FL Trip Part One: Tampa

We enjoyed a wonderful 1 1/2 week vacation this month! We got to travel with Nick, Liz and Sophie, which was wonderful and made all the driving much more fun! Our first stop was in Tampa to visit Luke's Grandma and Grandpa VanWingerden and his Uncle Bruce, Aunt Diane, Kira and Gunner.

Sunday morning started out with going to church with Grandma and Grandpa. This picture is in the lobby of their church. As you can see from the picture, it's a pretty huge church! Outside of the children's area, they have two huge fish tanks for the kids to look at. Jack loved pointing to all of the fishies :)

Sunday evening we went over to Uncle Bruce and Aunt Diane's house for dinner. This is Jack with their dog, Rodie (as in a rodie who travels with a band). He LOVED Rodie and Rodie was sooo good with Jack and Sophie even though he had not been around small kids very much.

Jack also enjoyed playing on their drumset:

Sometimes when the kids get tired, they just want the mommies. Liz and I was busy playing on the Wii, so we let the kids "help" us.

Monday we went to see the manatees. Jack fell alseep on the way there....he's just too cute when he sleeps! :)

There's a power plant in this cove and the manatee come hang out here until the water in the gulf warms up. There are literally hundreds of them!

You can see more of the plant in this picture:

There was also a birding trail that you could walk down. It was really pretty, but there weren't too many birds out this time of year.

You can see how the trail was covered in trees in this picture - like a tunnel.

Big boy Jack had to get down and push his own stroller.

Monday night we went to Josh and Amanda's house (where Nick, Liz and Sophie were staying) for dinner. They have a heated pool in their neighborhood, so the kids got in and played a little bit. It was still a bit cold for me! Despite the look on Jack's face in this picture, he really was having fun! He always LOVES being in the water! The second picture is of Nick and Sophie walking in the water.

Josh and Amanda have a waterslide at their pool. I'm not sure Jack knew what to think of it!

We had a FANTASTIC time in Tampa and it was really good to catch up with family and friends that we haven't seen in a long time!