We left Saturday afternoon for Houston and for the first time in a long time had an uneventful airport trip (well minus the drama over the possibility of cornovirus coming.) The flight and rental car were a piece of cake and we landed Saturday night in Tampa. Side note.... I had some trash I needed to throw away on the plane and Mallory digs a plastic bag out of her carry on she packed because she is THAT prepared!! We stopped and ate dinner at Chili's and then got to the vacation house. It was perfect! We had 3+ acres we could roam with a river, treehouse, palm trees, a coy pond and 2 dogs to play with!
Sunday morning we got up and went to Clearwater Aquarium to see Winter from the movie Dolphin Tale... which FYI no one in our family had ever seen. We got a behind the scenes tour and I thought it was amazing. It wasn't a normal aquarium it was more like a vet hospital for marine animals- which was completely up my ally. Miles found it boring and had the worst cough.... so I felt terrible for him! We compensated the kids fairly with dippin dots after the aquarium. Then we went to the beach!!! It was like nothing I had ever seen before how beautiful it was! The sand was like powdered sugar!!! We didn't come prepared with swimsuits because we thought it would be too cold- but boy were we wrong- it got hot really quick. The kids just dug and dug some more in the sand. I packed lots of snacks and I offered Mallory a bit of my fruit roll up. Well as soon as she took a bite blood started coming out of her mouth and she said "Mom I almost lost my tooth" well I looked down and low and behold she did loose her tooth! After lots of wet paper towels we got the bleeding to stop and she was SO excited! We spent the rest of the day and evening out there and made our way to Pier 60 for their big summer celebration. There was lots of street performers, street artists, huge playground and the most BEAUTFIUL sunset!! When we got back to the house Jeff and I were exhausted but the kids were wired and ready for more and ready for the tooth fairy to come visit:)
Monday had a lazy morning because of the time change and going to bed so late- eek! We finally made it to an incredible miniature golf place around 11. They had alligators you could feed and hold! But we were there strictly for business! It was an amazing beautiful course and we had a great time!
After that we went to another beach called Honey Moon State Park. It was rockier than Clearwater but had a lot less people. So we played in the sand for a LONG time! We then went to a dog beach that they had there and it was just in time for sunset and it was indescribable how pretty it was! There was open white beach for days and we were doing cartwheels, handstands and just running around! That night we came back to the vacation house and had a firepit on the backporch while Miles showed us magic tricks and Mallory was our waitress. Best family memories ever!!
Tuesday we stopped at a Celebration Station and Miles wanted to ride a go-kart and do a bungee jump thing. He LOVED both of them and was very brave! Mallory and I giggled on the sidelines watching his expressions :) Then it was back to Clearwater Beach for us. The kids both got an icee and we settled in to more playing in the sand! Miles dug the deepest holes I had ever seen and Mallory dug a hole just deep enough for her to lounge in. Jeff loves the beach but could never fully relax as he stood the whole time because he didn't want to get sand on him! That night we went to a souveiner store and got the kids a shirt and stuffed dolphin to remember their trip by! Then Jeff got dinner at "Cousins Maine Lobster" that we had seen on Shark Tank before. We then went back to Pier 60 to play on the playground and Mallory decided she wanted a hair wrap. It turned out adorable!!! We then watched a street performer for about 45 minutes do all sorts of magic tricks- the kids thought it was incredible!
Wednesday morning we slept in and were lazy again as we slowly started to pack. We tried fishing on the river running through our property but no luck. We checked out of our vacation house and went to downtown Tampa. Tampa has an incredible riverwalk area. We found a fun playground, splash pad and really neat hip restaurant. We hung out there until it was time to go to the airport. We had another uneventful flight home where the kids both fell asleep almost immediately and they slept through the whole flight (even everyone getting off the plane) and we had to finally wake them up! We made it home to College Station just before midnight to a cat very happy to see us!
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