Koch-Mathews Christmas Card 2012

Merry Everything Christmas Card

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South Florida – July 6th to July 13th

Hollywood Beach

Hollywood Beach

After a week in Orlando we drove down to South Florida and we stayed a week in Weston, Florida a small town 25 miles west of Fort Lauderdale in a timeshare that had a view to the Everglades.

After a hectic time at the Disney Parks, it was time to relax, so one day, we went to Hollywood Beach and took a relaxing walk along the river of Fort Lauderdale. Another day we went to Miami Beach and hung out in the Mid-Beach area and drove through the South Beach Miami area with the Espanola way. On both of the beaches, the kids found tons of corals and shells, and Kiran was lucky to find a shark tooth.

Fort Lauderdale

On the way back from Miami Beach, Cherian visited the Dell Alienware office, where the kids got to see folks whose job it was to test computers by playing extreme computer games!

Espanola Way, South Beach, Miami

Miami-Mid-Beach

One day we spent in Everglades. We drove on the Alligator Highway to Everglades City where we got on a airboat. On the airboat, we saw a few alligators and even a manatee.

Everglades City

We also got out on Totch’s Island and saw a lot of Mangrove Trees. After the trip we got to hold some small alligators. On the way back we drove on the Tamiami Highway and stopped at Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk and saw a big alligator and a baby alligator in the wild, and got bitten by lots of mosquitos, even though we sprayed ourselves.

River Walk, Fort Lauderdale

Everglades, Loop Road

Then we stopped at the Oasis Visitor Center

in the Big Cypress National Preserve, watched a movie there and saw more alligators, fish eating off the back of the alligator, and even a turtle. 

Key Deer, Big Pine Key

The view when driving through the Keys

We drove on the Loop Road back where we met a raccoon, saw more alligators and looked at the beautiful scenery. We stopped by the Miccosukee Indian Village and saw an alligator show. Finally we stopped by the Shark Visitor Center for a short walk.

We spent two days on the Florida Keys. On the way there it was rainy, so the beaches were empty. We wanted to find some of the non-native invasive iguanas, so we stopped by the beaches at Islamorada and Marathon, but they were not out on a rainy day. But we did get to see a big stone crab and some small Key Deer on Big Pine Key.

Duval Street, Key West

It cleared up when we came to Key West and we took the hotel shuttle to get downtown.

Willie T´s, Key West

We passed by Hemingway’s house and his favorite bar Sloppy Joe's. We walked on the main tourist street, Duval Street where Kiran bought a conch shell with his name engraved. 

Mallory Square

We ate dinner at a restaurant with outdoor seating and a live band playing jam music. They had dollar notes all over the restaurant, had live music and we had a frozen key lime pie drink.

We made it to Mallory Square to see the street performers take their turn to maximize their earnings, but they were also really good!  Then, we forced the kids to sit and watch the sunset, which was really beautiful.  We promised Selina dessert, so we went on a mission to find key lime pie, and we ended up at Kermit's and had one slice of key lime pie, key lime pie ice cream, and even chocolate-dipped frozen key lime pie on a stick!

Sunset, Key West

The next day we went out on a snorkeling tour that took us just 6 miles away from Key West to one of the largest reefs in the world. It was definitely tricky to keep track of all of us while in the choppy water on the big ocean, but once the kids got the hang of it, and we got close to the reef, it was pretty amazing to see some decently big fish. On the way back from Key West, we stopped at Bahia Honda State Park and went snorkeling straight from the beach, where we were much closer to the action, and got to see a lot of fish in calm waters.

A really small fish!

A really big fish!

From Miami we flew to Boston to visit Cherians parents. 

Orlando – June 28th to July 6th, 2012

The young Mathews crowd

From Copenhagen, we flew via NYC to Orlando, and drove to Kissimmee, just south of Orlando.  We stayed at Cherian´s parents timeshare for the week. Fortunately, we were lucky to get a bunch of family to come to the area for the same week – so, we were 18 people total, including Cherian’s parents, his sister’s family and his aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids.

The cousins

We went to 4 Disney Parks: Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. One day in each park. Frej also went to Universal Island of Adventures with his second cousins.

The trick in all the parks was to make it to the rides with the really long lines early in the morning just when the park opened its gates or in the afternoon when it was less crowded. Otherwise we used the FastPass service that allowed us to come back to the ride an hour or two later and get to the front of the line. Although, there were lots of people at all the parks, we seemed to be able to get to most of what we wanted to see.

Kiran, Jake and Frej in Epcot

We started at Epcot, making sure we got to the ride Soarin first thing, and had fun talking with Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo.  After taking a crazy ride to Mars in Mission Space, we became secret agents, helping to save the world from Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (from Phineas and Ferb) by finding clues and solving missions in Norway and Mexico.

Selina and Belle at the Castle

Main Street, Magic Kingdom

In Magic Kingdom we started the day having breakfast with all the princesses in Cinderella´s Castle. With our reservation, we could get into the park before it opened, and walk on Main Street before it got crowded. 

The Magic Carpet of Aladdin, Magic Kingdom

We hit all of the 'lands' in Magic Kingdom staying most in Tomorrow Land and Adventure Land, and got to see the afternoon parade and the evening parade, the lightshow on the castle and the fireworks.

Amma in Hollywood Studios

In Hollywood Studios, we brought Amma and had shooting practice at the interactive 4-D Toy Story Mania ride, saw amazing stunt shows, and flew out of our seats at the Tower of Terror.

Kali River, Animal Kingdom

In Animal Kingdom, we started at Expedition Everest, which was a little too wild for Selina, but then got really wet at the Kali River Rapids ride that we went on twice (since Cherian was the only one that got really soaked the first time)...  The Festival of the Lion King show was filled with amazing juggling, trampoline, ballet and musical numbers. The Kilimanjaro Safari tour was also pretty cool, as it got us decently close to a lot of the big African animals.

Asia, Animal Kingdom

And in all of the parks, we met a lot of the Disney characters, with lots of hugs and smiles while filling up Selina's signature book with fun photos and pictures.

Rafiki, Animal Kingdom

We had a couple days when we didn't go to the parks and we spent a lot of time at the pool, and one day, we avoided the heat and went to see Madagascar 3 at what turned out to be a Dine-In Movie Theater. We also walked around Disney Downtown and went shopping a bit.

For the 4th of July we went to the neighbor town, Celebration, to watch the fireworks. We didn't know it would be so crowded, and by the time we got there, we had to walk more than a mile to get to the lake downtown to see the show.

On the 6th, all the rest of the families had to fly back to their homes, and we took a LOT of the leftover food, packed the car and before heading down to South Florida, we stopped and visited our old neighbors from Denmark who now live in Orlando.