The Staycation

We're home again.  It's nice to be home.  I have two days to do laundry, shopping, blogging, regrouping and then we're headed for the Keys on Wednesday.  After this we should have a pretty mellow summer.  I'm enjoying our activities, though.  

So, last week we did a stay-cation at my parents house.  They were in Hawaii for my cousin, Keely's,  wedding.  Lucky them.  So we took over their house and had ourselves a little fun.  Lucky us, too.

There are a lot of pictures: be warned.  Also, as a side note, all pictures were taken with my point and shoot camera.

This is actually the day before our staycation.  We went to a spray park in Dunedin.  It's a bit of a drive but it's free to the public and it's a nice way to be outdoors in the summer. The kids didn't love it as much as I had envisioned but it was fun.  They liked the playground a lot more than the water park area.  

Thursday we spent most of the day packing and trying to get out of the house.  We made it there in the late afternoon.  Julie and Joe were nice enough to watch our kids so Ben and I could go on a date.  We went to the movies and saw The Hunger Games.  It was a really long movie so we didn't have time to do dinner.  We picked up the kids and went to Moe's Southwest Grill for dinner instead.  Ironically McKay, our Moe, slept the whole time at Moe's.

This one makes me laugh.  Sadie was eating ice and Jax is trying to copy what she's doing even though he doesn't have ice.

Friday morning we went to the Florida Aquarium with Joe, Julie, Joseph, James, Sarah, Ethan, and Charlie.  We loved it so much that we upgraded our tickets for yearly passes.

The stingray tank

Looking at alligators

Picture through the fish tank.

During the shark show.

They have a sand area and spray ground outside. 

 Later that day we went to the beach....

Saturday morning we went shopping down at Ellenton.  Since it's a long drive we switched vans and took my parents which has a DVD player.  The kids were in heaven!  They didn't want to get out of the car when we got there and Sadie kept asking the whole time, "Can we go back to Mimi's car now?"

Jax got car sick and threw up on the drive.  Poor kid!

Driving over the skyway bridge.

 That afternoon Ben went golfing with my brother Joe.

Ben almost got a hole in one.  That's his ball by the pin.

This is how close he got to a hole in one.

They saw ducks and Ben took a picture to show to the kids.  So thoughtful!

That evening we went to Gigi's Italian restaurant at Treasure Island beach.  We ordered pesto pizza with homemade sausage.  It's great.

After dinner we walked over to the beach for sunset.  It was a yucky sunset but the kids had fun watching people fly kites and searching for seashells.

Sunday morning we went to church.  It was fun to be in my old ward and see friends.

We took naps and then went to the beach for sunset...

Yes McKay, do you have a question?

I tried to take a picture of Ben with all three...unsuccessful.

A little better.

Jax randomly doing yoga moves.

McKay, if you have a question go ahead and ask....

Jax wants to take his tennis rackets everywhere lately.

They were really quiet after their showers and I went in to my parents' room and found them dressed like this......

Monday we forgot to take pictures.  Sad.  But the day consisted of beach, rollerblading, napping, dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, laundry and packing.  Gramma Meyers spent the night because I had an early flight to catch the next morning.  More to come on that soon....

Thanks mom and dad for letting us take over your house.  We're happy you're home.