How we found Evan sleeping one morning...

The week leading up to Thanksgiving was a fun one. My brother Brady and his fiancee were in town, so they spent a lot of time with us and the kids, especially Evan, loved it. One day they surprised him and picked him up from daycare to take him and Gracie to the zoo. The weather was beautiful for mid-November! I met them there after work and got some great pictures.

NOTE: Brady and Katie spent a few nights at our house and a few at my parents. The day they left to head to my parents, Evan asked me why they weren't staying with us anymore. I said that Grandma missed them and they needed to spend some time with her, to which he replied, "Well, I miss them more." Guilt trip success!

 

 

 

 

Monday.

We made our annual trek to the Florida Aquarium first thing Monday morning and it was great - hardly any people were there and Evan was super excited about seeing sharks. Eric put a shark app on the iPad right before we left for the trip, so Evan had been learning all about them so it was fun to see him so excited about it. We all played at the splash park and had a nice lunch before saying goodbye to Tampa and heading back to Orlando for one more night before our early Tuesday morning flight. Yet another great trip to Florida in the books!

*** I should add as a sidenote: My parents are going back to Florida in early December to continue working on the new condo, and I mentioned this to Evan the other day. He immediately looked sad and said, "Why is Grandma going to Florida without me?" I had to chuckle at the thought of the world revolving around a 5-year-old :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday.

I don't have any pictures from Sunday, oh well. We went to Ikea for breakfast and did some shopping (more stuff for the condo), Evan went swimming at the pool, we made dinner at the condo, and then my mom watched the kids so Eric, my dad and myself could go to a movie.

Saturday

Saturday morning we drove into Tampa to check out the kids museum. Eric found out it was only $5 per person as every first Saturday of the month they have reduced pricing. As we expected, it was BUSY. But we managed to get in and it was a pretty good museum, and we even checked out the IMAX show. Afterwards we did a few errands, getting supplies for my parents new condo, which we checked out and are getting excited for it's finish. To end the day, we had another trip to the beach in which the kids got plenty wet and dirty.

 

 

 

 

Friday

After getting to the condo late Thursday night, we slept in on Friday morning and bummed around town until we picked up my dad at the airport. We headed back to the condo for naps and then had dinner on the beach and Grace and Evan had a blast playing the sand. We ended the evening with a nice stroll down the beach and watched the sunset. A great typical vacation day in sunny Florida.

 

 

 

 

Thursday

We had a great breakfast at our hotel and left our hotel around 9AM for the outlet malls. Didn't buy anything, but did get a few cute pictures of the kids :) Then we went to Downtown Disney, went for a boat ride, had lunch and played in the splash pad. On our way out of town, we stopped at the Art of Animation Hotel because we've heard such great things. And it totally lived up to it's reputation. We especially enjoyed the Cars part of the resort...it was just like being in the movie. Evan was in awe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Well, it's time I get around to posting pictures from our fantastic trip to Florida. I'm going to do each day as a separate post with a brief description of the days events.

Wednesday

We left early Halloween morning out of Madison, with a connection in Cincinnati, and arriving in Orlando. Normally we fly directly to Tampa, but we found really cheap flights so decided to start the trip at Disney, then rent a car after our fun there and head to Tampa. We went immediately to visit the Thayer's who graciously invited us to go trick-or-treating with them in there neighborhood. It was GREAT. We all had so much fun. After, we made it to the hotel, located right next to Disney, and we all crashed after an exhausting day.