our family vacation to St. Pete Beach

Well I'm finally getting around to sharing our family vacation photos!  We took this vacation the week before school started from Aug 3rd thru the 10th.  We just wanted to have some family time before the busyness of school and work started to enjoy eachother and the beach!!  We chose to travel to St. Pete Beach because me and Alan had been to Clearwater Florida back in our early 20's and it was beautiful there.  White sand beaches packed full of seashells and warm calm ocean waves, perfect for kids:)  We also knew that we'd see a lot of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico and that our girls would love seeing them play in the wild!  St. Pete Beach is on of the Gulf beaches south of Clearwater and I'm so glad we picked to stay there.  I'm sure these will be memories that we won't forget and am so grateful for the time that we got to spend together as  family:)

our bags, you would believe the regulations on size and weight of your luggage that you must follow for the airline...not an easy take when you are traveling with children for a week!

just arriving at the Grand Plaza Resort

First sight of the beach

collecting seashells for the first time

our hotel

writing our name in the sand

found these conch shells with little hermit crabs in them all over the beach

one of my favorite photos from the trip:)

this sunflare makes it look like Anna is holding the sun in her hands

 A ferry boat ride out to Egmont Key

 Seashell hunting at the small island Egmont Key

 Pass-a-grill Beach, we found a TON of these conch shells with little crabs inside!

Crazy, beautiful sunset

Clearwater Marine Aquarium and Julia's favorite part of the trip to see Winter the dolphin from Dolphin Tale

Winter the Dolphin

 Yes, I believe that it's a must, that on a beach vacation you bury your kids in the sand

 Back at Pass-a-Grill beach where we found TONS of sand dollars

  a handful of live little shells that bury themselves every time the waves pull back into the ocean

 hanging out at the hotel pool, where we liked listen to live music every night and let the kids swim and dance:)

  Honeymoon Island

 a sailboat ride we took to go dolphin watching 

 Anna steering the sail boat

  a picture of our hotel from the sailboat

 our 2nd visit to Clearwater Marine Aquarium to visit Winter one last time!

 Winter the Dolphin's prosthetic tail 

 some snuggle time back at the hotel room, Julia is checking out her photos of Winter!

passing our boogie board on to another kid, sadly it doesn't fit into our suitcase:(

leaving Flordia:(