Fort De Soto, FL: January 4th

We made it all the way into 2010, still on the road, still have 2 adults, 4 children and one gnome!

We stayed in Florida for over a month. In the New Year we were in Fort De Soto, which has the #1 rated beach - it was beautiful.....but cold for most of the week!

Manatees: December 29th

We have seen a number of manatees this month: in captivity at Seaworld of course, but also in the wild at Everglades National Park and also close to two electrical plants, once over Christmas near Fort Myers and then also in Tampa by Tampa Electric. The manatees seek warmer waters and the water used in the cooling system at the electric plants comes out lovely and warm and becomes a manatee haven.

We were joined by the Geller's on our visit to Tampa. There were so many manatees, as well as a couple of small, lively sharks. Everyone was commenting on the high numbers this year due to the much lower temperatures of the water in the Gulf.

The dark gray blob in the water is a manatee!

Seaworld,FL: December 6th

We couldn't wait to get to Seaworld. We arrived really early for breakfast with Elmo and his friends.



We traveled on the Polar Express to see Santa, the beluga whales, walrus and polar bears.

We rode on lots of different rides, climbed the netting for hours, watched the Shamu show TWICE (we LOVE Shamu!), saw many other shows, walked through the shark tunnel, rode Atlantis and enjoyed the winter wonderland ice skating.








What a GREAT day, BB had fun!

Thanksgiving at Myrtle Beach, SC: November 26th

We spent the week of Thanksgiving at Pirateland Campground in Myrtle Beach, SC. We were camping really close to the beach so spent a lot of time jumping waves and building sandcastles.

After a yummy Thanksgiving dinner, we went to the beach with our friends, the Opela's. The kids had a great time jumping waves, unfortunately one wave didn't want to be jumped by Nate and swallowed him up instead! He was soaked from head to toe and quite chilly!

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN: November 8th

We all loved this National Park, the mountains were beautiful. It crosses over both TN and NC, so we checked off two more states of our intended 48.

As we walked down from Clingman's Dome, a BLACK BEAR crossed the path in front of us. It was running down the mountain so we didn't have chance to take a photo but it was exciting to actually see one; the Rangers estimated it to be about a young teenage bear.

Playland: October 20th

Caitlin's Aunty Debbie had got a leaflet about Playland so we took BB and spent a couple of hours there on the equipment and extremely slippery, just-waxed, slides.