Our End of Summer Trip to St. Pete Beach

Last winter my mind was thinking beach so I went ahead and booked a beach vacation for us to St. Pete Florida. We have recently been to the east side of Florida so I was looking forward to experiencing the Gulf side and its gorgeous beaches. I was not disappointed the beaches were breathtaking and I could have stared at them all day long!

Chris has been to the ocean before and was not a fan but the water was so calm after a couple of days they all got used to being in "moving" water.  They had fun destroying sandcastles, catching crabs, and eating popsicles. We visited an alligator farm where Nick held a baby alligator and Chris enjoyed feeding them hot dogs.  We had ice cream & a delicious dinner at Bubba Gump's.  Took a beautiful Dolphin boat ride - twice.  We stopped at every park we saw to play and spent evenings together in the pool! There was no shortage of fun.

Since we were close to Tampa we decided to take a completely unplanned trip to Busch Gardens.  It was not in the budget but they were currently offering weekday tickets for only $50 (normally tickets are $89) we figured might as well!  The kids absolutely loved Busch Gardens.  There were so many attractions geared towards them they could have played all day long.  They even had rides that Nicholas, who is 21 months old, could go on all by himself.  They literally lock your child in and he loved it!

The other thing I loved about Bush Gardens was how close you can get to the animals.  They literally come right up to the glass.  Closer then any zoo I have ever been too.  The kids were able to be face to face with hippos, lions, lemurs, and tons of other animals.

All in all it was a fabulous trip.  Since it was the last week in August and most people are in back to school mode everything from the beach to Busch Gardens was very empty.  This made everything overall more enjoyable.  We made lots of great memories with each other and hearing both Nick & Chris tell me they had fun makes it all worth it even more.  I cannot wait until the great next Klein adventure!