Our Trip to Florida!!!!!!

Written by Lydia Tyndall, daughter of Amy Tyndall, with input from Luke Tyndall, son of Amy Tyndall.

Hello my dear Amy’s Garden readers! This week our family went on a vacation to Belleair Beach in Florida. In this blog post I will be telling all of you about it, through pictures and captions!!!!!!!!!!! (Exciting right…?) Anyways, here we go!!!!

We took an airline flight from the airport in Springfield to the airport in St. Pete, Florida. By the way I absolutely LOVE going through security at airports!

Once we arrived in Florida, we stopped by Walmart to get groceries. (I don’t have a picture of the actual store we went to, sorry.) 

The view from our deck. 

For the rest of the afternoon we just hung out at the beach!

Later, in the evening we went to Publix to get rotisserie chicken. 

This screen shot gives you a good idea of where we were. 

On day two of our trip we went to this place called the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. They have a variety of different sea creatures there, including dolphins. 

We also saw a sea turtle. 

One of these pelicans was named Tyndall!!!

A seahorse. 

After we visited the aquarium, we took a drive over Tampa Bay because my mom wanted to. 

Tampa is a large city. 

While we were in the car, Luke ate a tuna pack. 

Before we went back to our condo, we stopped by Chick-fil-A.

The next morning we saw a plane towing a banner flying over the beach. It said, “Not today, chafing.” Something about this captivated our hearts, and seeing this banner quickly became a highlight of our trip.

Luke, my dad, and I went on a three hour fishing trip with a professional guide. This is the port from which we launched.

There were a lot of pelicans around. 

Luke caught a catfish! Our guide said these were poisonous to touch, and we didn’t. 

My dad on the boat. 

Luke on the boat. 

Me taking a picture of Luke. 

Luke caught a Mackerel! 

This guy had teeth!

I also caught a Mackerel!

That evening, I saved a bunch of pictures of Shakespeare to my phone for no reason. (You gotta love the ole bard.)

The next day our family split up. I really wanted to go to the Holacaust museum in St. Pete and Luke really did not, so we parted ways. While me and my mom went to the museum Luke and my dad explored the St. Pete pier.

They visited this aquarium-like place which was on the pier. 

At the Holacaust museum my mom and I saw many artifacts. 

There were also a lot of signs to read.

 

After we were finished at the museum my mom and I met up with the men at the St. Pete Pier. 

At the pier there was a guy playing the harmonica. My mom gave him a tip. This moment was also a great highlight of our trip. 

 

A lovely picture my mom took of me and my dad on the beach that evening. 

The next day, we visited Tarpon Springs, which is a very unique town. There are a lot of Greek people there. They also harvest natural sponges from the ocean. 

We went to a Greek Orthodox church. They were flying the Greek flag.

The church was rather ornate. 

We went to a gift shop and saw sponges for sale.

We took a boat tour where a guy got in an old school diving suit and went down into the water.  

Luke and I tried on his helmet. 

After the boat tour we explored the city. There was a fancy olive oil shop. 

A fountain featuring Poseidon.

Back at the beach we saw these birds. They basically sat there in that same spot all day every day. 

The beach at sunset. 

We got some granola bars. 

On the final morning of our trip we went for a drive around the area. 

My mom took this picture of me. 

Bird on da beach. 

The men went to a Tampa Bay Rays game. They parked next to a Tesla. (Gots to love Elon, am I right?)

The men saw a total of 68 Teslas on the vacation. 

They also saw 51 dogs!

They got there early to see batting practice. They had front row seats and could see the players well.

I took a notion to write things in the sand. (Sally and Joe are no one in particular.)

I wrote other things in the sand as well, including “Will you marry me?” and “Pax vobiscum,” (Latin for “Peace go with you”).

I gave the ole bard the ultimate shout out when I wrote in large prominent letters in the sand “SHAKESPEARE, THE BARD OF AVON!” I saw a family who was walking on the beach stop and look at it, which gave me a great deal of pleasure.  

A CRAB!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, the men were still enjoying the baseball game. 

The men had a good view of Rays left fielder Randy Arozarena. Luke says there was a heckler who was yelling at Randy and the left fielder for the other team. 

The women watched part of the game on TV to see if we could see our kin.

We’re pretty sure this is them.

I took a walk on the beach at sunset. 

We had to get up at 4:00 AM the next morning to catch our flight home. 

There are some things that I can’t remember what day we did them on or that we did on multiple days.

We made several stops at Walmart…

And Publix!!!!!!!

I read the book Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

My mom read parts of multiple books. 

Luke played games on his Nintendo Switch.

We consumed food on our vacation. 

We also slept. 

Luke went swimming in the pool at our condo. 

At one point I locked myself out of the bathroom, but my dad got it unlocked. 

We performed all expected rituals of personal hygiene. 

Most of this post was authored by me, but parts of it were influenced by my brother Luke. For those of you who know him well, it will not be that hard to figure out what parts these are.