A walk on the wild side..

We visited my parents in Florida the week of Christmas.  They live in Celebration, FL (just down the road from WDW).  I got antsy one morning and wandered on some of the paths that are around their condo.  I gave myself a camera for my birthday (which isn't until next month) and I took it with me. These are some of the things I saw on my walk.

This is a 5-6 foot gator that lives in the "pond" by their condo.

The birds were may be 5 feet from the gator.  

This little guy (may be 2-3 feet) was in a lake near Celebration Ave (not far from the high school)

A lizard posed for me

A cool looking spider

Another bird I saw in the lake with the big gator.. he was on the other side, though.

I love walking around their town. It has a lot of boardwalk paths and such where you can wander and see wildlife and just enjoy yourself. It makes a great way to relax over the holidays as well.

Wordless Wednesday - House Show

One of the houses in my folks' community always has a light show for Christmas. We stopped one evening to watch the show.

Fishlips

The evening of the shuttle launch, we went to dinner at a restaurant called Fishlips. I wasn't hugely impressed with their rainbow trout, or their quality of service, but it had some interesting views. The gentleman playing guitar and singing was good as well.

These are some tug boats that were across the channel from where we were. Behind them is a salt processing facility. There were a couple of barges there as well.

An "alligator" perched on the edge of their water wall.

Part of the family sitting and waiting on service (and toddlers dancing to the music)

Skipping ahead a bit, this is the view of Fishlips from the cruise ship. Makes for an interesting perspective.

Shuttle Launch

We went down to Florida to visit my folks last week. We happened to get into Cape Canaveral just in time to watch the shuttle launch. We parked at a local hotel and hiked back to a bridge on A1A and watched with hundreds of others. We were about 15 miles from the pad at that point. It didn't last long, but we can say we were there.

Small bright dot below the power lines

Somewhat larger bright dot

You can see the trail from the shuttle behind my kids

I also captured it on video with my mino. Sorry for the shaky hand I was trying to capture pictures at the same time.

Old Town

My parents live just around the corner from Old Town which is an old-style amusement park and shopping area. My son has been looking forward to visiting as this year he's big enough to drive the go karts by himself. Two years ago, he wasn't and we noted that he had to be 54" to drive. Last year, he was 54" but they'd up'd the minimum to 56", annoying him vastly. This year he's more than 56" so no problems there. My daughter has another year.

These are some shots of rides and stores along the walk. Right next door to Old Town is "Fun Spot". Different attractions, different prices, tickets on one side don't work on the other.

There's an old arcade on the strip as well. One of these is of the 'fortune teller', the other is an animatronic 'electrocution' thing. Neither are really for kids, but they're interesting to see.

Mote Aquarium

This one was my side trip. I combined it with Busch Gardens for a couple of reasons. One, it made the trip down from my parent's home more worth the gas. The other is because my kids have never been to Busch Gardens either and it seemed like a great way to blow off energy before tackling the Aquarium.

Since I already wrote about our visit here, I won't bore you with the details all over again. You can reread them at your leisure.

Busch Gardens Africa (Tampa)

When going to Busch Gardens I recommend children wear sandals or shoes that can get wet and are still comfortable for walking. I debated that one with myself before we went down and decided against it. I thought that they'd have more comfortable feet for lots of walking in sneakers. Then we get underneath the SheiKra and they got soaking wet. They loved being wet, but their shoes took a full day to dry even with help.

On another note, it looks like Anheuser-Busch will be bought out by a Belgian corporation. Not only would it potentially affect jobs here in the US at the breweries and such, but the amusement parks would likely suffer as well. They own SeaWorld as well as Busch Gardens. You can read their press release here.

Kennedy Space Center

My husband's choice of "side-trips" this vacation was out to the Space Center. My kids are old enough now to really appreciate it and are starting to understand most of what they are exposed to. My son loves to ask questions and be given all sorts of information about whatever it is that he's seeing. It makes him a great companion to my husband when we do trips like this. He'll follow my husband and they'll be off in their own little world. I think it's a great thing.

After some consideration between my husband and I though, we think our daughter is more like to be an astronaut than our son. He's more likely to be taking things apart and figuring out how they work, or working on the math side of things. She's more of a hands-on, get it done, take control type.

I have to thank Letti for the idea of using scrapblog to put these displays together. They look much better this way.

4th of July in Celebration, FL

My kids loved going to Stone Mountain to watch the little parade there from my parent's former home. We were in Celebration last year for the 4th, but didn't go see the local parade. This year, we made a point of getting up and going. My kids were quite happy with the results of what they saw. In my opinion, it was a better parade than Stone Mountain has had in recent years. Of course, with all the extras that Celebration throws in for the day, it just topped the cake as far as my kids were concerned.

Mote Marine Lab & Aquarium

Ok,I had to delete the post I'd originally scheduled for today to interrupt my predesignated posting. Anyway, I have computer access but no ability today to add a picture, so pictures will have to wait.

What I wanted to do, though, was tell you how cool I found the Mote facilities. We took a guided boat tour around Sarasota Bay and had a blast. I would love to go back and try one of the more "intense" tours, but that'll have to wait. We took the basic tour and got to see dolphins in the bay, a large (but dead) tarpon, nesting sites for egrets, pelicans and herons. The tour guides also trawled and showed us a burr fish, pin fish, hermit crabs, a lizard fish (ugly fellow) and more. Definitely a great opportunity there.

The Aquarium itself isn't as big as the one here in Atlanta, but that's hardly surprising. What they don't have in size, they make up for in displays and different fish. They even had a giant squid in preservatives that you can see (named Molly). For once, my kids actually touched critters in the touch pools (they seem to avoid them here). My daughter was quite adamant that she be given a chance to touch a ray (she almost went swimming with them). They have a couple of webcams into their exhibits that you can check out on http://www.seatrek.org

Then of course, they have the rescue and rehabilitation center. In the center they had loggerhead turtles, manatee and dolphins that you can see and visit. Behind the scenes they had cameras that you could see some of the more critical patients currently there.

Much to my husband's amusment when we went, I wore my Georgia Aquarium t-shirt. It's a good thing I did. After talking to another of their volunteers, I got to go behind the scenes briefly and see some baby loggerhead turtles that they'd just gotten in (just out of the shell) that they were going to release somewhere else.

My husband had told me when we were on our way that this "side trip" should be worth the extra couple of hours drive. In the end, everyone agreed that it was. :)

St. George Island Photos

Home again..

I thoroughly enjoyed my week down at the beach. My family and another rented a beach-front home on St. George island in Florida. We had a blast! Our agenda consisted of: get up, have breakfast, go to the beach, come in and get lunch, rest during heat of day, have dinner, go back to the beach, come in and sleep.

Of course, while we were on the beach we had a sea kayak for a few days, which was cool. We were able to see dolphins up close, jellies just off the sand bar and generally have fun just going out on the kayak. One day while we were there, the dolphins were VERY frisky and playful. They were taking the jellies and bouncing them like play balls. I think hubby got a picture of that, I'll have to see.

St. George is also a breeding ground for loggerhead sea turtles. There were two nests not far from our house. We didn't get to see any of the turtles themselves, but it was still cool.

I'll share more later about our trip. In the meantime, this was the view from our deck.

4th of July in Celebration, FL

We spent the 4th of July with my parents in Celebration, FL. It was WET! My kids, though, still had a blast. The main streets in downtown Celebration had a variety of activities for both kids and adults. The weekend prior to the 4th, the city stores had had a summer sidewalk sale. Lincoln (cars) had brought in a stage with some cars and were giving out gift cards with test drives. They also sponsored cooking demos. There were tennis pros out doing demos. On the 4th itself, there were inflatables for the kids which were great until the rain soaked them a bit too much and most had to be deflated.

They had some great bands (sorry I only remember one) including a Flock of Seagulls. (They've certainly changed, haven't they?)

Remember this?

At the end were some great fireworks.

Celebration, FL

Busy Busy Busy. So it's a random picture day. This is one of the lakes in Celebration, FL and is the one that my parents see from their window.

Snow in FL!

Here's proof it happens. We visited Celebration, FL for Christmas. They have one of the main streets blocked off during the holidays and celebrate with snoap.