For the last year, it has been my goal to pack the kids up and spend some time in Tampa, Florida. Bjorn and I had never been there...nor have the kids for that matter. I really wanted to get down there because the Glazer Children's Museum is there. Additionally, the Florida Aquarium was a nice added bonus to be a few blocks away.
Bjorn has been very reluctant to agree to the road trip. Primarily because he thinks it is poor usage of time to drive three and half hours, one way, for the children to play at the museum for only a few hours. I think that despite the long drive (though, we did just do a 14-hour drive up to D.C. over the 4th of July and the kids did FANTASTIC), it is worth it because it creates not only experiences for the kids (both in the car and at the museum), but also allows us to spend time together without the distractions of being cooped up in the house at the height of the Florida summer. In a post a while back, the Te/Anderson kids went wild at the Minnesota Children's Museum. Since we became members of that particular museum, we get reciprocity at other children's museum across the country (what a great deal for military families...or any family who moves a lot!). So it has been my mission to visit as many children's museum as possible who are part of the reciprocity program. Since we are moving to the DC/Maryland/Virginia area, there is a very good chance that we will be able to hit up more children's museum.
Anyways, so last weekend we recruited a few of our friends and their kids to join us for the trip. We all got up at the crack of dawn and made the nearly 4 hour trek down to Tampa. We timed it so that we would hit the Glazer around the time it opens, play, grab lunch, hit the Aquarium, eat an early dinner and then drive back home with the kids in their jammies. Well, we hit our first snag at 10:40. Our friends got to the Glazer before we did. Apparently the line to get in was out the door and around the corner. And they were informed that the museum was a near max capacity and that it would probably be a 1-2 hour wait in the Florida heat! Forty minutes after opening and it was already at hear max capacity! We could not believe it. So we re-planned and decided to hit the aquarium instead. We grabbed lunch and then tried the museum again. It worked! The kids only got to play for about an hour since they were gettin' cranky for not having a proper nap (other than a quick snooze in their carseats en route). We made it back home by about 8:30 and tucked everyone in.
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