We went to visit my mother for the 4th of July weekend. The girls caught their 1st fish off her dock. It was very exciting – Tony says they both caught one. I think fishing is icky so my only involvement was taking this picture.
My BFF from college was visiting my mom too, and it was really fun to hang out with her and her family! The girls 1st beach outing was at a yacht club we went to for the 4th, with Zach. It was just a little patch of sand by the docks, but they were thrilled!
My handsome husband!
A real beach outing! Anna really loved swimming in the ocean with the boogie board. Emma wasn’t crazy about either.
Emma did really love playing in the sand though. My friend Kim helped them build a sand city.
My loves!
More fishing at the dock!
Kim’s husband David did lots of fishing off the dock. He grew up doing lots of fishing in Puerto Rico. He and Tony kept the girls busy on the dock. I was thankful to have him there so I was able to pretty much avoid the whole fishing scene entirely.
A fun night out on the town with Gram!
The restaurant had giant wood dolphins carved out of tree stumps. My little dolphin lovers were fascinated!
We all went to Clearwater Marine Aquarium together (where Winter lives), but this is the only picture I got. There’s Gram on the end in the black hat holding Emma and you can kind of see the rest of our heads next to them. We were watching a little show with a dolphin named Nicolas (also the name of Kim’s other son). It is the only real “show” they have with a dolphin doing lots of tricks. It’s a very bare bones, animal rescue kind of place.
It’s not even at CMA – but the restaurant next door.
And this one with a nice photo-bomb from Nicolas, Kim’s other son.
My mom lives on one of a string of islands that ends at the mouth of Tampa bay at a big awesome natural island-park called Ft. DeSoto. I used to ride my road bike down to Ft. DeSoto all the time when I lived with my mom. It is a beautiful 16 mile round trip. I always loved looking at this giant American flag blowing in the ocean breeze as I rode onto the island.
We made a quick trip at dusk one night. My little coolpix took very grainy pictures in that light, but a few shots taken against the setting sun came out kind of interesting. Tony had gone back home to work, and we hung out with my mom another week.
The girls wanted to go back and see Winter again. We got to spend most of the day there in the middle of the week, and it was really nice to be there without the big crowds. This is Winter, Hope and Panama. I heard they are making a Dolphin Tale 2, starring Hope. I think they got her as a baby right after she was orphaned by a dying mother. They need mom to teach them how to survive in the wild, so she is another permanent resident at CMA.
A nice shot of Winter. We got to see her do all kinds of exercises with her trainer and she wore her tail both days we visited. We had been to see her on 2 prior visits and never got to see her with her tail on, so that was a real treat. Of course I didn’t take a good picture of the tail…
You can kind of see it in this one if you look real close. It was fun and very fascinating to watch her swim with it on.
We also took a little boat ride in the intercoastal areas. CMA monitors the health of the area in comination with these little tours. The make a few stops and scoop up some critters, pass them around in little tanks, and then dump them back where they found them. They explained all the things they are looking at, but I have forgotten the details. It was fun and educational for the girls.
We even got to hold some of the critters. I think this is a sea urchin.
We ate at a Mexican restaurant afterwards.
Another quick trip down to Ft. DeSoto. There is actually an old fort that was used to defend the colony back in the day. It’s a lovely place.
Palm leaves made for great pretend play. I believe they were pelicans here.
Probably the girls’ favorite thing to do at Gram’s house is swim in her pool. She was trying to be modest and cover up for the picture. She wasn’t thinking about what it would look like with her strapless bathing suit! 
Fun times!!
Back at the airport after another awesome visit at Gram’s!!
No comments:
Post a Comment