Trip to Tampa

We headed down to Tampa early April 26 to see my brother and his wife and son for a couple of days while they were in town for his business conference. We had to pick them up at the airport at 3:44 p.m. when their plane arrived. We left at 8 a.m. our time. We lost an hour when we crossed over the time zone and with our frequent potty breaks for Sheila we arrived at the airport at 3:46 p.m. We got into the airport just about the time Mark and Michelle were headed down the escalators.

They stayed with us the first night at the Best Western. We had a suite with two beds in the bedroom and a sofa in the living room with a microwave and a refrigerator. The hotel was a little on the older side (with a brand new bathroom) but it was clean and the pool area was really nice.

The next morning we headed out to Fort De Soto beach. An old fort from the Spanish war still stands at the site. We only had to pay the tolls on the road to get to the park. It looked really cool on the internet but I think either a recent storm has damaged the beaches or the tide was in because the beaches weren't as white or large as I had hoped.
Here we are in the Fort.

My brother and his family (minus his two daughters that stayed in Oregon with their grandma.) Kaden is almost 5 months old.

One of the canons still at the fort. This particular area has two remaining but at one time had four.

Sheila looking through the end of the cannon.

After exploring the fort we headed over to one of the many beaches at the park. We went to North beach. We changed into our suits and then headed to the water. The beach was pretty crowded (there wasn't a lot of beach like I said up above that something was going on with it) and the parking lot was less than a fourth full so I would hate to go when it was busy.

Ray with our two and Mark with Kaden enjoying the water. It was a little on the cool side but very calm and nice once we got use to the temperature. I lathered us all up with sublock but my back still got burnt. I sprayed it and then had Ray spray it so don't know how that happened.

After we left the beach we took Mark and Michelle to their hotel. They stayed in a really nice, posh place where Mark's conference was held. It started that evening so Michelle went out to dinner with us and then over to our hotel to take the kids to the pool.

The next day after breakfast we checked out and headed over to their hotel. Michelle and Kaden joined us for a shopping trip and lunch and then back to get Mark and off to the airport.

We got home late Tuesday night. It was a quick trip but I really enjoyed seeing them. I wish I could see all my siblings more often.

Sheila and Timmy sure liked Kaden. The first night Timmy crawled up on the bed and watched Mark and Michelle feed Kaden some cereal.