We are back from our WONDERFUL trip!!!

We arrived home last night and thank the heavens had a wonderful flight both ways and very little bad weather while we were there! We had some great adventures and learned some pretty cool stuff along the way!

Saturday we went to Pine Island and had a wonderful afternoon on the beach. As you can see it was a bit cloudy, but the most amazing thing happened. Gustaf was passing over the Gulf at this point and as we were sitting on the beach we looked out and saw these things that kept popping out of the water - then we realized they were dolphin fins! A pod of dolphins was swimming less than 50 ft off the shore! It was the most amazing thing! Of course we couldn't get close to them, but still - KM technically got to swim with dolphins!!! How cool is that!
You can't see them in the picture above, but they were swimming just past the landing near the signs.

KM has ALWAYS loved to make sandcastles and dig at the beach, but she decided to turn herself into a mermaid instead!

Sunday we went to the MOSI - in Tampa!

KM, my dad and his wife played a very large game of operation!

We played a few rounds of a great game show!

KM got to experience what it feels like to be in the center of a twister!
The wind speeds went up to 85mph!

We ended our day in their HUGE hands-on activity section called Kids-In-Charge!
This was the greatest kids section of a musuem I have EVER seen. It covered everything from magnets to air pressure, optical illusions to logic puzzles and everything in between!

Monday we hung around the pool area and didn't do much of anything - you just need those days sometimes!
Tuesday we were off to the Lowry Zoo for some close encounters with some amazing animals!

and lots of babies!

The meerkats were so cute!!! It seemed like their was always one watching you!

The lemurs have always been my favorites - I think because we watched soooo much Zoboomafoo when KM was little!
We fell in love with Manatees on our last visit and still think they are amazing creatures! We had the whole Sting Ray pool to ourselves! KM wouldn't touch one, but grampa did!

There were sooo many baby animals. It seemed like every turn we made there was another sign saying "New Arrivals"

All and all it was a great day at the zoo!!!

On Wed we went to do one of Grampa's favorite things - Bowling!
We are used to candelpin, but they don't even know what that is in the south,
so it was off to the big balls - Ten Pin Bowling!

Then we played in the small arcade for a bit!
Thursday was our last day in the tropics! (It was HUMID) so KM wanted to try some Shuffleboard! She did really well.
On the flight home Thursday evening I asked KM what her favorite part of the trip was -

Here response was playing the funny piano at the MOSI - turn on your sound:

Instead of playing different instruments, this keyboard played different bodily functions!

All and all it was a very good, relaxing, enjoyable trip! Just what we needed!