On our last day I woke up early and tried to watch the sun rise but the balcony wasn't quite facing the right direction. It still was a nice view to wake up to. Mike was nice to document.
Then we took a walk to McDonald's for breakfast. Not quite as good as Legoland's breakfast but it had a view of the beach (and construction, yay). After we ate, we strolled the beach looking for sea shells. Seriously could spend so much time just strolling the beach and looking for shells, super relaxing.
Then it was back to the hotel to chill. Everyone but us had a flight at noon and since the van rental was in Mike's name, that meant we were going to be without a car. The airbnb hostess was nice and had a room (more of a closet) that we could store our bags in, that helped a lot. We stashed our bags there and then they dropped us off at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium on the way to the airport.
I had wanted to do an extra experience since it was just us two but we ended up choosing wrong. The first one they offered was $200- clearly out of budget but would have been awesome (learning how to get dolphins to do tricks). The second experience offered was to make a salad for a sea turtle. This was much more affordable but Penny didn't seem interested (I don't think she wanted to chop veggies). The third was the Behind the Scense Tour. It sounded cool, like hey we get to go see animals behind the scenes. False. They took us to the ICU but made us stand behind lines so we couldn't even see the sea turtles in their tanks. Then we went to the kitchen where food is made but no food was being made. After that they took us to their salt water filteration place- wahoo. Lastly we went in the dolphin enclosure but again, we had to stand behind a line and the view was not any better than at the windows. Sigh. Not worth the money.
But the aquarium itself was super cool. We got to see dolphins doing tricks for food and swimming around and playing with their toys and I just love dolphins. We also got to see sea turtles and otters playing around and great white pelicans. We learned that this aquarium is where the movie "Dolphin Tale" was filmed and that it used to house the main character- Winter- until she passed away. They still had her prosthetic tale- displayed in a case- and that was kind of cool. They had a bunch of dinosaurs everywhere which was a bit random. They also had two rough toothed dolphins which are only at one other place in the USA so cool for us for the rare sighting.
After visiting the gift shop (of course) and Penny buying an otter stuffie (named Boomer) we took the long walk back to our airbnb. It was about a half hour walk which felt like a lot after all the walking we had been doing lately. On our way we saw coconut trees and we stopped at one point to get some cold water by the dock that houses various boat tours.
Once back at the airbnb we grabbed our luggage and sat at one of the outside tables to wait for our Uber. This was my first time using an Uber and I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. It didn't help that the first driver who was going to take us cancelled last minute and I got stressed that I was going to have no ride. Thankfully, just as I was about to lose it, someone else picked up the job- Jesus (Ironically the first driver's name was Christian). He did not speak to us the whole way and listened to some questionable music but he did not try to assault, kidnap or murder us so I'll count that as a win (I should not have googled how safe uber's are before getting on one). Then Penny and I had a long wait at the airport. She was exhausted so she just watched a show and I listened to a story while saving all the awesome pics Mike took to my phone.
After about 2 hours of waiting it was time to board the flight. There was a funny moment where Penny said "Ok Boomer" to her otter and the people in front of her turned around like- who are you calling boomer, lol. In the plane I ended up next to a man who was very ill. He kept disappearing to the bathroom and then, when he couldn't because of the food cart, he puked into the paper bag. I had to concentrate real hard on my show and look towards Penny because I do not do well with those sounds and smells. It was not the best flight of my life but somehow I did not do any sympathy puking. And when we got to Michigan, Tyler was outside the baggage claim waiting for us and it was off to home. It was a really good trip (and warm) but it was nice to be back with the rest of my family.
Waking up for seminary Wednesday was hard. That whole day I felt so dang tired and kept falling asleep. That evening I took the kids to their activities at the church while Tyler took Lucy to volleyball. We are currently trying to drive my car as little as possible since the brakes are not doing so well and the part for my csr hasn't come yet. That means I usually get to drive the Suburban- not my fav car to drive. At the activity the girls stuffed the pillows they had been working on. Since Lucy wan't there, Penny stuffed her pillow for her. So nice of her.
Thursday I went out to breakfast with my friends. Then I picked Lizzie up from school along with my kids so she didn't have to tag along to like a 7 hour concert with her older siblings. She was mostly ok to watch, until I had to try to get her to sleep (her mom wasn't coming until 10:30). It took a bit for her to finally give in and in the meantime she tortured my birds at least once.
Friday Steven got his Level 1 License from the SOS. We had an appt so we didn't have long to wait, it all went smoothly. He doesn't want to drive the Suburban though so we really need to get my car fixed so he can get his 30 hours logged. I did make him drive the Suburban in an empty parking lot and boy was he slow so I didn't get nervous at all. It'll be interesting to see how anxious he makes me when he drives me on real roads.
Saturday evening we had the Ward party. The food was really good (ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls) and I got to sit at a table with all my friends so that was nice. After dinner they had a little music program- various people singing. Tyler sang 2 Christmas songs with a mens chorus. I think he enjoyed getting to sing. The first song they did really well. The second songs was a complicated rendition and it had a few rough moments (especially at the high points) but overall it was nice listening to my hubby sing. After the songs Santa made an entrance- rather dramatically- and scared a few children to tears. Oooops. My kids quickly grabbed their candy canes and left so I didn't get any pics of them with Santa.
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