The Campbell Family Blog: November 2013

We went on vacation last week to Clearwater Beach, Florida. We met up with two of Shawn's college friends and their families. We all rented a beach house and had a great time! We spent a lot of time on the beach, checked out the Tampa Zoo and, my favorite part…ate at Chick Fila!

The Plane Ride...

We had to get up wicked early to be at the airport on time, but the kids did great. Here we are waiting to get on the plane!

On the plane!

Alexa's first plane ride! She did great! She loved taking off and only cried a little when we were coming down because her ears were popping.

Owen ready to take off!

Shawn got to sit with the little ones on the first leg :0)

We flew to Akron Canton, but never got off the plane. Owen was stretching his legs a bit while we waited for more people to get on.

Owen fell asleep about 2 minutes after we left Akron Canton.

Alexa, however, did not. She was ready for the beach!

Addison peeking back at me...

And Arilyn

Finally in Tampa! The kids were ready for some warm weather :0)

The Beach…

We were the first family at the beach house, so we headed to the beach! The kids got soaked!

Trying to be creative…

Waiting to head to the beach...

My sweet boy!

There were a ton of starfish that the kids were catching.

Owen doing the Baywatch scenes.

Shawn took this great picture of Alexa playing in the water.

Addison trying to go out as far as she could

Arilyn all wet.

I can't get over this cute face!

Here's me…not in the ocean.

I can't believe she did this, but Addison was completely buried in the sand. It made me so uncomfortable and nervous to watch her. But she made it out.

Alexa loved the beach!

It was a little chilly this morning.

But the water was WAY warmer than in NH :0)

We got up really early one morning and hit the beach to look for shells. We found a ton and it's so nice to go to the beach in the off season- no one anywhere! And the best part…we got to see dolphins doing flips off the shore. It was SO neat!

Owen picking up some shells.

I thought this picture was neat.

Coming back with all their treasures.

I was carrying all of Owen's.

Caladesi Island

A nurse Shawn works with recommended we go to an island that was close by. You had to take a ferry to get there, so we thought we'd give it a try. It was nice and we got to see more dolphins!

Getting on the ferry

There were a handful of dolphins in the water, so the captain tried to get closer to them. They came right over to the ferry and swam under it. It was so neat! The kids were in heaven.

Arilyn looking cool with her new shades.

I thought this picture was so sweet.

This is the Meadows family- one of the families we went with.

And the other family- the Tuersley's.

And our family :0)

Random Pics

We went to Pier 60 down the street from our beach house. There was a guy with 2 birds that would take pictures with people (for a small donation). Of course my kids begged us to let them do it.

I thought Addison's face was so funny in this picture.

This is Owen and Kyler. Kyler just turned 5 and all week the adults kept getting them confused with each other! From behind they looked exactly alike! And it didn't help that almost every day they had the same color shirt on for some reason. It was hilarious! I can not tell you how many times I yelled at Kyler thinking it was Owen. Oops.

Lowry Park Zoo

Our family wanted to check out the zoo in Tampa one day, so we broke away from the group and checked out the zoo. It was so nice and empty! There was hardly anyone there so we had a great time.

Petting stingray. Alexa put her hands in the water until a stingray came over, then she'd pull her hand out of the water. But she loved it!

Owen getting ready to pet this stingray.

Alexa looking cute.

Everyone got plenty of opportunity to touch the stingrays.

A big turtle swimming by

Watching the manatee swimming.

The kids wanted to ride the carrousel. I made the mistake of getting on with Alexa and was almost puking by the time we got off.

Arilyn waiting to get moving

Addison chose to ride the panda.

There was a little roller coaster there that the kids wanted to check out. Shawn and the kids were the only ones on the whole coaster. They had so much fun, they got off and got right back on again with no wait! Did I mention how much I love going places in the off season? :0)

I love the girls faces!

So fun!

My turn! It was pretty fun. It felt like a wooden roller coaster because it was very bumpy!

Owen pretending he was getting a foot massage.

Smiling so cute.

You could feed a giraffe and have your picture taken with it. The kids really enjoyed this. His name was Randall. When we were leaving the zoo the kids got to pick out a stuffed animal, Owen picked a giraffe and named him Randall in honor of the one we fed.

This is Randall.

Owen was a little short to get his piece of lettuce over the fence, so Randall was really stretching his lips and tongue.

Finally got it!

Alexa was all about feeding the giraffe…until the tongue touched her! She pulled her arm back so fast! It was very funny.

Silly safari picture.

And Owen

And Addison

Then Shawn told her to make faces… this is her scared safari look...

And her 'wow! look at that!' safari look.

You were able to get really close to the rhinos. You could even feed and touch them, but only on the weekend.

Checking out the rhinos.

Taking a break

Owen was our tour leader. He was cracking me up with the map. He kept getting it out and deciding where we were going next.

I love this smile!

Hanging out…too sunny for a picture.

This was really cute. The kids stood in the wing of the bat, but the sign behind it was upside down so you could invert the picture and make it look like the kids were hanging with the bat...