Clearwater Beach - part 1 of 4

The Krump Krew flew to sunny Florida last week for a lovely vacation.  Overall, we said it could have been just a little warmer (for more swimming time), but hey, it was dry, at least 60* each day, and pure sun, so we won't complain a bit!  It did get progressively warmer each day we were there, so of course, we didn't want to go home when it came time.  

Henry and Lydia were seriously the best little travelers on the airplane - I couldn't have been happier.  Henry is old enough now where he can stay busy for a much longer period of time (and thank God for iPads, huh?) and Lydia slept a little, ate a little, and smiled a little - her normal routine :)  The people around us were all giggling when Henry kept asking, "When are we going to blast off?" or "When are we going to blast down?" for the takeoff and landing.  

Henry WOULD NOT take off his hat and sunglasses for the entire trip, seriously, he even swam with them on one day!  So, he got these new sunglasses for the trip, and they had holograms of a skull-and-crossbones on them.  He loved them!  He got numerous compliments on them as soon as we got to Florida (note: we were already IN Florida when these conversations were occuring) - in the airport, at Target, and at our hotel.  Each conversation went like this....."Wow, those are some fancy sunglasses you have on" and then Henry would reply, "Yeah, we're going to Florida today."  Some people thought it was cute and some were just confused!

I just love how at this age, we don't have to plan anything big on a vacation - all we need is a huge open space to play (aka, the beach).  

Our days pretty much consisted of the following - go for a walk, play on the beach, go swimming, watch the surfers on the surf simulator, go out to eat - yep, that's it - pretty low key.

We stayed right on Clearwater Beach, which is voted one of the top beaches in the US, and that white sand really was beautiful!     

On the first morning we were out there, Henry "fell in" the Gulf of Mexico as he was running around - brrrrrrrr.

Each day, we would have our snacks out on our patio.  We had an ocean-view room, so it was very peaceful out there.  

They had this small kiddie pool, and on one of the colder mornings, Henry, of course, couldn't wait to get in.  He had the pool all to himself that morning!  Note - can't take those sunglasses off.  

Up on the 16th floor was a hot tub and a beautiful area to lay out and relax, or eat your snacks/lunch as we did here.

The first evening we were there, we found a mini golf course, good times.  

Lydia pretty much lived in the Baby Bjorn for the entire trip, and took it all in like a champ.

The mini golf course had a huge tank of live alligators that you could feed - about 25 of them, and they were 2-3 feet long.  They ate chicken hotdogs, yummy.  Phil had to help Henry hold onto the pole.  I did enjoy watching this!

This pic was taken at the Mexican restaurant we visited one night - which we decided was the best eats we had on the trip.  Note - hat and sunglasses are ON, ha!