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| This pic says it all! Sun, fun, water, a yummy drink & family to enjoy it all with! |
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| Mom & Dad's NEW Floridian house! |
I never thought we'd be the type to go to the same place every year, but we are happily becoming the family that goes to Florida for Spring Break every year ESPECIALLY now that Mom and Dad have purchased their gorgeous new second home in St. Petersburg. Wowza is all I can say about this place. It is bee-yu-tee-ful. I highly recommend taking a vakay down there. So much to do, great weather, easy direct flight from Chicago and super fun times. I had a cold unfortunately for about half of it, but even with that nasty cold it was heavenly. We ended up with a perfect mixture of being out and about and just enjoying each other lazing away the hours at the house. Thanks to Mom and Dad for the great hospitality! They really took such pains to make sure we would be comfortable in their new house and have a wonderful time.
I'm going to need to break this recounting of it all up into two posts, but here was what we did over the course of our week.
Fri - fly in / get settled
Sat - seaside park / shopping for the week / Carpenter's arrive
Sun - brunch in downtown St. Petersburg / Nature Preserve
Mon - Dolphin Cruise in Clearwater / hang out time at home
Tues - Fort de Soto Beach / hang out time at home
Wed - Tampa Zoo / hang out time at home
Thurs - DisneyWorld!
Fri - Pass a Grille beach / hang out time at home
Sat - last pool day / fly home
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| The kids both had their little roller bag suitcases in the airport, so cute. |
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| Travelling is SOOOO much easier when they watch movies the whole time (and the wilder one is strapped in). |
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| The kids arrived to all sorts of goodies from G&G. Like new clothes hanging in their closets (with little people size hangers, too!), new bath toys and shampoo in the tub, kid sized life vests, you name it! |
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| Got right down to business playing Thomas the Tank Engine Uno with Grandpa. |
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| They look a bath in G&G's big tub and had a blast |
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| Their house in on a peaceful bayou that has access to the ocean. Grandpa was happy to show them the dock and the water. |
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| It is really nice that the previous owners had put in a "bayou" fence to prevent kids from falling in. Awesome safety feature for our kids during the week. |
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| Went to a park in downtown St Petersburg and Luke wanted to get in the water right away. It was a little cool that day, so wasn't really beach weather - but hey, felt awesome to us coming from Chicago! |
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| Rocking the Minnie shades |
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| Making lines in the sand with the stick he found and jumping in tide pools. |
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| Want some cheese with that whine??? |
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| Balancing on the sea wall on our walk |
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| Mom and I hit the Publix for our week of food needs, and while we were gone Matt sent me a couple pics of Claire cozying up to Dudley. She loves the little dogs! |
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| Going for a walk around Mom and Dad's neighborhood. Most of the people in their neighborhood seem to live there full time. Lots of families and midwestern transplants! |
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| Luke had gone walking with Matt earlier and wanted very much to show me these flowers that he thought I would like. Sweet boy. Mom only enhances their beauty. |
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| Tickles from Grandpa while rolling in the spongey grass. |
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| Going out to the dock to watch our first sunset. |
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| Glorious! |
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| Grandpa & Grandson enjoying the show |
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| pigtails |
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| Kristin & Cory are here!! Yippee! Sebastian is so big since Christmas:) |
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| Feed me! |
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| I'm so jealous that Kristin got like fifty awesome pictures of either her whole family and/or her kids. This picture is basically the best one I got of my two and indicative of most of my photo successes. |
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| K & C rented a 12 passenger van so we all could ride around together in style! It was perfect! The three big kids wanted to sit in the same row, which was really fun. That meant that three adults had to climb awkwardly into the back row the entire week. Cory was left chauffeuring us all in this beast of a van around town all week. |
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| Brunch in downtown St. Petersburg at Cassis. See had the cutest nautical/ocean themed clothes all week. |
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| Running around St. Petersburg before going across the street to a park. There was a Grand Prix race happening downtown that day and we could hear the cars zooming by. Matt and Claire actually walked up to see the cars. |
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| Trying to get these kids all on the tree, but slippage happened. |
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| Pretty good one for us! |
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| Boyd Hill Nature Preserve |
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| These kids were in charge of the map and directing us to the right trails. |
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| Wild shrieking banshee cousins in the house |
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| We stuck a straw in this coconut and drank some yummy coconut water |
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| Then the kids cracked open this puppy to eat some of the coconut meat. |
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| All ready for our dolphin cruise in Clearwater on Monday |
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| Dads and babes |
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| Just a couple of wild and crazy booze cruisers we ran into. |
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| Cousin love |
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| How'd they get that palm tree to grow up there? |
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| Obligatory dolphin souvenir lemonade cup |
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| Seesters |
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| We walked back over to Clearwater Beach for lunch and playground time, Seb wasn't complaining! |
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| Cutie pie honey bunch family |
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| All four of them playing so nicely in the sand |
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| Mom and Dad bought a kayak earlier than week and we took it for a spin! It was super fun! |
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| Grandpa even had a little paddle for Lukers to use. |
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| Swimming in the bayou |
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| PJ and Cory next up in the kayak |
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| While Luke and Matt frolicked in the bayou. |
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| Luke has a life vest on and four noodles, while he allowed Matt one skinny little noodle. |
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| Once Luke was done swimming Matt got to really relax. We even gave him a beer! |
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| Warming up in the sun with Auntie Kristin |
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| Getting pretty far out there Matt! |
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| Good thing he was able to hitch a ride back to the dock! |
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| Swimming with Ms. Paige Jane |
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| Dougal lovin' |
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| Margaritas on the water with the sun on my face? Feels like vacation to me! |
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| Delicious homemade dinner #2 |
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| Saw this cool hawk |
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| this sunset doesn't get old |
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| More Uno fun on Tuesday morning |
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| Helping Grandma cook breakfast |
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| Hitting the beach! |
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| The water was so clear, the sky so blue, the beach so white....just perfect. |
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| Our set up |
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| PJ boogie boarding |
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| Cory and PJ made some amazing sand castles |
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| Claire wanted to snack all day long, which was hard with all the sand all over everything plus the crazy sea gulls that would dive bomb to steal food! |
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| Fort de Soto park has this really neat shallow area |
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| Claire and her rubber ducky liked that part |
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| Quite the workout! |
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| On Wednesday we hit the Tampa Zoo for the first time. It was so fun, we definitely need to come back. We didn't even get to do everything. It is part amusement park, part zoo. |
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| Another Christmas Card worthy family photo :) |
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| This cutie gave me a smile though:) |
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| Matt and Luke on the water ride |
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| The manatees were so cool! See one in the background? |
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| Intrigued with the penguins |
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| Petting zoo |
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| Tiger rollercoaster ride |
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| Definitely worth the 60 minute wait in line:) |
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| Sebby & Grandpa bonding time |
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| Stingray touch and feel area |
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| Our underwater camera got this cool guy's pic |
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| Got back in the late afternoon and took our first swim! The pool needed to be serviced earlier that day, so this was the first chance we had gotten to get in. Claire was a BIG fan of the hot tub. |
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| Swimming!! |
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| The pool is so neat, it looks like an infinity pool with the bayou right there. |
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| K&K Kayak Team |
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| Mom and Dad's opening their birthday presents |
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| All the kids in bed and the adults hot tubbin' it admiring the last bits of the sunset. Pretty great! |
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