Miami, Florida: Part 1

My love of charity work has always been apart of who I am. In high school I discovered that nonprofits and giving back to the community is something that I love to do. 
Last year when I attended North Carolina State University (Go Pack!) I wanted to go on the Habitat for Humanity spring break trip. However I decided that coming home to spend time with my family presided over the trip. 
So after transferring to OSU, the opportunity to go on a Habitat for Humanity spring break trip to Miami, Florida with my co-ed service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, came around and I decided I had to go.
We signed up in October and planned for months on organizing the trip and the things we wanted to do when we eventually arrived in Florida.

Leaving the snow behind!

When spring break finally rolled around, I was more than ready to hit the road. We drove 20 hours straight and it was exhausting! We made it to Hollywood, Florida just as the sun was rising! We stopped for about an hour to sit on the beach and get some breakfast. We found a small little restaurant right on the beach and enjoyed our little bit of relaxation before the chaos of unpacking our stuff at the church began.

Hello Florida!!

The next day, after finally recovering from sleep deprivation, we decided to travel an hour south to Key Largo.We put on the song Kokomo by the Beach Boys and started the drive. Our destination was a state park, Pennekamp Park, where we would go snorkeling and spend the rest of the day. 
It was so beautiful, I have never seen water that blue in my life. We got suited up and took a 30 minute boat ride out to the coral reef! After a quick snorkeling lesson, we were set free into the water. Snorkeling was much harder than I anticipated. Having control over your breathing and remaining calm is the trick to not swallowing salt water, which I did plenty of.

The reef was amazing. The coral itself was not that impressive, except for a few huge purple pieces, but the fish were incredible. We saw rainbow fish, blue fish with yellow, barracudas, schools of fish and everything in between. It was an incredible experience and was worth the $70 to do it. 
After we came back and ate lunch, followed by key lime sorbet and the best key lime pie..we were clearly sticking with the theme and location here :)