Welcome to the Jungle...

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to catch our plane to Tampa to visit Grandpa Mel in Clearwater Beach. Darin and I both were up at 5 getting everything ready and then we woke the kids up around 6 to get them dressed and into the car.

They did pretty well until we go to the airport. Riley had a major meltdown right as we were going through security. I think it started because she wanted to be buckled into the stroller and we couldn't because we had to send it through the scanner. So she is having her meltdown on the floor right in front of the security scanner that we are supposed to walk through. I am trying to get her to get up and walk through to her dad on the other side, but she is doing her best impression of a dead fish. Oh, except she is screaming very loudly.

The security woman is just staring at me and I asked her if I could just pick her up and carry her through and she said no. She was not nice or understanding. The line is slowly starting to build behind us so I send Tripp and Cash through. Finally, by the grace of God, Riley walks through, still screaming and crying. Darin and I are trying to grab everything that has collected at the end of the conveyor belt while strapping Tripp back into the stroller, calming Riley down and answering Cash's millionth question. It was NOT fun...and everyone is staring at us.

We get through to our gate, Riley has settled down and then we notice that our plane is not there yet. It was a little late, but not too bad. We finally get everything and everyone all loaded on and buckled into their seats and then the Captain gets on and tells us that there is a mechanical problem. They are going to have to wait for the mechanic and see what he says. We might even have to change planes which would mean waiting for one which could take hours. So there we were waiting to hear the news. We were praying we didn't not have to pack everything back up, get off the plane and wait in the airport for who knows how long. And the chances of us getting another non-stop flight to Tampa were not good.

The captain got on and said that he had good news. We were able to stay on the plane we were on, but it was going to take a while for the mechanic to go get the part he needed and then fix the problem. We didn't care. We didn't want to change planes.

Anyway, so we were on the plane for about an hour before we took off. So our 2 1/2 hour trip was extended to about 4 hours and crept into nap time. Not good. I had to do my best and pull out all the stops from my bag of tricks I had brought along. Tripp enjoyed a sucker which I never give him, but I was desperate.
Cash and Riley were really good. They watched dvds, colored and ate a lot of junk. Whatever. They were quite for most of the trip.
We finally got there, got our minivan and drove the rest of the way to Clearwater. When Riley saw her first palm tree, she said "Mama, we in the jungle." It was pretty cute.
The first fun thing we did was take the kids to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
http://www.seewinter.com/
The aquarium is right down the street from where Mel lives. They rescue and rehab marine animals. The main attraction at the aquarium is a dolphin named Winter. She was caught in a crab trap and lost her tail.
They had nurse sharks...
A nice volunteer passing out shark's teeth...

Dolphins (this isn't Winter, she was back in the other pool)...

Sea Otters...

A giant turtle to play on...

More dolphins...

And turtles...

The trainers did a short presentation about each animal. They told what had happened to the animal, how they found them and if they would be released back into the wild or if they would stay in the aquarium. This dolphin, I can't remember his name, was found beached with his mother when he was a baby. He has scars on his back from sunburn and he almost died. They were able to save him, but not his mother. They said he will stay in the aquarium. He can't be released because he never learned how to hunt.

It wasn't a big place which was nice because the kids were able to get right up in front and see everything.

That afternoon we took the kids to the beach. We were going to eat at a place that was right on the beach and of course they wanted to go check out the water. It wasn't warm enough to swim, but they had fun anyway!

Riley was liking all the birds that hovered around us as we ate. The kids thought it was so funny that these birds would walk around by our feet and eat up anything we dropped on the floor.

We took them for a walk down the pier.

Attempted a family photo.

And let them go back to the beach to watch the sunset. Cash and Riley loved trying to run from the waves as they came in. They also had fun finding shells on the beach and throwing them into the water. Unfortunately, my camera died so I didn't get many pictures. Riley got totally soaked anyway and we had to get home because it was getting too cold to keep her out there with wet clothes and shoes.

The next day we drove to Orlando. Darin's cousin, Kim and her husband, Brian live there and are, seriously, some of the nicest people I have ever met. They used to live in Celebration, but moved into their new house this past July. It is an awesome house! Beautiful. Here is Cash admiring their popcorn maker. Tripp playing football.

And Riley, covering up with a dog bed. Don't worry, her dogs were probably cleaner than my children so no worries.

Cash loved lounging on the couch and watching cartoons on the big screen.

We visited and ate a lot of good food! Kim made homemade manicotti with crepes instead of noddles. It was soooo good!

This is Kim, Brian, Darin and Aunt Mitz (Kim's and Darin's aunt, sister to their moms who are both passed away). Riley was in love with Kim's dogs. She has two little dogs. Not sure what kind of dogs they were, just little and furry. This black one is named Beau and Riley would not leave him alone!

Riley in the entrance to their house.

The pool, hot tub and waterfall.

We took a walk down their dock to check out their boat. We were going to go for a ride, but we didn't have life jackets for the kids and it was a little cold.

View of the house from the dock.

On our last night we drove to one of Mel's favorite spots for dinner. The Lucky Dill is a deli and it was really good. The kids did well, despite it being so late in the evening and missing their nap that day, that we let them pick out their own dessert from the bakery. They had rows and rows of all these yummy treats. Riley had her heart set on this giant chocolate cupcake.

Cash picked out this tart thing. Basically just for the powdered sugar that was all over the top of it because after he licked all that off, he was done.

Riley was nice though and shared her cupcake with Cash. They even got pink lemonade to drink instead of milk. What a treat, I know!

Tripp got a little bit of cupcake too!

The next morning we packed up to head back to KC. Our trip home was much better than the trip down. Maybe because everthing was on time or maybe because I had "better" treats in my carryon. Who knows?! It was better and that was all that mattered to me!

We had a lot of fun, but are glad to be home!!!

A lot...

After a long week of being stuck in the house we finally got out...a lot!!!

I took the kids to Little Monkey Bizness on Thursday afternoon. They had fun and burned off some energy which was nice. Totally worth the $7.50 I had to pay per child to play!


Totally!

Friday was spent like any other day which usually consists of playing with trains, cars and more trains. Every once in a while we get in a little time playing with the Dora dollhouse as well.

I love this picture. Cash and Riley were so excited because we were going to see Elmo and all the other Sesame Street friends at the Sprint Center.

Cash loved it. He was dancing and singing. I wish I could have got him on video, but it was too dark in there to get a good picture. He was really cute and so excited!

Tripp liked it too. He kept pointing at the stage and squealing. I was surprised at how long he just sat on Darin's lap and watched the show.

Riley sat like this the entire first half of the show, just staring. She was in awe of all that is Sesame Street. She covered her eyes when Elmo told her to, she clapped her hands when they said to and she stomped her feet as directed.

During the second half she changed seats to be closer to Cash and Merak. The second half didn't quite hold the kids attention like the first half, but they still loved it. I told Darin that I thought that it was maybe about 30 minutes too long. We would have been golden if we would have gotten out of there sooner than we did.

To top it off, as we left the Sprint Center we had a little problem. I guess a little boy had a problem which became our problem. We were next in line to "board" the escalator and the kid in front of us was having problems.

First of all, where were his parents? He looked to be about 8 years old or so. Anyway, the kid attempted to get on the escalator like you normally do, but after placing one foot on the revolving stairs, he decided against it. Leaving one foot on the moving stair, he began to do the splits with his other foot back on solid ground. I was standing behind him with Cash and Riley who were determined not to let this person stop them from their turn on the "ride". I am holding onto their hands, telling them to wait, not wanting to let go of their hands, but trying to figure out how to help this little boy who had a look of panic on his face.

He was now in the full splits and just laid down on the stairs. One of the Sprint Center employees was standing behind me and said do you need me to stop it? I kind of screamed at her yes, so she did. She stopped it, the little kid got up and ran down the stairs. Meanwhile I was thinking she would just turn the escalator back on. I was wrong. So there I am, with all these millions of people standing in line behind me and Riley starts to freak out. She is screaming and crying and all of these people think it is my little two year olds who caused this ruckus among us. I told Riley that the ride was broken and we had to walk, but she would not move. Darin is on the other side of the escalator with Tripp in his arms (he was the smart one who decided to fore go the escalator and take the stairs) so he hurried down the stairs so he could coax her down. She wasn't having it so I just picked her up, kicking and screaming, kept hold of Cash's hand and pulled him down the stairs.

We got to the bottom, I put Riley down and she did her famous flop to the ground and went into a full blown tantrum. You couldn't pick her up, that just made it worse. So we let her be for a little while and then I just grabbed her hand and led her out of the building, through downtown KC, down the stairs of the parking garage, all the way to the car, crying the entire time. We got her into her car seat, gave her some water and after about 5 minutes she just stopped crying. Cash turned to her and asked her if she was okay now. She told him yes and that was the end of it. Cash said "Mama, Riley okay now. She's all better."

Crazy.

Bad parents who don't pay attention to their kids.

Evil escalator.

Today we took them to a train display at the mall. They had tons of train set up and Cash was in heaven. They all liked it, but we had to take him back to the display a second time because he just kept asking for more trains. They had a Thomas and Percy train there too, but he was more interested in the big trains that pulled 100 cars behind them. After we left he kept asking us to "go get me all those trains, I want to get all those trains okay mom?"

So we had a busy couple of days and I am so glad that I got these pictures up before we leave for Florida. Tomorrow will be a busy day packing and trying to get all of our things ready to go. Pray for us as we fly! Its a 2 1/2 hour flight, but we all have our own seats so it shouldn't be too bad. I have a lot of little treats to bring along to keep them happy in the air!!! Hope everyone has a geat week and I will update when we get back from Clearwater!