Kristin's room, we stopped at a little gift store and Kristin let me pick out a stuffed shark and a stuffed manatee. Do you know what a manatee is? See if you can look it up.

Kristin tells me we will be flying back to Iowa tomorrow (Monday). I hope I can go to the beach one more time before we leave.

The sun must have made me very tired too because I fell asleep before we got back to the room. Kristin kindly tucked me into bed with my new toys.

Bye for now....