Monday, April 27, 2009

Happy Red Panda Easter Park!

WHAT?? Yes... don't you have Red Panda Easter Park Day? Well, in our house, when a trip to Florida comes in the middle of a trip to Gram and Grumpy's house and the park, and a trip to the zoo with Aunt Jen and kids, and Easter, you get a mixed-up blog post for Red Panda Easter Park Day. Aren't you lucky??

Here we are at Irvine Park. I think I wrote about this earlier, but didn't have pics since they were all on my mom's camera. What I like about Irvine is we go there often enough, so that through the years, I can see the kids grow and change. Here's a picture of Max with Grumpy that I just love. It almost looks like fall instead of late winter/early spring, doesn't it?


Here's the cougar that kept chasing Max. You can see Max through the window, and the cougar just waiting for him to move.


And everytime, we get the kids on the bear. At least they seem to like it as much as we like taking the picture... for now!



Somewhere in there, Easter also happened too. We colored eggs at my mom and dad's house (Gram and Grumpy's) so that I wouldn't end up with a million hard-boiled eggs rotting in my fridge while we were in Florida. The grand plan was to have Max nap while Abby and Nolan colored eggs, but that didn't work exactly right and Max was awake. He colored some, but didn't get so much that you had to be gentle with them. But at least he had fun!





And here's Easter morning. The Easter Bunny hid plastic eggs since he knew we were going on vacation. He actually his SIXTY-FOUR of them, and the kids found them all. I'm not sure if Abby had more fun finding her own, or helping Max find some. I think she's going to make a good Easter Bunny someday herself!








On Good Friday, Nolan and my nephew Cole had zoo class. The zoo is another place where we go often enough that I can compare pictures of what the kids look like year to year. We walked around while they were in class and I think everyone had fun. Here's Max on the carousel, which he's done before, but this time, he did not like it. It started moving, and he cried, and I had to take him to sit on a bench that didn't move, instead.


But Abby and Erin liked it!


All the kids were very interested in how they feed the jaguars and watched the whole movie!


The stroller got a workout. Thank goodness Abby was pushing it!

Chad, Max, Erin, Abby, Nolan, Cole.


Them all again in front of the lion. Oops, I don't know if you can see the lion!

Here's Red Panda Nolan and Red Panda Cole. I think they had a good time!
And this is what red panda tails look like...


Which is the real red panda?


The massager chairs... always a hit!


Always have to make fishy faces in front of the seals! Max is wondering what the heck is going on.

Giraffes Erin and Max.


And giraffes Abby and Chad.


More massage chair!


Abby and Erin... best cousins!


And that's it for Red Panda Easter Park Day! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! :)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hey, where's the sun?

There's so many different ways to look at a vacation. There's chronologically, of course. And then there's the really great moments, or, on some vacations, the really bad moments. There's how you feel when you left, what you saw, what it was like to come home. Then there's the blogger way. Because I just know there's no good way to sort through my pictures, they'll never come out in good chronological order. Or any smart order for that matter! Add to that the fact that I still can't find my camera cable and it's a total jumble. So, I'm doing this two ways. For those of you who like to read, read on! The text version of our journey is below. For those who like the pictures, scroll down! Those are annotated at the bottom. For those of you who like both... you're in luck! And, if you like to read while looking at pictures, get really comfortable with your scroll bar and go back and forth. :)

We woke up Easter morning to baskets and egg hunts (Easter post yet to come!). Then we headed out around 8:15 to catch our plane, first to Houston, then layover, then on to Tampa. When we landed in Houston, Abby asked, "Do they speak English here?" rather loudly on the plane. Um, yes Abby, they do. To which she replied, "Good, because I don't want to have to deal with that!" The flights themselves were actually quite uneventful, with Max sleeping most of the longer first flight. Getting to Florida was great. As soon as we went outside, Nolan said, "I don't want to live at David's house anymore!" In fact, the kids' mantra the entire time was, "Who wants to live in Tampa?" and "Why can't we just move here?" Ha! I wonder if they realize that real life in Tampa isn't all pools an beaches??

Anyway, we got there around dinner time, so we changed into suits and headed to the poolside grill. Nothing signifies vacation like eating in bathing suits and drinking fruity drinks outside by a pool!

Monday we woke up and decided to stick close to home. We headed to Sand Key Beach, which was just outside our hotel room. The kids were a little hesitant at first, but once they saw all the shells they thought it was pretty neat. Max was a little slower to adapt. For some reason he doesn't like sand on his feet so it took him awhile to just walk around on his own. But soon, they were all in the water splashing and having a good time, and eventually we even buried everyone in the sand! One of the really cool things was seeing dolphins from the shore. I was amazed, and then of course thought, "hmmm, if dophins are that close, where are the sharks??" But I tried to get that out of my head quickly! Around one, Max fell asleep in my lap and we headed back to the hotel. There we made great use of the hotel pool for awhile before heading to Clearwater Beach. Sand Key and Clearwater are mostly the same, except Sand Key is quiet and relaxing and Clearwater has vendors, people, jungle gyms and other attractions. It's much more touristy, but also exciting. The kids had fun running around there, playing in the play area, we let them do a bungee trampline thing and then at night Pier 60 has what they call a festival. Although, it seemed more like a bunch of vendors selling junk that I had to convince the kids they didn't really want to spend the money on. Maybe later in the summer there's more performers or other things? Not sure. Anyway, the kids were pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel, and that was it for Monday!

Tuesday we were headed to Busch Gardens. We kept an eye on the weather as it was fairly overcast, and we weren't sure if it would clear up. On the way there, Max threw up a bunch of red Gatorade all over himself and the car, and then, sure enough, by the time we got there it was a steady downpour. Things were not looking promising! We sat in the parking lot for a little while, at which point Abby declared, "I have to go to the bathroom!" And clearly she couldn't wait. There was no where in the parking lot to go, and no where to get to in the car very quickly, so I convinced her to pee in a diaper. Hey, whatever! You do what you gotta do! After that, we decided there was no way it was clearing up, and we didn't want to be miserable in the rain all day, so we headed to the Tampa Aquarium. It was nice... kids got to pet sting rays and star fish and Max loves the birds and fish. Then we headed back to the hotel room, where the kids watched a movie that the hotel was showing, Max napped, I read a book and Dave watched TV. Not too exciting, but good downtime! After that the storm started clearing so we walked down to the beach. Because of the waves, we found some really neat shells and the kids had fun playing in the surf. Well, they had fun until Nolan got tripped by a wave and fell in, completely getting wet, and then as we walked on the beach, the wind kicked up and pelted us with sand so we ran for cover. But still, it was fun!

For dinner Tuesday night we went to a nicer restaurant right by the hotel. BIG mistake! We didn't realize just how nice it was, and there was no way Max should have been in there. I ended up walking around with him on the boardwalk outside until the food came. He ate some, but even then he was more interested in walking around, seeing the toys the kids got, etc. He was certainly Monster Max! But then, our waitress came and was clearing our plates and said, "Wow, you guys have a handful here. I bet you're done for awhile!" Ah, that was NOT the right thing to say. Now I felt like a bad parent, fat because she apparently couldn't tell I was pregnant, and CRABBY! Unfortunately, I couldn't think fast enough to come up with anything but a lame smile to give her back, but believe me I have since formulated several responses in my head! After that we decided it was nice enough to swim and went to the hotel pool. Ahhh, at least that's a life I could get used to!

Wedensday we headed back to Busch Gardens. Let me tell you... even though the weather was beautiful, it was not one of our better days! It started out ok. We went through Land of the Dragons, which was a really cool treehouse and had rides for the kids. Then from there we headed to the bird area, where we got to feed the birds as they came and landed right on us. It was very cool! Then it broke down from there. Nolan wanted to ride the flume ride, Abby didn't want to wait in the line (it was 45 minutes!). Dave got them in line, then took them out when Abby broke down crying because she didn't want to go and Nolan broke down crying because he did. Not a pleasant sight. After that we had some lunch, walked around some more, and then Dave, Abby and Nolan decided to stand in line for the Congo River Ride. It was another 45 minute wait, but they were all ok this time. I walked around with Max and hung out, and then went back to check on them. They were five minutes from the front when someone announced on the speaker, "There is a technical difficutly with this ride. We need to shut it down indefinitely." Uh oh. Let's just say Dave was less than happy. The ride, from what we saw, never reopened for the rest of the day. Then we headed to another play area for the kids called Jungala. It was a lot of suspension bridges and other climbing things. At one area they had a zip line kids could sit down and go across, but there was quite a wait. While Abby was in the bathroom, Dave and Nolan went up there. The line wasn't too bad, so Dave waited in lind and told Nolan to go bring Abby up. Well, I was with Abby when Nolan found her. He told us where Dave was, but Nolan was too little, and Abby didn't want to go on the ride, and I didn't really believe Nolan if Dave was up the steps, so we went the other direction. Oops! Apparently Dave was at the front of the line waiting, but we never got up there. He wasn't so happy when he came back down. After that, we checked out a lot of animals, which were actually quite neat. Giraffes, elephants, zebras, but it was different, and cooler, than in a zoo. They were all in herds out in the safari area. We did a walking tour, and then also went on a sky ride where we could see them all. By the time we left, everyone was pretty exhausted and fell asleep in the car. We headed back to the hotel where we ate poolside, Dave had several drinks (oh, did you know that Busch gardens only serves Busch products, which Dave won't drink??) which helped him (and me by association!) relax and stayed in the pool with the kids until after 10:00.

Thursday, we headed to Adventure Island, which is a water park next to Busch Gardens. It was really layed out nice, with a beach area in the middle, a play area for the kids, wave pool, regular pool, lazy river and tons of water slides. We got there very early, so we were able to get chairs and hang out. We went down one of the huge slides that you go in a tube in, and you can fit everyone in. Even Max went! It was really dark for a lot of the ride, and you went under waterfalls so I was a little worried about him, but by the time we got down he had fun (nevermind the little bit of crying on the way there!) and wanted to go again. Abby and Nolan went with Dave down this other crazy waterslide where it slingshots you down on a sled-type thing, and you propel very fast down and the skid across the water. More power to them! I opted for the lazy river! We left there around 2, headed back to the hotel where Dave took Abby and Nolan mini-golfing and Max and I hung out on the beach. We went to a barbeque that the hotel had that night (you guessed it, outside by the pool!) and hung out in the pool for the rest of the night.

Friday we headed home. Max slept through most of the first flight, and then was awake for the 2+ hour second flight. He was a little rough for that one, but all in all he did ok. If I were recommending family travel, I don't think I would recommend plane rides for a 21-month old!
All in all, the vacation was great. The kids slept well, behaved well, the weather was mostly nice, we saw a lot of stuff. It's a lot of work with Max--At home he can play on him own and has room to roam, but in a hotel he very much bugs Abby and Nolan in whatever they're doing, and we had to keep a careful eye on him wherever we went. I think next time, Dave and I will have to go somewhere just the two of us, just a little more relaxing!!

And to make a long post longer... here are the pics. Enjoy!

Before we left the house, getting ready to head to the airport


In the President's Club at the airport. These kids have NO IDEA how lucky they are.



You're getting sleepy.


What a motley crew!


This was the view on our drive from the airport to the hotel.


Arriving at the hote, in the parking lot.


In the lobby of the hotel. This is Lisa and Max LOVED her! Every morning he had to go see her, and would literally get mad if she was sleeping and not in the lobby yet.



The view from our hotel room balcony.

The hotel pool.

Max a little tentative on the beach.


This looks yucky to me. The shells were cool, but the shrimp shells and other crazy things were a little disturbing!


Do you like our feet?


Max getting used to the sand... even let me bury his feet!

Enjoying Sand Key beach.


Max peeking out of the tunnel at the jungle gym at Clearwater.


At the Tampa Aquarium, petting the starfish.


Sleepy Max.


Uh oh!!!


The water after the storm quite stirred up! It was fun to play in, until Nolan got "tripped" by a wave and fell in, and then the wind kicked up and the sand came and stung our legs and faces!




The difference between my picture and Dave's are funny. I don't usually take too many pics without the kids or someone in them, and Dave had a ton of just animals. But I do have to admit, they are cute to look at!

Nolan's favorite animal.




The Lazy River at Adventure Island. My favorite spot!!


Dave, Abby and Nolan went down this slide. I couldn't believe it! I was glad to be pregnant so I had an excuse not to go down!
Nolan's chicken strip that he was convinced was shaped like a sea horse. I can see the resemblance!
See that roller coaster in the background? About two seconds after this picture, the kids and Dave got wet, Abby slipped on the wet concrete, got her shorts soaked and scraped up her ankle on the ground. Oops!
Feeding the birds in Busch Gardens was definitely a highlight!
Even Abby did it!

A three-story treehouse in Land of the Dragons.

Kids rides in Land of the Dragons. The people were funny. The height requirement was the same for all, but some Max could go by himself, some needed Dave, some he couldn't go on. It was a little crazy!



This was like a huge bounce house floor.
Suspension bridges connected the treehouse areas.



Entering Busch Gardens.
Back at the aquarium.
This was the coolest sea horse I'd ever seen!
Petting the stingrays.

Random turtle.
The kids got to feed the otters, threw them a fish.

Random beach pics.

We let the kids do a bungee trampoline thingy, which was one of their highlights.

Play area at Clearwater.
Pier 60. The festival was more like a Bizarre O'Crap, where I had to convince the kids they didn't want to buy anything.
The view from the front of our hotel.

Too cool for words.
How you doin' in there Nolan?
Quick, Dave, let's go! They're covered!

Wait, what is that?

It's a dolphin we saw from the shore! Very cool!

Not sure who the guy is behind them!

My beach baby.

I'm glad there was no crab in it!






And there it is! I should have given fair warning that I'm not re-reading, so if there's lots of mistakes, I apologize. Overall, the trip was really great. We came back to very warm weather for one day, but Sunday took a turn for the worse and so far this week we've had soccer, softball and tball cancelled. Hopefully this week it will warm up... come on sun!!