A Visit to Tampa Zoo

For the first 2 weeks in November, we were in Tampa, Florida. John was enrolled in a 2-week course that allowed him to make his police officer certification in Ohio equivalent to Florida. After his 2 weeks of 6 days per week, 10-hour days, he received a certificate and was then able to take his Florida State Exam, WHICH HE PASSED!!!

We stayed in a really cool resort/suite that had a living room, full kitchen, and balcony with a gorgeous view of Tampa Bay. For the first several days, Eva and I did not venture out much. We did one day of major grocery shopping, but other than that, we stayed in and got used to our new normal. 

By the end of the first week, we were both ready to do something fun. 

Enter the Tampa Zoo!!

We got there late morning and Eva had already given me her list of animals that she wanted to see. Some she got to see, some she didn't get to see. She was able to ride a couple of the kiddie rides - of course, ride the carousel - and had a few really great experiences :-)

The first one was with the giraffes. Tampa Zoo has an interactive experience that gives you the opportunity to feed the giraffes. They were so beautiful. I was more excited than Eva at the chance to see her feed them. Our first attempt was a bit of a failure. Our giraffe walked away from us and wouldn't come back. So we got some lunch, had another fun experience (I'll talk about that in a minute), got some ice cream, rode the carousel again, and then went back for another try.  
 
Fortunately, a different giraffe was ready for some attention. Eva and I ran up to the platform and bought a bunch of lettuce. I don't know why I keep thinking that Eva will somehow be freaked out by these opportunities - the girl has NO FEAR!!! She took the lettuce from me, walked up to the fence, stuck her arm out and fed the giraffe. She didn't even flinch when the giraffe's tongue licked her hand. MY GIRL :-) 
I was so tickled that I bought another bunch of lettuce and let her do it again. What an awesome experience!!

  

The second experience was in between the giraffe feedings. After lunch, we made our way to the kiddie part of the zoo, where the small rides and petting zoo are. After spending some time petting some goats, Eva informed me that she really wished she could have a "horsey ride". OK. Time for me to make another wish come true :-) Again, I thought that once she got up-close-and-personal with the pony, all bets would be off and she wouldn't want to ride it. I could not have been more WRONG! She got her little helmet on, climbed on, held the head of the saddle and talked with the girl leading the pony the entire time. My girl - The Little Equestrian.

Our last cool experience came after our giraffe feedings. Still on my little high from watching Eva feed the giraffes, we started walking deeper into the zoo when I saw this:

My thought "Ooooo, I would love to see Eva ride that!!" Little did I know I would HAVE to get on that thing and RIDE IT WITH HER. Oh boy!!! Here we go. 

It wasn't that bad. It was different......interesting. Eva liked the ride and right after it was over, wanted to ride it again :-) It was a very full day. Eva got to do some of her favorite things, got to experience some new things, see some new animals, and have an all-around awesome day. So thankful that I get to be there when these days happen!!

Halloween 2012

Our Halloween was very busy this year. And it started with activities the week before Halloween. It started with Boo at the Zoo. It was mine and Eva's first time doing something like that. What a beautiful day....sunny, warm, a slight breeze. Eva was layered up, so she was totally comfortable until around sunset when it got really chilly and she started getting cold.

This year Eva has really gotten the concept of wearing a costume, trick-or-treat, and candy :-) And she absolutely LOVES the Zoo. This was truly the best of both worlds for her! We spent almost 3 hours there, checking out the animals and trick-or-treating at all the different vendors. For dinner that night, we went to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant for dinner.  

 












The morning of Halloween, Eva had dance class so she got to wear her costume again. She absolutely loved her giraffe costume. She had her 30-minute dance class with all of her friends and at the end the whole class took a photo op. Fun!!!!

That evening started with one of two Trick-or-Treat events. The first one was at an event called Boo on Broadway. It was held in our town. A few streets were blocked off and small business vendors as well as businesses on the street passed out candy and treats to all the little ones. It was cold and rainy but Eva had a good time. There's something to be said for getting there right when an event starts. We hit every vendor and small business there was and in an hour we were back home!

 












After we got home and warmed up for a couple of minutes, we were back out trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. We only visited about 8 or 9 of our neighbors. Eva was totally at ease knocking on a door, saying "trick-or-treat", saying "thank you", and then moving on to the next neighbor. By this time, it was totally dark outside and very cold.

We were back at home inside of 45 minutes and Eva had acquired enough candy to last her the next 6 to 8 months. Wow!!

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving is always something that I've admired from afar. I always thought it was so cool to see the pumpkins all "designed" up but I never imagined how much work went into it.

Well this year I was very enthusiastic about carving pumpkins, probably because I knew this was our last "Ohio" fall and I wanted to experience and have Eva experience it. I had the templates, the tools and my right-hand man! 

John had carved pumpkins before, so he knew exactly what it would entail. Me, on the other hand....totally clueless :-) Here's how it went down:

It started out fine until John realized how thick the pumpkin was. He had to use a lot more muscle than he thought.

When it came time to clean out the pumpkin, Eva was ready to lend a hand!

 

Next, it was time to carve out the face. I had a heck of a time getting the template to show up on the pumpkin. After 10 minutes of using some tool that's supposed to score it, I had to use a marker so that we could actually see where to carve.                    

And here is the end result. Eva is saying "Hooray" for her cool pumpkin!

          

By the time we got to the second pumpkin, Baby B's pumpkin, we were WAY less tolerant with carving it out, as you can see. John was tired and wanted to be done! Hence the triangle face :-) But once we put the changing lights in them, they looked really cute.
                         

                  












Now that I've helped with carving pumpkins, I don't need to experience that again. Been there, done that, thanks for the memories :-) Maybe I'll come across something next year that will be really cute and less time consuming!

Pumpkin Patch

So much has happened in the last 3 to 4 weeks, I hardly know where to begin. I actually had to go back to all my pictures to make sure I put all of these blog posts in the correct order.

So, let's start with the pumpkin patch:

Waaayyyy back in October, we were able to take Eva to a pumpkin patch that I had learned about back when I was working daycare. Originally I wanted to take her in the beginning of October but there was a glitch in the plans. Then she got sick for about a week and soon after we met with days of rain. Towards the end of the month, though, we were finally able to get there and we met with a girlfriend (former co-worker) and her family. Eva and her daughter are the same age :-)  We got there before my friend Gri, so we started out taking some pictures.

 

My little Buckeye

Once they arrived, we decided to take the tractor hayride to the pumpkin patch. Eva was so excited to see all the pumpkins. The tractor dropped us off at the corn maze. We had to go through the maze first, and then as we exited, the pumpkins were right in front of us.

 

It took a while, But Eva eventually found her pumpkin and even picked one out for Baby "B" :-)

After we got our pumpkins, Eva and her BFF Alli rode back on the tractor together.

After some lunch and s'mores (yummy!!) we got a couple of pictures taken and then the girls played together for a little bit.