Trip to Florida - Day 3 (Tampa Aquarium)

On Saturday we drove up to Tampa to meet Erin, Jason and Reagan.  We decided to meet at the Tampa Aquarium - it was a really fun place.

On the ground floor was a touch tank with sting rays and small sharks.  It had very cool kid-height windows on the side that Cam and Leah could peep through.  They liked watching the sting rays and sharks swim, all from a safe distance.  Neither kiddo was at all interested in actually touching the rays or sharks.

Mama, on the other hand, was definitely willing to pet a shark and ray!

Cameron checking out a huge awesome school of fish in one of the tanks.  I wish these pictures came out better because the school of fish was so cool.

Shark!  Awesome huge teeth.

Leah really liked these rocking chairs - they are a big size of the one she has at home.

Shells to play in

It's always tough to get a picture with two kiddos both looking at the camera at the same time!

After seeing a bunch of the inside animals, we grabbed some lunch and then headed out to see the outside stuff.  They had a playground, a big sand box and a water play area.  Here is cute Cam playing in the sandbox.

Very excited to have filled his bucket of sand (okay, really, I think he was mainly excited to get a bucket and shovel away from the other kids playing in the sandbox!)

Leah in the sand.  She was a sandy mess when she was done - not a surprise.

Jason helping Cameron get his water squirter to work

Leah tries to use the squirter but isn't quite tall enough

Cameron LOVED this part, he thought the squirters were awesome.

Leah gets caught in the crossfire of water

Playing with Reagan in the water

Flying leap!

Cam's expression in this picture perfectly shows how much he loved it

Could she be any more adorable?

When we were done outside we headed back in to see more animals.  There was another touch tank upstairs that had sea stars and sea urchins.  Leah was not interested in touching any of the animals but she wanted me to touch them.  The water was FREEZING.

Cam didn't really want to touch them either, but he also liked watching me pet them all.

Leah checking out some fish.  She loved any of the tanks that had windows at her height.

Kiddos with a mermaid

This was a "window" in the floor that looked over the top of another tank.  It was really cool because you could see the animals below and also the people walking below.  The kids thought they were pretty brave to be walking over the window.

Mama and Leah on the roof of the aquarium.  The aquarium is right at the Tampa cruise port so we were watching all the big boats go by.  It was very cool.

After going through the pictures we took this day, we realized that there are none of all of us together, or even one of Erin and I together, or all three kids together.  We had such a fun day with them but apparently didn't do a very good job documenting it in pictures.

Trip to Florida - Day 2

On our second day, we did more swimming, of course.  When the weather is warm and sunny, what else do kiddos want to do?

Leah in her super cute bathing suit and adorable pigtails

Since she was dressed like a little ballerina, we were showing her ballet moves to do.  Here she is in the middle of a twirl.

Cutie splashing

Another cutie swimming

Cam did so awesome swimming all over the pool

And so did Leah - she couldn't do it on her own but as long as someone had a hand under her belly, she was swimming like a champ

Cam and Leah swimming with Daddy

Leah jumping in!  She did so great!

Jump and underwater!

Another jumper making a big splash as he jumps to his kickboard

Leah swimming in her boat

We have a whole series of these underwater shots, and I LOVE them.

It was fun when Leah was in her boat because we could swim to the deep end and back together (which I wasn't able to do when I was holding her - I can't swim and hold a baby at the same time!).

Tim was goofing around and trying to make bubble rings - this was his best try.

Towel time!  I have no idea why she is making such a funny face.  She loved being all bundled up and sitting in the sun drying off.

 That night we went down to play on the beach and watch the sunset.

The kiddos playing together in the sand.  This was a few minutes before Leah started throwing sand and Cameron decided he did NOT want any help with filling his bucket.

One of Tim's all-time favorite things to take pictures of is him throwing the kids in the air.  Well, I guess I should say that I take those pictures, while he does the throwing.   Here is flying Leah.

And flying Cam.  Luckily both kids really like flying, so Daddy can get as many pictures as he can do before he gets tired out.

I think this is a cool picture of Leah - cool angle and I love the sand falling from the shovel.

 Cute picture of Leah and Mama

Mama and kiddos - I love this one too!

My favorite of the day - two ADORABLE kiddos!!!

Smiley Leah

Family picture.  Not the best one, since Cam was not being cooperative.

A beautiful sunset

After dinner that night, Omi and Opa needed to make some more fresh squeezed orange juice.  Cameron remembered helping last year and wanted to help out again.  He loved it.

He took his work very seriously, it was adorable.

He was very careful with this part, using the spoon to push the juice through but making sure not to get any of the yucky pulp into it. Cameron does NOT like pulp in his juice.  :-P

The result was some very tasty juice that we got to drink for the rest of our trip.

Trip to Florida - Day 1

At the end of January, we headed down to Siesta Key, FL for our annual visit to see Omi and Opa and to soak up some sun.  The whole trip was so fun - the weather was amazing, the kids had a blast and we loved our visit with Omi and Opa.

On one of the flights down, Mama and Leah hanging out

 Cameron was a good boy on the flights, playing with stuff from his backpack and keeping Leah amused.

We arrived into Sarasota around noon and headed to Omi and Opa's. We ate lunch and then both kiddos said that they were ready for a nap.  We were thinking we might skip nap, but when the kids specifically ASK to go take a nap, you listen!  I guess it had to do with waking up at 4:30am and not sleeping at all on the flight... they were both ready for some sleep.

They took good naps, waking up around 3:30.  It was so warm out that we decided to get bathing suits on and head down to the pool, even though we were getting past the good swimming time of the day (aka, when the pool was still sunny so it wasn't too chilly).

Leah was excited to be in her swimsuit, ready to swim

Cam jumped right in and started swimming

Fun with the underwater camera

I know Leah looks a little funny in this picture, but she asked to "go under"!

 Cam had to one-up her, going under for another picture

Leah loves swimming!

A very cool half-under, half-over the water picture

Leah figured out pretty quickly that she loved jumping in the pool.  I think she jumped in about 50 times over the course of the hour we were in the pool!

Here is a video of my jumping cutie!

Cameron was quite the jumping machine too!

The underwater half of the jump

Cameron jumping and playing in the water.  Just wait, his tricks get better as the days go on.

More underwater fun

Another silly half-under, half-over the water picture

The pool was warm but the air was chilly when we got out.  Leah all wrapped up like a cutie in her towel!

Dinner was awesome, as it always is when Omi cooks. She made spaetzle and goulash and we all ate until we couldn't fit any more.  It was delicious!!!!  We were so happy to be in Florida!