Staycation

This year, Mike and I decided to have our family vacation at home the week of August 18th. We opted for the local vacation because we have toddlers. Driving or any other version of travel with them is miserable for everyone. Better to keep any travel to one hour or less. Plus, we aren't exactly flush with cash these days so staying and eating at home is much more economical then traveling anywhere. So, we decided this was the way to go back in March/April… sometime BEFORE hurricane season. Our plans were to go to the zoo, the water park, the beach, and boating - typical Florida vacation plans. All beach and boating activities were cancelled due to not a single meteorologist knowing where or when Tropical Storm Fay was going to reach the states. Tampa was in the middle of the "cone" at one point meaning that several of our plans instantly became non-options - the beaches were unsafe, boating was impossible, the zoo was closed. How fun! It was nice to be home and spend some great family time together but sometimes hurricane season can really be a drag. We did make it to the zoo on the 20th which was a lot of fun. Here are my favorite pictures from the day.

Feeding the giraffes crackers was really memorable for the boys. If you mention giraffes now, the boys normally respond "crackers."


The camel ride was very intense. At first Connor was NOT going to do it and Cameron only did it with me reluctantly.


However, after seeing Cameron and I ride the huge animal safely, Connor (and Daddy) wanted to go too!


The animals were most memorable for the boys but they sure had a LOT of fun in the water fountains.



The looks of pure joy just make me smile. :-D

We did make it to the water park as planned on Thursday with Nana, Titi and Kaylie which was a lot of fun. It was overcast almost the entire day and sprinkled on us a few times but at least it wasn't blazing hot in usual August fashion and no one burnt so it was a perfect day. All the babes really enjoyed it even when Kaylie and Cameron ended up going under water with Titi and me at the end of one of the slides - we both lost our footing and went under with our children. Oops! They still wanted to do it again. Of course none of us brought a camera so there are no pictures to share but that's probably a good idea with my history of vacations with water and cameras. At least mine is still working right now!

The rest of the staycation we just hung out, ran errands, went shopping - like an extended weekend. Oh well! Next year we will be out of town so at least the hurricanes shouldn't be too much of an issue for us!