We had a fabulous time in Florida last week! We were able to spend a lot of time at the beach, as well as do some fun activities in the surrounding area. Our condo was just a short 100 step walk to the sand! It was a perfect location. Both the kids LOVED the sand, sea and waves. They couldn't get enough of them. We are already planning our return trip. These first few beach pictures are of the kids' first encounter with the ocean. I love their excited smiles!
It was SUPER warm the day we arrived…I think close to 90!! So it was perfect 'surfing' weather.
After our first afternoon at the beach we needed some grub. We found a yummy pizza by the slice place in the village of Siesta Key. After dinner the kids discovered that we were surrounded by little creatures. I never did find out what they were called specifically but everywhere you go in Florida there are these little lizards….the crawl about quickly and generally don't let you get too close. The kids enjoyed watching them scamper about.
Right next door to the pizza place was an ice cream shop ( there were ice cream shops on almost every corner….we ate ice cream every night for dessert!). This particular place was called SubZero and had been endorsed by one of the Sharks from Shark Tank as you can see on the poster. Their claim to fame is that they freeze your ice cream right in front of you, in a bowl, in like 60 seconds using liquid nitrogen. It's a pretty cool process and tasted even yummier.
Tuesday morning we awoke to grey, cloudy skies. But that didn't keep us from the beach. That actually meant we got there more quickly because we didn't have to put on any sunscreen. We swam and played on the beach up until the rain drops started to fall.
We didn't waste any time while it rained…we drove up to Sarasota about 25 minutes from our condo and went to the Mote Aquarium. It was a great place. We got to see lots of sea life and even got to touch sting rays, sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins. This particular aquarium had manatees and sea turtles and prided themselves on being a research laboratory as well as a marine hospital for injured sea life. We all enjoyed our afternoon at the Mote.
Maddox touching the sting rays.
'I can hear the ocean!'
Maddox giving a hug to the stingray.
Lilly pads at the Mote Aquarium
Manatees enjoying a snack of romaine lettuce.
Back at the beach after our afternoon at the Mote Aquarium.
I'd say this was probably our best 'beach day'…. Tuesday afternoon. It wasn't too windy and it was plenty warm but not too hot. The kids enjoyed themselves in and out of the water. We picked up some sand toys at the local grocery store so the kids had plenty of toys to dig with and make sandcastles. It was a great afternoon. Eric and I really enjoyed playing in the waves with the kids…..and relaxing on the beach.
Tuesday night we had dinner right across the street from our condo. It was called Captain Curt's and is known for it's clam chowder. I had a bowl and it was very tasty!! The kids' meals were served on frisbees that they were able to take with them. We found all the restaurants in the area to be extremely kid friendly with kid's menus, milk, and plastic cups WITH LIDS!
Maddox and Kennon in front of a banyan tree after our dessert from the Orange Octopus…an ice cream shop right across from our condo.
Back at the beach Wednesday morning.
A little bigger waves this day on account of the wind.
Kennon catching some zzzzzz's.
Wednesday midday we drove up to Bradenton, about 30 minutes from our condo, and took a tour of the Mixon Family Fruit Farm. They grow oranges, lemons, grapefruit, kumquats, and tangelos. It was a fabulous tour and we learned a lot about how oranges are grown. AND we got to sample orange, lemon and grapefruit juice. The entire gift shop smelled of fresh oranges. It was sooo yummy.
Maddox and I on the Orange Blossom Express tram. This is how we traveled through the groves.
This is Mr. W, our tour guide. He's standing next to a box where they dump the oranges after they fill up those red satchels.
Those two metal looking structures were how fruit groves originally kept their crops from freezing. They would burn diesel fuel in these chimney looking structures and that would provide the heat to keep the frost off the oranges. Fruit groves no longer use this technique as it is not extremely environmentally sound. Really??? :) So instead they have a sprinkler system that sprays HIGH above the trees when the temperature drops to 34 and provides a sort of an umbrella of fine mist over the grove to keep the frost from settling in. The same sprinkler system is also used to water the trees in times of drought. Apparently Mr. Bill the original owner ( who still lives on the property and still comes out to supervise his staff at 84 years of age) came up with this system that is used across the states.
The Mixon Fruit Farm sold a bit of their land to a Wildlife Rehabilitation company several years back. They house and rehab injured wildlife and also keep wildlife that is unable to return to the wild and/or has special needs. They had all sorts of crazy odd animals…some of which had been injured and some of which had been dumped by humans. These guys behind the fence are actually crocodiles which are NOT native to Florida but apparently ended up at the Mixon Farm from Disney World's Animal Kingdom. Disney had gotten overcrowded with crocodiles apparently and asked if the Wildlife Rehab company would take them and they did!
You can't see it well but KTK is feeding a wild pig. The pig would get very antsy behind the fence if someone wasn't feeding him. He has apparently learned when the tours come through that he gets treats and especially knows that the kids will feed him. Apparently this breed of pig is rather smart.
This is Damen and he sort of took over from Mr. W. at this point of the tour as he is the head man who takes care of all of the animals at the Wildlife Rehab Center. He was a really great personable speaker, full of interesting educational information about each of the animals and provided us with important tidbits like….dogs and cats are fine for house pets but Burmese pythons and white skunks are not!!…and don't feed the wildlife. He actually went to the Florida Everglades this weekend to catch Burmese pythons as they are apparently taking over down there. YIKES!!
This is Arnold the American Alligator who IS native to Florida. Someone apparently had this little guy as a pet and then decided they didn't want him anymore. Damen told us alligators are very afraid of humans and are NOT the child eating creatures they are made out to be UNLESS you feed them…hence the above education. Alligators only become fierce if you mess with their food! Both the kids held Arnold and his skin was extremely smooth. Alligators live in fresh water and cannot live in the sea. Crocodiles can live in both types of water.
I was not overly fond of this guy, Butter. He is a Burmese python and was brought to the refuge by someone who couldn't take care of him anymore..IE he was a house pet..!! Really?? Apparently he was bred to be yellow in color as this brings more money. Normally in the wild ( as in the Everglades in FL) they are black/brown/white in color. Ok…enough typing about him…I'll have nightmares!
These guys were probably my favorite. Damen brought them out of their cage and they went to town eating the grass and could care less that Maddox and Kennon were right there. We learned that tapping their shell is actually bothersome to them and touching the dark circles on their shell is quite painful as this is live tissue and is growing and very sensitive. You CAN count the rings on their back to determine their age but it isn't always accurate. I can't remember how they acquired these guys and there were like 5 more back in the cage!
The grounds of the Mixon Farm were beautiful with tons of flowers. There was a maze made of flowers, a huge Koi pond, as well as playground and JUMPY house!! Maddox and Kennon had run of the place as we were the youngest folks there by years!
We ended our time at the Mixon Fruit Farm with some yummy orange ice cream. Delish!
I had been told by numerous people that the sunsets at Siesta Key were supposed to be amazing…well with all the crazy weather, this was about the best one that I could catch. There appeared to be a nice one on Thursday but we weren't on the beach at sunset time. Oh well…next time we'll catch a good one.
Maddox had been begging all trip to go on a dolphin cruise. We could actually see dolphins quite easily while we were swimming in the ocean and even from the balcony of our condo as we peered out toward the ocean but Maddox wanted to see them a little closer. So we booked a Sea Life Encounter boat tour through the Mote Aquarium. It turned out to be fabulous! We did get to see several dolphins in the water fairly close up but we also got to see some great marine life as you'll see below.
Maddox and Kennon keeping their eyes pealed for dolphins. They are kind of hard to spot as they just come up to the surface for a breath of air and back down again…so capturing them on camera is next to impossible. And of course they don't jump when they are in the wild…so you have to have quick eyes. This was a bit tough on Maddox and Kennon so I was glad they were both able to spot and see a couple.
I'm sure Nicole, our marine biologist who narrated the tour, would not be happy that I posted this picture but I was trying to get a picture of the net as she and the rather educated volunteer aboard our boat put it out to sea. About half way through the trip they put this huge net out into the ocean or rather Sarasota bay (which we learned is 'brackish' water which is a combination of both salt and fresh water) to catch some marine life to haul up onto the boat and teach us about. It was SOOO cool. I had no idea that this was part of the trip.
Nicole and the volunteer letting the net out.
This is what the gals pulled out of the net…..it doesn't look like much because of all the brown sea grass but hidden in there are several great sea creatures. Apparently sea grass is the gem of the Sarasota Bay. All the marine life live in and eat the sea grass and the Sarasota Bay apparently has a bumper crop growing right now as they have worked very hard to build it back up after some destruction for land expansion occurred in the 70's.
A picture of downtown Sarasota from our boat.
This is a baby stone crab. Apparently these are harvested daily, of course in larger sizes, by fisherman. We could see buoys for crab pots all about the bay. I believe it was this species that they actually pull the legs off of and throw the crab back in and the legs regenerate.
Nicole educated us on about 10 to 12 animals that she pulled up in the net from the bay. Most all we got to touch but this guy and the guy below we had strict orders to NOT touch.
This is a baby swimmer crab who is also harvested from the bay daily.
He did not want to let go of the net.
There were two sea stars ( they are technically NOT star fish because fish are vertebrates and have a back bone…star fish do NOT…so Nicole taught us to call them sea stars not star fish!) in the net. Maddox was very keen on picking them up. So cool!
Nicole, the marine biologist, passed all the creatures around the boat in little plastic containers and allowed us to look at and touch most all of them. There were several species of fish including perch and flounder and a hermit crab and sea sponge. It was a super educational boat tour. I'm so glad we fit it into our day and that both kids were interested in all there was to learn.
The view from our balcony. We could see dolphins from here…although it looks a bit far in the picture it really wasn't.
Thursday-our last afternoon at the beach. The waves were SUPER big this day so we generally stayed out of the water but had a fun time shelling and running up and down the shoreline. We found some great shells and have a couple of baggies full to use for projects. The natives couldn't believe how big the waves were. They were calling them 'Atlantic' waves as they resembled waves more of the Atlantic side. Apparently the waves at Siesta Key are normally very small if at all and it is not normally very windy either. They couldn't get over the wind. So despite the fact that it seemed like GREAT weather to us it was very unusual Siesta Key weather.
Our last meal in Siesta Key.
We made it home safely Friday morning even after setting my alarm for 3am Iowa time..which was 4am Florida time and we needed to be in the car driving to the airport at 4:15am…ooops! But luckily we were mostly packed up and the kids did well getting going in the 15 minutes we had to get out the door. It is a nice, easy, direct flight from Moline to the St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport and then just an hour long drive to the condo. An easy little excursion. Such a fun time!
Yesterday morning the kids had their soccer game. Both did really well. Maddox scored 2 times…the only 2 scores for our team. The other team was really good and Maddox and Kennon saved a NUMBER of goals. Let's just say we played defense almost the entire game. But both did really well. Then after the game we went to our first Bike Rodeo. It was put on by the City of Bettendorf and a local chiropractor. One of the Bettendorf bike shops checked over the bikes and made recommendations for anything that needed to be fixed/tweaked. Then there was a helmet station where the kids' helmets were checked. We actually learned BOTH the kids helmets were too small so they were both provided a FREE helmet!! Then there were several bike handling/safety stations. It was super cool. A lot of education was provided to the kids about being safe while biking and how to be the most alert. You kind of worked your way through the stations and then received a snack, certificate and a T-shirt at the end. All for $5.00!! What a fun time.
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