Sunday, June 2, 2013

St Pete's Beach - Beach Vacation 2013

After last year's awesome beach vacation, everybody looked forward to this year beach vacation, especially the kids. We finally settled on St Pete's Beach, in Florida which is voted one of the nicest beach in the US.

So, after our Bolder Boulder in the morning, we left for Florida that night. Our flight was delayed by 3.5 hrs which caused us to arrive in Tampa at 3:30 am! The kids didn't mind it one bit, thinking it was such a great adventure that they were up at 4 am!!!

St Pete's beach was all it lived up to be. Teal blue water and tons of shells. Super warm and calm! Perfect for the kids. Tyler was finally able to snorkel and saw some fishes. Cody also spent more time in the water this vacation as it was pretty calm most days. Due to the huge bucket size, and short attention span, the kids didn't spend too much time building sand castles!!! Didn't help that their Dollar Store scoop broke after 5 mins of use. (note to self : bring your own sand castle stuff)

The 5 days we were there, we spent majority of the time just swimming and goofing off at the beach. We did visit Fort Desoto one day and Shell Key another just to mix it up a little, but we still felt that the beach by our rental was far better. The boys did enjoy the canons at Ft Desoto and the boat ride to Shell Key. One of the new things we did at Shell Key was snorkeling for sand dollars which in my geeky mind, is, super cool!!!

We also tried some fishing with our Dollar Store nets(which also broke after 5 mins), so i'm not so sure about this Dollar Store thing!! And those fishes are wayyy too fast. Tyler and I wondered how the pelicans manage to catch their fishes!

As always, Florida is full of animals and the kids saw plenty of birds and Tyler the champion dolphin spotter for the trip, spotted quite a few dolphins while we are at the beach!!

Oooh, and of course our trip was made so much better because of this cute little house we rented. It was perfect. It was just a short walk to the beach, right by a fish store where i got fresh fish to cook every night, right behind a fire station(for Cody's sake), garden full of flowers and herbs i can use for cooking, and the nicest hosts. The kids enjoyed just playing in the garden when they are not at the beach and we enjoyed a few nice meals in the patio.

It was a really enjoyable vacation had by all!

Cody enjoying some sand at first

Finally made it into the water.. it's not bad, actually!!!!

Goofing about in the garden

Playing soccer with tennis ball!!!

Our stroll from town to the house after ice cream

The kids running!!!!

Brothers!!!

Walk to Pink Palace

Cody and Mommy!!

Tyler sought out the beach the moment we arrived!

Cody still trying it out!!

Tyler conquered snorkeling!!!

Tyler obsessed with canons at Ft Desoto

Blast off???

No fort visit is complete without this picture

Watching dolphins and fishing at Pier at Ft Desoto

Tyler miraculously caught a fish in his bucket while getting water for his little hole!!!

Snorkeling for shells and sand dollars at Shell Key

Guarding their lunch against sneaky sea gull

A rare moment of brotherly affection

Nice ice cream after a day out in the sun.. Tyler said, they spelled Sunday wrong.. It's not d-a-e, it's d-a-y!!! 

Found star fish amongst shells

Lots of shells

Trying our hand at fishing.. don't remember fishing being that difficult as a child!!

Cody finally gets to enjoy deep water using his $1 floatie!!

Pic of us!!

Beautiful garden at the house

Splashing in the waves only on the last day

The kids finally can play their own board game, though somehow it is always to Tyler's advantage!!! 

No comments: