I am way behind on the blogging! It's time to catch up! But I'll start with the most fun post - FLORIDA! We took our "babymoon" last weekend to visit Erin and Todd in Tampa and had a FANTASTIC time. We flew in on Thursday and came back Monday night.
On Thursday night, we just hung out, spent some QT with our friends, had some snacks and cocktails ('mocktails' for me) and then walked to a nearby beachy restaurant for some dinner.
On Friday morning, we headed down to Sarasota to Siesta Key for some beach time. Although it was pleasantly warm, it was still a little chilly with the wind and the water was pretty cold. We got in and waded a bit, but that's about it. Here are some photos of Brian soaking up some rays and playing in the water:
Erin and Todd have a super cute French Bulldog named Frank and we LOVE Frank. Frank is sooooo cute and he's really fun to play with, too. He likes to do this thing where he wraps his paw around your arm and tries to bite you, all the while snorting/grumbling away - Erin and Todd call it "jiu jitsu". We got a photo of the action:
On Saturday, we headed up to the Crystal River, about an hour or so north of Tampa, to kayak with the manatees. Again, it was pleasantly warm out, but not warm enough to go swimming with the manatees (although there were plenty of people braving the chilly waters!). The water was so clear! We had a really fun time kayaking with Erin and Todd, seeing lots of different kinds of birds and "swamp" type vegetation and, of course, the manatees!
The water was super clear and near the springs, the bottom was sandy and very tropical looking. Made looking at fish and manatees very easy!
Here are a momma and baby manatee. Very cool to see these guys swimming around in their natural habitat (although, this was very close to a manatee sanctuary). We probably saw around 10 or so manatees altogether swimming around in river.
On Sunday, we headed east to Orlando. The boys went shooting (Erin and I hung back in the cars - too noisy for us). Brian was pretty excited to shoot Todd's AR something or other. Gun laws in Florida are very similar to those in Colorado....very very different from strict California. After the shooting range, we went to Gatorland. Brian really wanted to see some gators while we were visiting, but unfortunately, the season was not right for gator spotting and I think we were too far south and too far north....maybe next time we'll make the trek to the Everglades. Either way, Gatorland was really fun. I was expecting a cheesy theme park with tons of gators (think Marine World before Six Flags ruined it all), but it actually was a neat park with lots of natural swamp habitat for the gators to chill. They have over 1700 gators!
There were also some exhibits with other types of wildlife - like birds! I got to test out the different functions of my new camera (a new point and shoot that I got for my birthday from my parents and I love!). Lots of fun birds - parrots, macaws, parakeets, snowy egrets, great egrets, etc.
We arrived just in time for the feeding session. Here are some of the biggest, waiting for their steaks to be to thrown to them for dinner. Some of these guys have been at the park since it opened in 1949.
On Monday, we were bums and slept in then headed to Clearwater Beach for some sunning (where Brian and I both of course got sunburned on our last day) before heading to the airport for our trip home. We also drove by the crazy headquarters for Scientology. What a huge, crazy building - looked like it should be a casino/resort in Vegas.
All in all, a great trip! We didn't want to leave (although we missed our Riley boy). We can't wait to go back maybe next spring or summer. We were already talking with Erin and Todd about family trips to Disneyworld down the road with our kids....
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