St. Pete

Sometime last week we decided to visit a sweet friend who was at All Children's Hospital in St. Pete.  We don't make it down that way very often, the kids and I tried to make a day of it.  After our visit, we decided to eat lunch at The Hanger, a restaurant located in a small private airport just off the Bay.

Just as we walked onto the patio, a small, private jet aircraft took off.  It was super loud and really exciting to watch.

 Then we mostly saw little prop. planes an even a helicopter.

 The kids' menus were printed on a little cardboard airplane.  It was really cute.

 This is one of my favorite lunches with the kids.  There was free entertainment, provided by the aircraft, and the food was actually really good.  It was really relaxing.

 We explored the inside a little bit, and had fun with this dolphin, painted to look like an old fighter plane

 On our way out of town, we drove past the pier area and saw several hundred sail boats docked, so we decided to check out.  It was a beautiful marina, with a little play ground too.

 Our last stop was Weedon Island.  We visited this great Pinellas County Park last year, but thought we'd hit it up one more time.  It has beautiful board walks, nature trails, and a really nice indoor culture and history center.

 The kids were given a scavenger hunt to help engage them in the displays.  Nathan worked on his for 30 seconds, Hannah lasted a painful 10 minutes....but Nicole made it the whole way through.

 The displays in the center are really beautiful.  Nathan is sitting under their mangrove tree display.  It gives you a sense of what it is like to sit under a mangrove island.

 Nicole has fun showing Nathan around the center and trying to entertain him.  He has two really great center.

 They were checking out the shell mound replicate.  It was fun teaching them some of my archaeology tools and ideas I learned while in college.

 The exhibits have a wide variety of interactive tools.  This one showed the benefit of fires in the pine forests of our area.

 The children are working on their puzzle solving skills while trying to re piece a pot from shards that had been excavated.  This was a favorite activity.

 I love all the interesting little places that you find, sometimes by asking questions, sometimes by exploring, and sometime by referral.  This was a really fun day for us.