Clearwater Beach and the aquarium



Winter, the dolphin, with her trainer, Abby Stone.



Our girls got a close-up look at Winter's prosthetic tail.

Winter, with trainer, Abby Stone (can you tell that Winter's missing her tail?)



Abbie and Sophie with the turtle statue

    

Abbie and I with a prop from the movie, Dolphin Tale.

Here's Sophie, Abbie and Daddy on the red carpet at an exhibit featuring many of the sets from the movie, Dolphin Tale.

sunset at Clearwater Beach

 

our family near the pier at Clearwater Beach (I love how this picture was captured).

Over the girls Spring Break, we headed down to Clearwater Beach, Florida.  Sophie had a half day of school on Friday.  We headed out of town as soon as she arrived home from school.  The trip down to Florida seemed to take forever because we had to make several stops and some of them took awhile.  Also, it rained almost the entire way down to Florida.  We stopped on Friday night in Tifton, Georgia to spend the night.  That's supposed to be about the halfway point.  The next day, we got up, had breakfast and got on the road again.  We arrived in the St. Petersburg area in the early afternoon.  That night we stayed in St. Petersburg because there wasn't a vacancy at our Clearwater beach hotel for that night.  It was still kind of rainy when we arrived in the area but we headed to Busch Gardens.  We were able to see a  show and then the rain cleared off so we rode some rides.  We were hoping that everyone would leave the park since it rained but there were still a lot of people there.  We had fun but we were all pretty tired. 

The next morning, we attended church at the congregration where Matt spent most of his growing up years.  He was able to see a couple of families that he knew.  We had lunch and Matt showed the girls the house that he grew up in and his former schools.  Then, we headed over to our hotel at Clearwater Beach!  Everyone was excited to see the beach and spend a little time in the ocean.  We stayed there for 2 nights and enjoyed the heated pool and spending some time at the beach (though we were careful to mostly do it in the later part of the day and slather on sunscreen due to our fair skin).  The girls loved the beach-the waves and sand, etc.  It was fun to see them enjoying it so much!

On Monday, we visited the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  We made sure to get there soon after it opened.  Matt and I had been there before but we hadn't taken the girls.  This aquarium is the home of Winter the dolphin who was featured in the movie "Dolphin Tale".  The girls both love this movie!  The last time we were down in the area visiting, they were actually filming the movie so you couldn't visit the aquarium.  It was closed during the movie's filming.  There's a lot more hype surrounding this aquarium now (due to the movie) than when Matt and I went about 3 years ago.  Everyone wants to come and see Winter, who eventually lost her tail due to it being caught in a crab trap.  She was a fighter and recuperated well, learning to swim again using a different motion.  They made a special prosthetic tail for her that she occasionally uses.  We saw a couple of little shows while we were there and took lots of pictures of Winter.  Sophie loves dolphins!  They had added another facility that you can tour which is connected with the aquarium.  It shows some of the sets that were used in the movie, different facts about the movie, etc. so we visited it too.  Sophie was able to meet Winter's trainer, Abby Stone.