Gators and Monkies and Birds Oh My!

We went to a fun little place called Jungle Gardens.  They had all sorts of animals for us to see.  We tried to grab a quick family picture here. Not the best, but at least it's all of us.

I thought this huge giraffe statue would make a good picture. I've really got to work on my photography skills.

 

They had several different types of birds. Forgive me for not knowing what type. I think they are all some type of parakeet. ??  I was too busy making sure the kids stayed together to listen. They did let us hold a bird on our arm for free though.

Silas was first. Such a strong arm! The bird hopped right on.

Ellie chose a smaller bird. They put a bit of food in her hand to feed it.

 Avrie chose this sweet little thing.  It wouldn't turn around to smile for the camera though.

They gave her some food too and that got its attention!

Now we're ready to smile. :)

"Oooh! That's pinchy!" is what she was saying.

Evelyn was right there with the others and wanted to have a try. Interesting how animals just "know". The volunteer worker said that they won't always step onto the arm of a smaller child because they sense they are not strong enough. They helper asked me to hold Evelyn's hand so maybe the bird would commit but it wouldn't step onto Evelyn's arm. She got to see it up close and was happy with that.

Todd wanted Sadie to have a picture too. :)

Another attempt at a group shot. I tell ya what....group shots are hard.


You try to get five children to look at the camera, at the same time AND smile.  I figured I would just put them all on here. Between the three pictures everyone looks decent at least one time ....... I think.

Ellie and Avrie thought it would be funny to pretend they were being eaten by the crocodile. Goofy girlies.

Young man Silas wearing his hat that matches Daddy's.

I spotted this plant and grabbed Avrie for this shot. The coloring matched her dress so well.

Then of course Ellie wanted a photo shoot for her. :)

This last one I had to grab. Avrie's flip flop broke.  Not a big deal, but it was a bit ironic. On our last little family vacation to a theme park, she lost her flip flop while boarding a log ride. It fell into the water never to be seen again. So this has now become a tradition.....go on vacation and buy Avrie some new shoes!

This concludes Part 7 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Fun out of the Sun

Our first couple days in Florida were colder than we wanted for the beach. We took advantage of some other great places though.

On Sunday we went to the Floating Chapel. While it wasn't what we would call a real church service it was a fun novelty.

You can see that it was quite windy. So windy in fact that we didn't get to leave the dock! Oh well, it was still fun.

The inside was lovely.

We went for a quick walk at a local park before it closed. The kids got to mess a little in the water. Silas was so excited to collect shells. Once we had been on a few more outings he figured out that they were abundant down there and stopped hoarding them all.

This concludes Part 5 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Vacation at last!

One of the items that we shipped ahead of time was our queen air mattress. We put Silas, Avrie and Evelyn on the air mattress (They can all be sideways on it and still stretch out.) and Ellie got the twin bed right next to it. 

Grandma had found a nice pack-n-play at a consignment shop for Sadie. It fit perfectly in a closet right next to the bed Todd and I slept in.

They had us all set up and ready for a good night's sleep and boy were we ready for one!

When I had packed the box to ship I wasn't as organized as I should have been. (Imagine that!)   I somehow messed up the pajamas and Evelyn ended up in jammies that were a bit small for her. She didn't seem to mind though.  See her little belly sticking out?

Sometime during the night I heard Evelyn crying. She came in and said her ear was hurting. She cried and cried for quite a while. I have used some natural remedies before when her ears have hurt, one of which is onion. She usually doesn't like me to do it, but she marched into Grandma's room, woke her up and asked if she had any onions for her ear. She didn't have onions but there was some garlic. I got a bit of juice from the garlic on a q-tip and lightly dabbed her ear. That seemed to help. Here is where Evelyn and I spent our first night on vacation.

 At some point Evelyn felt better, so she left me sleeping here.

That concludes part 3 of our Florida trip.



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

The flight.

So we left off after we had boarded the plane for the first time.

Even though Evelyn doesn't use a sippy cup anymore, I brought one for the plane. I thought it might help with take-off and landing.  She had been a bit congested for a few days and I was concerned about her ears hurting her.

We were buckled and ready to go. Evelyn leaned over and fell asleep on with her head on my lap. Just as we were taking off she jumped up and screamed!  Then she proceeded to cry quietly.  She said her ear had popped and it was hurting. Poor thing.  I tried to calm her down and rub it. She fell back asleep.

The rest of the light was uneventful except for the occasional trip to the bathroom. Evelyn was scared to death to use that toilet. I think she thought she would fall out of the plane.  Then of course the flush was horribly loud, so that didn't help much.

At the end of the flight we waited until everyone had gotten off the plane before we attempted to leave. It was funny when we got to where all the gate checked items were the attendant couldn't figure out why all that stuff was still left when most everyone was gone. It was all ours! Todd again loaded up the car seat mobile and we were on our way.

We called the rental company and they picked us up and took us to our chariot (aka 12 passenger van).

We pulled into Grandpa and Grandma's driveway a little after 10:00 p.m.

Now it was time for the vacation to begin....right?

That concludes part 2 of our trip to Florida.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Have children. Will travel.

Can you find the stroller in this picture?


 
Believe it or not, there is in fact a stroller there.  It is buried under 2 car seats, 1 booster seat, diaper bag, insulated cooler bag, computer bag and duffle bag.

This, my friends, is how we made through the airport.  Also pictured are 4 kid-size suitcases and a backpack.

We had also shipped a box of Summer season clothes a week or so before the trip. That helped a lot and cost about the same amount of money it would have cost for another checked bag on the plane.





Saturday 2/18/12
1:15 p.m.
We packed  shoved everything and everyone into our minivan and headed for the airport.

2:00 p.m.
Potty break at a McDonald's near the airport.

2:30 p.m.
Arrived at the airport. Todd dropped me and the kids off with the stack of luggage you saw earlier. We checked our one very large suitcase and the rest were carry on bags.

3:15 p.m.
Todd had parked the van and took a shuttle back to find us. Here's a picture of the kids while we were waiting.

 3:20 p.m.
We started on our trek to security and stopped for another potty break.

3:30 p.m.
Loaded back up and ready to go. Todd carried the large duffle bag. Silas had the backpack and a pull-behind suitcase. Ellie, Avrie and Evelyn each had a pull-behind suitcase. It was slow going but it worked out really well to keep them busy lugging their suitcases around. No one ever thought to run off. I stayed at the end of our little train to make sure they were all heading in the right direction.

3:40 p.m.
We made it to security. They saw us coming and actually opened up a separate area so we didn't hold up the line. (Why would they ever think it would take us longer to get through? LOL)

I had the children dress in easy on/easy off shoes but it turns out that anyone under 12yo doesn't have to remove their shoes. woot!

They let all of our food go through, but had to rub something on each baby food jar to check it for possible explosives. On the other side of security we had to re-assemble our makeshift car seat holder. (We used bungi cords to keep everything on the stroller.) Each child was responsible for their own suitcase, so again they were quite busy. They sat and waited for us to get situated.

3:50 p.m.
We made it to the gate!  Everyone found a spot and watched planes take off and land. The kids were super excited!  I had made up snacks so we had "dinner" here. 

Our menu:
Turkey meatballs
clementines
cheese sticks
celery sticks
red bell pepper slices
bananas
grapes

We purchased a bottle of water to share.

4:15 p.m.
BEEP!  My cell phone alarm rang to remind me of our last scheduled potty break before boarding the plane.

4:30 p.m.
Once first class boarded they let us go since we had small children.  We traveled toward the plane in the same order we had been in. Todd stopped off to take the car seats and stroller apart to gate check them. So that meant that Evelyn ended up boarding the plane first. ummm  Let me just say that it's probably not the best idea to have the three year old go first.

The first seat she came to, Evelyn jumped in and said, "We're going at Florida!".

We finally made to it our rows of seats. We took up 2 rows of 3 seats each. Todd got one row with Silas and Avrie. I got the next row with Evelyn and Ellie. We passed Sadie back and forth.

That concludes part 1 of our trip to Florida. The fun was just beginning.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy