We woke up bright and early on Friday morning. We had prepared everything the night before so it was a matter of throwing the babies in the back seat and heading out. Unfortunately, the night had been a ROUGH one and I ended up getting a little over 2 hours of sleep. Luckily, it didn't seem to affect the boys as much as me and we had a great day :)
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| On the road :) |
We drove through Ocala around 8AM and stopped for breakfast. There was too much excitement going on for Luke to eat and he only had a couple ounces. Of course, about 10 minutes after being on the road again, he screamed bloody murder for his bottle so I mastered the art of feeding him from the front seat...
We arrived in Tampa, our first stop, at 10:00AM just as the Glazier Children's Museum was opening. I had planned for us to spend the majority of day one in downtown Tampa as there is lots to do! We played at the museum for 4 1/2 hours! It was amazing and Bean had the best time exploring and learning :)
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| Cool setting for a museum |
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| Here we go! |
The first exhibit was all about water. We spent a lot of time here as every kid likes to get wet and play in water!
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| Indoor sand pit! |
After the water tables, we headed upstairs to the aviation exhibit. Here there was a really cool climbing activity. The pics don't do it justice, it was atleast 3 stories high and Xavier exhibited some serious agility! Daddy did too... :)
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| SMILE! |
We continued through the top floor of the museum and visited each section. Xavier had a blast!
Lukey even got in on the fun!
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| Where is Xavier?! |
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| Gorgeous view! |
The fire station was definitely a favorite!
The grocery store was also a favorite...
As was the Vet...
And the restaurant...
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| More of a gorgeous view! |
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| Eating Pizza!! ;-) |
After visiting all of the exhibits, we started over again :)
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| LOL |
So after 4 hours, someone started coming unglued...it was after 2 PM and he usually naps at noon. We decided to call it a day and head outside to check out the canal.
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| He FINALLY fell asleep! |
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| Such a cool location for a playground! |
Finally, it was time to pack up the troops and head to our favorite restaurant!!! :) Even though the naps weren't ideal on this day, we made it through our early dinner without too many blips. The babies were very well behaved and, minus 3 unnecessary trips to the restroom on Bean's behalf (he uses the restroom as an excuse to explore when we go to new places), we all enjoyed our experience!
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| Luke's first Cheesecake Factory experience! |
Of course, the iPad helped us to reach this level of calm...
After dinner and the most delicious dessert in the universe, we headed on into the mall. I've blogged about this mall many times while we lived in the area. It is the best! It has all of my favorite stores and it has a Disney store for good little boys :)
We spent some time looking around and let Beanie pick out a toy for being such a good boy! Also, while we were on this trip, we decided we would try and get our ornaments for this year. I found mine here (post coming on this soon).
After the Disney Stre, we stumbled upon a few more places to stop including a custom ornament kiosk (again, post coming soon) and then decided to call it a day. We wanted to check into the resort before dark because we had been promising our little Bean the beach for weeks now!
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| X let LB hold Leonidas :) |
By the time we got from downtown Tampa to our resort in St. Pete, the sun was setting! I quickly checked us in, we threw our stuff in the suite, and we all made a beeline for the water!
It was amazing! Although Bean has been to the beach a million times and can even recall these trips, the sheer excitement on his ace was priceless!!
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| Babies first beach trip! |
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| Toes in the sand! |
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| Daddy and Beanie <3 |
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| My whole heart |
We spent nearly an hour admiring the sunset and surroundings until it became dark and we reluctantly headed inside.
Because it gets dark around 6:30, it was still pretty early and so we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and playing with Bean's new toys. The boys fell asleep pretty early and Dustin and I enjoyed each others company.
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| Vacation babies! |
The next morning, we were all up and ready to go by 6:30. Dust ran to get us some breakfast and to get Bean some beach toys. By the time it was warm enough to go outside and play, it was nap time for Lukey Lou. We decided to divide and conquer and Dust went out with Bean and I stayed in with Luke.
AFter an hour or so, Luke woke up and we joined the boys on the beach.
After a while it was time for Luke to eat so we switched duties and Beanie and I took a long walk down the beach to a playground. But not before he did some bird chompin' :)
After a while, we decided to walk back and check on Daddy and LB. When we found them, Bean insisted on showing daddy the playground so back we went :)
By this time, it was lunch time. We walked across the street to a yummy pizza shop and here we found a parrot named Puckerlips. XAVIER. WAS. OBSESSED.
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| Watching the show haha! |
We spent the rest of the day on the beach and had THE BEST DAY! Before we knew it, the sun was setting again and it was time to head inside. We had planned on going to dinner but the boys were SO tired that we opted for Chinese takeout :)
Xavier fell asleep around 6:30 PM before dinner even arrived and didn't wake up until 7 AM the next morning!
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| Post-shower selfie :) |
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| Sleeping Beauties :) |
The next morning, Sunday, we had to check out by 11. Dust and Beanie got some last minute sandcastles in before it was time to say goodbye to the beach.
We all spent a little bit more time on the shore and were so sad to be leaving and returning to reality!
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| My guy :) |
By 11AM, the car was packed and we were hungry. We chose "Sloppy Joe's" as our final beach dining experience. It is a favorite of ours :)
From our table we could see where they were preparing for a professional sandcastle competition so that was really cool to see.
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| View from our table |
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| Watchful |
While Lukey and I hung around waiting on food, X and daddy explored.
Then it was time for food!
By the time lunch was over, our babies were tired!
We all jumped in the car and off we went. It took less than 5 minutes for both babies to pass out and they slept for 2 hours!
I cannot reiterate enough times how amazing this trip was. We had the most amazing long weekend with our babies. We returned to Tallahassee feeling renewed, rejuvenated, and ready to take on the world again. We are just so, so blessed.
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