Fort Lauderdale 2010

This summer we had planned a trip to Seaside, Florida with our good friends the Rodriguez'. Everything was all set and we were very excited about our upcoming trip until the most heart breaking thing happened in the Gulf of Mexico on April 30, 2010. The DeepWater Horizon oil rig exploded and began to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico at an astonishing, uncontrollable rate. That's when the most devastating man made environmental disaster occurred in our lifetime. Not to trivialize this event but at that time we also began to reconsider our vacation. There was no way of knowing what was going to happen and if the oil would reach the panhandle of Florida before or while we would be there. So we sat and waited and watched all the failed attempts to stop the spill and decided at the beginning of June that we should probably reschedule our trip. We decided to head to the "other side" of Florida and picked Fort Lauderdale as our back up plan.

We ended up having a great trip! The weather was just perfect while we were there. The beach and ocean were beautiful and we all had fun hanging out together. Gaby was in heaven acting like a big girl w/Isabel (she's 7) and taking care of Baby Sage (she's 1.5). This year although Gaby still wanted to spend plenty of time at the pool she did seem to want to be at the beach more also. I think she might be starting to understand the beauty of and how special being at the beach really is. We are very thankful that we were still able to take a wonderful trip together and plan to do it again often :)

While we were in Ft Lauderdale there were reports of tar balls on the beach in Seaside and it actually rained in Seaside most of that week. So in the end, we made the right decision but I sincerely hope we will be able to visit there one day. There is no way of knowing what effect this horrible spill will have on those beautiful, pristine Florida beaches.

As of today, the oil has been spewing for 84 looong days...