Wildlife Tour

For our last day we decided to take a wildlife boat tour. We saw a number of dolphins, lots of birds and a few manatee. This was our first wild encounter with manatee! We were also able to watch some of the dolphins actually catching fish, which we hadn't seen in the wild before either. To finish off our ride, they let the kids drive the boat.

Swimming

Here are some photos of the kids and dad swimming at the hotel pool.

Morning Beach Walk

This morning Alstan had us up at 5:00am to walk the beach. Adam had read that sometimes you can see sea turtles crawl up on shore to lay their eggs early in the morning. Alstan was immediately sold on the idea! We didn't actually see the turtle but we came across the tracks of one. You can see the mound of sand of the nest in the last picture. There were actually two tracks: one coming out of the water and the other returning.

Beach Bums

The last few days have been filled with fun at the beach and taking on the waves! We have had to take little breaks to let our skin and eyes recover from the sun and salt, but we are enjoying the ocean as much as we can.

Cocoa Beach

After one last stop at Sea World to see the new dolphin nursery, we're off to the ocean!

Last Day of Disney Parks

We started our day with breakfast in the West Wing of the Beast's castle. The room was not only dark with torn tapestries, but also had the sound and lighting affects of a storm. Our poor Alstan was a bit uneasy about the dark and gloomy atmosphere, and struggle to focus on eating.












We filled the rest of our day with as many activities as possible. Luckily the weather held up until about 7:00.


..and we finished our day with some "Dancin' in the rain"!

Aquatica

Today was a perfect day for a water park!

Clearwater Aquarium

Hope


Winter





Nicholas



Today we drove over to the Clearwater Aquarium to see the rescued dolphins, Winter and Hope. We also learned about a two month old dolphin, Nicholas, that was found with life threatening sunburns. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals, as well as, interacting with the tank divers and helping to "rescue a dolphin".

Back to the Magic Kingdom

For Father's Day dad had us up and leaving the hotel by 6:30 this morning. We had tickets for the Early Morning Magic which started at 7:45. Just to make sure we got in as many rides as possible, we got there early; 13th car in the parking lot early. It was well worth it according to the kids. We had a day filled with rides!

Taking a Day Off

Elsie was super excited to go to the American Girl Doll store on our day off from theme parks. You can't tell it from the picture, but she was all smiles and jumping around giggling before and after actually being in the store. She was able to buy an outfit for Ella... she has packed and repacked and repacked that outfit a number of times.








For Alstan we watched the new Cars 3 movie in 3-D at Universal Studios.

Sea World

We enjoyed seeing the sea life and shows at Sea World on Thursday. It was amazing to see the orcas up close during our Dinning with Shamu lunch.
It ended up being an early evening back at the hotel due to a rain storm. We were all a bit exhausted by that point, so it felt good to head back and rest a bit.