Florida 2007

We have had the privilege of vacationing at Indian Shores, Florida for a week in October / November for the past several years. All started after an OOPSLA trip in 2001. Man, was nice again this year! We were glad Grandpa was able to join us.

We traveled down on Southwest (CHEAP!) and arrived late Friday. We stayed again with Kat at Sand Glo.

Saturday...slow morning after not much sleep. The kids were not tired enough from the plane ride on Friday.
Hit Costco to stock up on groceries. Rest of the day out on the beach. Hot and muggy but cloudy which was quite a nice change from Portland :-)

Leah was sick overnight...to many helpings of cake? So Sunday morning was nice and slow getting out to the beach by 10am.
We then hit our perennial favorite: the Seacoast seabird sanctuary. Leah kept asking to go to the bird cemetery. Cute in a morbid kinda way :-)

Walking back the kids pretty much swam back the whole half mile. Bait fish everywhere. Leah was hit in the head twice by the jumping fish. Cole got tagged in the back. Fun all around.

Monday was really hot and muggy so we went indoors to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.
Kids liked playing in the water features out in the back after touring all the tanks and exhibits.
I loved the huge Great Tank...23 ft by 3 ft about 1500 gallons fresh water. Cool.

Tuesday was another hot and muggy beach day.
Lots of time out in the surf and beach combing. We had to work hard not to get sunburnt...near record temperatures (90) for this time of year out on the coast.

Wednesday we had planned to do the tourist thing and hit Busch Gardens. But the weather was really crappy so we hung out for a day and then went into Tampa for fun rides, food and animal exihibits on Thursday.

More storms overnight made for great beach combing on Friday. Swimming scallops, clams, hermit crabs and even a really cool little octopus. Home schooling right on the beach. The kids had no idea we were sneaking in so much biology :-)

We ended the day with our traditional mini golf game at Smuggler's Cove. How can you beat golf with a ship and live alligators?

We also tried out a new hamburger joint: Five Guys. Kindof like the In-N-Out of the east. Highly recommended.

Cannot wait for next year!