“Welcome to Miami- Bienvenidos a Miami”

HOLY MOLY! – where to start! Miami/Caribbean cruise/Miami was a fun-filled awesome adventure at a hurricanes speed from the landing at Miami international airport Friday January 24th!

Eriks brother Inigo came to pick us up, and took us back to his and Marians house in Ft.Lauderdale where we stayed . (It probably felt like a storm hit them head on when the 4 of us with all our luggage arrived, but they took it like champions!). “Home is where the heart is” definitely applies to these two – Auntie Marian and uncle Inigo made our (first 2) days in Ft. Lauderdale perfect. We needed to get some shopping done, so Saturday morning these 2 came with us and we literally shopped till we dropped. When we were just about done late in the afternoon, and heading back to the car, Erik mentioned donuts….. And Milles ear caught this… And Marian knew the perfect donut-store, which was at the opposite end of the mall…. so of course we went all the way back there and got donuts with fillings: Yuu-Myyy!!! (Needless to say Erik hasn’t mentioned getting donuts again..).

Inigo invited Noah to go play soccer with the college guys, and he was of course not difficult to ask. The two of them scooted off (both of them more than happy to be able to play soccer instead of even more shopping, Erik on the other hand not so amused, but I guess he found it safest to hang around there so that his wifey wouldn’t go completely overboard with shopping for the remainder of the day…). Waiting for the two “boys” (Noah and Inigo) back home really dragged out and by 11pm they finally came home, exhausted (although not too exhausted to play alittle FIFA of course..). Noah got nicknamed “Norway” and proved himself to be quite the soccer player, he and uncle Inigo were quite the team and Noah got to join in several games with the college-guys, and was even asked to try out for the team by the manager! What can come closer to a little blond haired, blue-eyed boys dreams than that! He was invited back to play the following week:)

Sunday breakfast followed by Royal Caribbean cruise: January 25th we got up and packed (almost) all our stuff and headed out for our first cruise ever.. But on the way there we stopped by IHOP for a real American breakfast. Because it was Sunday and after church time, the place was packed and there was a 20 minute wait. Everyone who has kids know that a 20 min wait usually is hell: “Mum, Im dying of thirst/hunger” on repeatrepeatrepeat… Uncle Inigo knew how to easily get around that problem though, cause right next to IHOP he knew of the best vegan muffin shop! So, Inigo went and got us all a “breakfast-before-breakfast” – and they were the best muffins ever! And by now in this story, all of you have probably sussed out that the ONLY thing Noah and Mille wanted to, hands down, was exchange Mum and Dad for Marian and Nick… I guess I don’t blame them…

After the double breakfast, Inigo got us safely down to the cruiseship terminal, and OMG – what we were about to board was the size of a small Norwegian town with more than 6000 passengers! To put it this way; Erik and I were not at all aware of the experience awaiting us the next 8 days!….

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To be continued…

Thank you so much for your hospitality, uncle Inigo and auntie Marian, we loved our stay with you – and to quote Mr. Schwarzenegger: well be back!