Tarpon Springs, Florida

When we left Homasassa, we made a beeline for Tarpon Springs and all things Greek.

Our first stop was at a restaurant called Mr. Souvlaki and it was GOOD!  We ordered several things to share and try, but our favorites were the Saganaki, Spanakopita, Avgolemono, Greek Chow Mein, and of course the Gyros.  The portions are huge and super affordable, for about $40(the same as going through a drive thru burger place) the six of us ate dinner, late night snack, and then had the rest for breakfast the next morning.  Awesome!

With our bellies full, we parked at the docks and went for a much needed stroll...

Tarpon Springs is mainly known for two things:  sea sponges and it's Greek community.  The two are intertwined...back in the 1800's, the sponge harvesting industry was booming.  To harvest the deeper sponges, divers from the Greek Islands were brought in.  They settled in Tarpon Springs and the rest is history.  Today, T. Springs has the largest community of Greek Americans in our nation.

We went in a few shops and checked out the assortment of sponges and Greek souvenirs.  We were waiting in line to pay for some postcards and the folks in front of us were speaking in Greek with the cashier.  Pretty cool :).

Leaving Tarpon Springs, we continued south towards our next stop.  Crossing Tampa Bay on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge just ahead of a storm...

...to ultimately arrive at our destination for the night:  Myakka State Park.  We rented one of their historic palm cabins for the night and it was so neat!  I'll tell ya'll all about it in my next post, but here's a peek for you...

...very wildernessy :).

sailing away...

Tomorrow morning, we have a boat to catch. 

We will be gone for a while.  There is important business to tend to, ya know...things like swimming til our fingers wrinkle up, soaking up some warm sunshine, exploring new places.  Yes, very important business indeed...

I'll see ya'll whenever we get back :)!

Swimming with the manatees without getting wet...

The day we were packing up to leave Cape San Blas and begin (resume) our wandering was quite the stormy one...

I usually enjoy a good storm, but this one had me just a tad concerned.  The green sky and the really dark clouds were a bit scary even for me.  These pictures were taken at around 9am and it looked like night outside...

When the storm finally passed, we got the car loaded up and we were on our way - south!  Yep, we decided to see more of our home state of Florida since we were already here.

I had scored some awesome deals on Groupon to swim with the manatees in Crystal River, so that was to be our first destination.  None of us had ever even seen a manatee (being from Florida, that's a shame), so we were pretty excited :)!

Well, as we were driving towards Crystal River, Tristan started complaining of not feeling well.  He said he felt weak and his throat hurt.  Uh oh...  We are for the most part a very healthy bunch, thankfully, so I was thinking maybe (hopefully) he was just really tired.  I gave him some extra vitamin C, rubbed some EO's on his throat (which he said made it feel better), and we continued on our way.  The next morning, the morning of our manatee swim, Tris woke up with a 104 fever and his throat hurt so bad he could barely swallow water.  UH OH...  I called the tour & dive co. and they graciously let us cancel our swim.  Instead, we loaded up and headed to the nearest ER to get little man checked out.  The Dr. was worried it was strep, so they did a test and fortunately it came back negative.  He was diagnosed with tonsillitis (which compared to strep was a relief), given a couple popsicles, some prescriptions, and 3 hours later we were on our way.

With our manatee swim a no-go, I had some pretty disappointed kiddos on my hands.  So, on the advice of the sweet girl at the dive center, we headed to Homosassa Springs State Park.

I had no idea what to expect with this being a total last minute stop...but happily, we all had a great time there :).  And there were manatees!  Yay!

The manatees that we saw are ones that for various reasons have to live at Homosassa full time, they can't survive on their own in the wild.  In the winter, wild manatees come to the spring, too, but right now it is just the "locals".

At set times throughout the day, the park feeds the manatees.  We just happened to get there a few minutes before feeding time and the manatees were ready.  They all swam up to the dock waiting for their romaine lettuce feast.  It was funny how insistent they were, they kept splashing the water with their tails and sticking their faces out until the food was tossed down.

We listened to an educational talk out on the deck, then we were invited to go down into an underwater viewing room to get a different view of the manatees...

Tristan was happy...he said it was just like getting to swim with the manatees, only without getting wet ;).

When we had our fill of watching the manatees, we took a stroll around the rest of the park.  The gators were snoozing on the bank of their habitat...

...and just across from them was a hippo!  He was HUGE!  He had his eyes sticking out of the water and every time I'd lift up my camera, he'd duck under.  Funny thing...

Well, we were standing there watching him and he started swimming around his pool.  He got to the far side and put his rear up to the outflow and pooped!  (Yeh, I know, I'm talking about poop...get over it ;).)  It is crazy that he knew to go to that spot to do his business, but he did.  Anyway, that's not really what I wanted to tell you.  The REALLY crazy part was what he did next.  A park ranger was walking by and she yelled out at him, "LU, YOU STINK!".  That hippo pulled his whole head up out of the water sending a big spray out of his nostrils...

...and LAUGHED!  Seriously!  He had the deepest, rumbling laugh I have ever heard and he said "HA HA HA HA HA...".  A hippo.  Named Lu.  Laughed! 

And now you know how immature I am ;), hehehe...

Moving on...

The flamingos were stunning, so bright pink!

The eagle posed for us...how nice of him ;).

We got to see roseate spoonbills, so cool!

The bears, wolves, big cats, etc. were all off exhibit because of the weather.  There was a storm rolling in and the park moves the animals to an enclosed area to keep them calm.  So we didn't see any of those.  That's ok though, we came for the manatees and the rest was just a bonus anyway.

We ended our tour back at the springs, hoping to get one more look at the manatees.  They were gone, but the water was beautiful...

a walkabout of sorts

Hi.

As many of you know, these past few months have been hard.  Really hard.  Really tiring, too, in a complete and total inside-all-the-way-out kinda way.  *sigh*

So, we are taking a walkabout...of sorts :).  The kids and I have loaded only our essentials into the back of my car and we have hit the road.  Destinations to be decided as we amble along. 

Our goal?  To just clear our heads a bit.  See some things we have never seen before.  Find our smiles.  Just breathe...

I invite you to follow along as we take this journey...

Audrey's 10th Birthday

February was my baby girl's birthday month. 

She is officially in the double digits. 

Ten.years.old.  I know it is said (way too) often, but the time really does fly right by...

She wanted to decorate her own cake, so that's exactly what we did.  We cheated a little and bought an angel food cake, but the rest was all us :).  Homemade peanut butter icing and chopped up Hershey Bar sprinkles...a Reese Cup!

We had the cake and one small gift while her daddy was home on his days off (a little before her actual day).  Then, on her birthday day we went into Panama City to eat lunch at Chill (froyo) and go shopping at Hobby Lobby and Target.  She had a good time and felt loved, which was the whole point.  Even if I did forget to give her the rest of her birthday presents until April.  *hanging head in shame*  Sorry Audrey!  You know I love, love, love you!!! xoxo

2/19/14-2/24/14 Crooked Island, Florida

It warmed up even more over the next few days, so we decided it was time to go swimming.  Yes, in February :).

We gathered our things and made a beeline for our new favorite spot on Crooked Island...the cove.

The kids had so much fun that day, playing in the water...

...and searching for treasures...

There is always something new to find.  This day there were sea sponges sprinkled all over the sand...

We came upon something else that we didn't know what it was.  This thing:

It was squishy, contracted when we gently touched it, and when we scooped it up from the sand to put it back in the water it squirted purple ink!  We thought maybe we had accidentally killed it, but later looked it up and found out that the purple ink is what it does when it gets scared.  So maybe it lived...we don't know.  It was something called a sea hare, btw.

The very next day, we went back to the same spot.  Only it was once again totally different :).

Windy and too cool to get in the water, we just went for a long walk instead.

Some of us ran ;)...

The waves had carved some neat looking edges into the sand...

We kept going, past our spot from the day before, and came to another smaller cove...

The last time we went to Crooked Island, Tristan found his favorite treasure ever...a shark's tooth!