Tampa

I meant to write this quite a bit sooner but I have actually been pretty busy with my Etsy shop! It's been nice, I've been getting at least one or two orders every day, including one from Barcelona, Spain where the customer had me translate my Star Wars invitation into Spanish, that was fun to do.
So anyways, I am finally finding time now to write about our Tampa experience. We spent a week and a half there, before moving to Orlando, which is where we are now. But I'll write about Orlando next week...

The highlight of Tampa was definitely "A Day Out with Thomas". Lennon really loves trains so much right now, so when we saw the commercial for this on TV we knew we had to take him. The event was at a train museum about 30 minutes outside of Tampa. Thomas was there and took us on a 4 mile train ride and then we got to take our picture with him. It was so cute, he talked and his mouth moved and everything, Lennon was so excited. The train car we rode in was from the 1920's, it was really neat. The conductor showed us a divider in the back that used to separate the black section of the train from the white section. It was crazy to imagine that things really used to be like that. After the train ride they had a ton of train sets and lego sets that we got to play with. They had a little carnival type train that we went for a ride on, free temporary tattoos, a magic show, live music, bounce houses, and a hay ride. I think Kyle and I enjoyed it just as much as Lennon did.

Diesel and Percy. Percy is Lennon's favorite train.

Only ones on the ride! Perks of getting there early.

There wasn't as much within walking distance of our hotel like there was in Jacksonville, so that made our days while Kyle was out working seem a little longer. There was a mall down the road that we would walk to that had an indoor play area. That was one of our favorite things to do, it was nice and air conditioned. It's been in the mid to upper 80's and pretty humid lately so walking around outside isn't my favorite thing anymore. We also spent a lot of time at the pool. Lennon still refuses to get in the big pool. He just wants to sit on the top step of the hot tub with his bulldozer the whole time. 

Another fun thing we got to do was go to Bass Pro Shop, they were right down the street from our hotel and they had a pretty cool aquarium. They also had the Easter Bunny there to take pictures with the kids, let's just say Lennon is probably still having nightmares about it...

Kyle tried to help this guy across the road and almost got his fingers bit off.

Poolside BBQ

We went to the Manatee Viewing Center on St. Patrick's day. Didn't see any Manatees :(

We went to Siesta Key beach a couple times, that beach is so nice! They have a really cute playground that looks like a sand castle that Lennon is still talking about. It was a little more crowded than the other beaches but it's also spring break right now so everything is starting to get a little more crowded. We played in the sand and built sand castles and roads for Lennon's trucks. Kyle found some shark teeth on the beach and the last time we went we actually saw a dolphin swimming! That was really cool and exciting to get to show Lennon.

That was pretty much our Tampa experience. We are now in Orlando, which should be our last location before heading home in just over a week.