Expiration

Last March my family bought an annual membership to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  For those not familiar, that is where Winter the dolphin lives.  Late in 2013 and early 2014, they were filming Dolphin Tale 2 at the Aquarium and had it closed for filming off-and-on for two months.  Because of that, they extended our membership through the end of this May. 

Last month I also purchased discount tickets to go to Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa and they expire May 30.  So what's a girl to do when you are in the last week of the month and have passes to two places about to expire?  You go to both of them in the same day, of course!

We had been to Lowry only once and that was 3 years ago.  I remember there being animals as well as a few rides for the kids.  We've been to the Aquarium a couple times in the last year so I figured we'd spend less time there so we started at the zoo.

We spent about 3.5 hours at the zoo where we walked just about every path we could.  Being that it was 90 out we also stopped for snow cones.  Aside from the fact that they helped cool us down, we were able to dispense our own flavors.  I had a wonderful tropical fruity concoction while my kids had I have no idea what to call it... a fruity cacophony of flavors.

Unfortunately, the two rides my kids were most interested in were either closed or they were to big to ride  :-(  Did I mention they were water rides which meant our initial plan for cooling off didn't work.  Yay for snow cones!

We were able to see a couples shows, as well as see some animals up close.  So all in all it was a good time and I'm glad we did it.

Lorwy is one of 5 locations in FL that takes in hurt manatees

National bird.  Got to see one fly and heard their call (very different than what you think).

Baby is almost 2 years old.

One of my daughters favorite animals.  Flock flew by us and one right over us too.

After the zoo we drove over to the Aquarium and spent about 45 minutes there.  We got there just in time to see most of a Winter show / training session and got to see some of the changes that were made for the filming of the new movie.  Although this was a really short stop, I know Winter is a favorite of my daughter, so I'm glad we went since I don't think we'll be going back for a while.

Winter is way down there in the middle of the picture.  Down side of getting there late = bad view.

Only thing about the trip I disliked... the drive.  It's a long drive to begin with, but on the way home we encountered 2 separate accidents with overturned SUVs which had traffic backed up big time.  In fact, it delayed us so much that we didn't get to see my hubby before he had to go to work.