Little Girls, Big Fish {Family Caribbean Day 1}

Hey, welcome to Florida!  Here's a little tropical storm-eque weather to greet you!  :)  We woke up to pouring rain and winds up to 50 mph.  Yikes.  So much for a few easygoing days hanging by the hotel's outdoor but heated pool.  So, I did a quick TripAdvisor search, and pulled the trigger on the Tampa Trio pass, which included passes to the Florida Aquarium, Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, and the MOSI.  Since the forecast looks better for tomorrow, we figured we would visit the aquarium today and the zoo tomorrow since both of our kiddos love animals.

We easily made our way to the aquarium (bonus: it's right next to the cruise port, so now we know about how long it'll take to get there Sunday), and parked.  Even though it was easy, Harper still managed to complain about how long it took to get there.  Shocker.  She was in a bad mood when we pulled up, but it didn't take her long to perk up.  As we were walking up to the aquarium, I heard her telltale squeal, followed by "look what I got!."

Sure enough, that child had caught a tiny frog in the three minutes it took us to walk into the aquarium.  She cried when we told her that she couldn't carry him in, and finally compromised with Daddy carrying him in and giving him back when we left.  (Yes.  We walked around the Florida Aquarium with a baby frog zipped in a pouch of our stroller.  Judge away.)

I had printed the Tampa Trio passes out in the business center of our hotel, so we walked right in.  Because it's Friday, there really weren't crowds which was great.  So, we got straight to seeing the fishies, alligators, lemurs, turtles, snakes.

These sweet little Dr. Doolittles were in heaven.  Willa loved the turtles; Harper adored the ducks.  When we got to read up on the lemur lifestyle, Harper cackled at the fact that girls are in charge.  She couldn't wait to run up to dad and let him know that moms and daughters were the leaders of the lemur community.  Any chance that girl gets to be the boss, she'll take. 

But, here's where today got elevated to "Best Day Ever" status.  The aquarium offers an interactive stingray exhibit where guests are welcome to touch the de-barbed stingrays and small sharks.  True to their polarized personalities, Harper ran right up and stuck her hand in as deep as it would go.  Forget the recommend "two finger touch," she was petting any stingray that would come within reach.  Willa took some warming up to the idea, but loved standing by the tank to look in.  After an hour and moving spots and talking about how much they loved them, we finally pulled away those sweet wet-bellied-from-leaning-over-the-railing girls. 

The Little Mermaids

Willa Kate hiding in a shell

The girls enjoyed petting the invertebrates and meeting one of the African penguins.  We enjoyed a late but pretty good lunch at the aquarium before we decided we'd seen all we needed and wanted to.  It is such a great little aquarium.  It's not as big as Atlanta's, but we loved all the ways the girls could interact with the sea life.  The most expensive purchase of the day (since we managed to stay away from any gift shops or trinket stands) was this.  A picture to document that I was in fact there. 

Willa was desperate for a nap, and Harper was desperate to try out the pool at our hotel, so when we got back to the hotel around 3:00 p.m., we divided and conquered.  Sam went back to the room to crash with Harper since he had so little sleep the two days before, and I (never one to pass down lying by the pool) took Harper down to finally let her try out the pool.  She has asked about the pool about every fifteen minutes, but it had been raining and then we found out that the pool heater was being replaced so the pool was pretty cold.  It didn't matter.  She wanted to try the pool.  So, I knew that letting her go try was the only way I wasn't going to hear about it nonstop for the next two days.  Time to put your money where your mouth is, Harp!  :)

  

It was only about 60 degrees, and though it was sunny, it was still really windy.  So after a few jumps in the pool and subsequent shivering runs back to the chairs, she finally decided to rest on the chair next to me.  Nothing like a nap by the pool. 

After a combined total of four hour naps, we decided to try to go eat somewhere with waterfront.  The folks at the front desk were no help in recommendations, so we just started off for St. Petersburg beach.  As we were pulling up, we saw lots of folks dressed beautifully, nice cars, great restaurants with nice outdoor seating.  But, after we parked, we quickly noticed that all these gorgeous restaurants with on-fire centerpieces probably weren't the best choices for our party of four.  We walked down one of the streets a block or two off the beach that was apparently the place to be for Friday nightlife.  As we were pushing our two year old in the umbrella stroller down this full block of pubs and clubs, all I could think about was the line from Sweet Home Alabama.  After running into an old friend at a honky tonk bar in her hometown, Reese Witherspoon says, "Oh my word.  You have a baby!"   Long pause.  "In a bar!"  hahaha.  Please tell me you've seen that movie.  So we just kept on trucking through the happy hour streets clad with hipster young professionals.  We are officially the old people. 

We saw a policemen on the corner, and stopped to ask him if he knew of any sit down, but casual, family friendly restaurants.  He recommended a place just two blocks away, so we decided we'd do that.  We should've known when he said it was called Rowdie's Den that it may not be the culinary epicenter of the world.  There was a live band that was playing so loudly that no one could possibly hear our children, even if they had thrown their biggest tantrum.  I'm thankful neither of them took that as a personal challenge.  Both were good for dinner (which was a nice change of pace from the let's-fight-with-each-other-every-time-we-get-in-the-rental-car theme), so we happily ate our subpar food. 

We had some trying times and some completely redemptive times on this first full day of fun.  As we were driving back to our hotel, Harper kept telling me about her favorite animal.  "Mom, I have a new favorite animal.  Do you know what it is?  It's a sting ray.  I think I touched one when I was a baby, so that's why I wasn't afraid to touch them today."  (She knows she went to Florida on a plane when she was a year and a half, so now she thinks she's already done all this before.)  "But, really, they're my new besties."

Glad we could introduce you to some new friends today, sweet girl.  Let's see who we can meet tomorrow!

In case you want to see the rest of our first big family trip, click here. 

Florida Bound

I don't know if I've ever been this unprepared for a trip. (I know, I know, I say that every time, but really.) Adding the girls to the mix really ups the stress level. It's one thing if Sam and I just want to wing it with last minute travel plans, or go to multiple countries without the slightest game plan. But, my goodness, throw in two little humans who depend on us, and even a direct flight and a straightforward Caribbean cruise feel like a massive undertaking.

To get our party of four ready for this trip, I basically just had to highjack the dining room table to lay everything out. The girls' things were packed first, with each outfit, undergarment, and coordinating hairbow packaged together neatly in individual ziplock bags. By the time I finally got to packing my things, it was 1:30 a.m., and I was totally over it. So, stay tuned to me wearing the same outfit every day because I only managed to pack half a suitcase for 10 days. Oh well. At least my kids will be cute.

Sam and I had both planned to work on the day of our departure since we weren't flying out until early evening, but we hadn't necessarily planned for him to get called in to work at 3 a.m. So, he had already worked 10 hours by the time he came home in the afternoon to get changed to leave.

Kasey was super sweet to help us get the girls changed while we loaded the Yukon, and then she drove us over to the airport to drop us off. It felt kind of weird having the girls unload with us this time. 

 I had printed off everything online (since cheapo Allegiant charges you $5 per boarding pass to print them at the airport), so we checked in quickly, but then got reminded (again) why our flights only cost us $332 when they quickly told us our checked bag was overweight. Now, I have a pretty good sense at this point what 50 lbs feels like in our suitcase, and I had felt pretty confident that ours wasn't over 50 lbs. And it wasn't. It was 48 lbs. But, ol' Allegiant sets their weight limit at 40 lbs, so it was 8 lbs over. Gah. They offered for us to move some things around, so we were stuffing Sam's heavy jeans into about any bag we could. We were still 4 lbs over, so we asked if we could just pay for the overage. She happily said, "sure, for an additional $50 each way," to which Sam laughed and said, "I'll throw the jeans away before I'll pay that." haha. We somehow managed to get it down to 42, and since our other bag was only 38 lbs, she allowed the cumulative to be 80 and called it fair.

The girls played in the terminal until our plane arrived. Allegiant's 737 is actually the largest plane to fly out of Roanoke, and it looked huge compared to the AA's turbo prop plane at the next gate. The girls enjoyed learning about the difference between jets and propellers, and one of the sweet American Airlines gate attendants talked with Harper about different plane protocols.

Allegiant says the can fly so inexpensively in part because of their efficiency, and I will say that boarding was pretty quick. It could also be because they charge $30 for any carry on placed in the overhead compartment, so only a fraction of the customers have them, which cuts down on all those folks standing the aisle trying to find a place for their bag.

It was so cute watching their reaction to take off. Here's a little glimpse (and by "glimpse" I mean a six minute long video that only grandparents will want to watch, though it is cute!):

Harper literally talked the E N T I R E hour and thirty-nine minutes of that flight. So, despite the fact that I desperately wanted her to be quiet for just. five minutes. it was pretty entertaining to hear some of her comments and insights. As we were ascending, I told her we were starting to clear the clouds. A few minutes later, she randomly says, "Are we going to meet Jesus?" Ummm. That's not exactly what this not-in-love-with-flying person wants to hear. Hahaha. But, I said, "no, I don't think so. Why?" And she responded with, "Oh. Well, just that He lives in Heaven and that's up above the clouds where we are." She is so literal, that sweet girl. She thought we'd be crashing into pearly gates any minute after we passed those few clouds.

After the pilot announced our "initial descent" into the St. Petersburg area, Wills got so excited and was yelling, "we're landing! we're landing!" I am so thankful for the patient ladies that were seated together with our family. The lady beside Willa interacted with her, asked her questions, helped her do things. And the lady beside me ended up being our friend Megan's mom! Small world.

We were able to find our luggage easily and then waited for the rental car shuttle. Within about an hour, we were off in our Kia Optima, and headed to our hotel. It was only an hour, but it must've been an hour in dog years. Because with two tired, hungry kiddos, it felt like it took foooorrrrrreeeevvvvveeeerrrr. By about 9:30, we had managed to grab some to-go Chick-fil-A and get settled into our hotel room. Shew. I think we were more tired than the girls.

Altogether, our first big travel together went pretty smoothly. It was taxing, definitely, with the constant policing and correcting of the kids. But, it really wasn't terrible. Now it's time to rest up to be able to enjoy Tampa tomorrow!

Well. Unless you're Willa.