I got back from Florida yesterday after spending five days in St. Pete Beach, Florida.  It was a family vacation for five days yet we packed up what seemed like a month's worth of luggage and flew down to Florida.  On the flight down there were 30 kids on the plane which was a direct flight to Tampa.  It was a very good flight with no tantrums.  The seats were split 2 and 2 so I had the laptop and Leah while Erin had Colin and her Zune.  Erin bought a few Backyardigans episodes for her Zune and I had the Doodleboops DVD on the laptop.  The whole airplane situation was excellent 3.5 hour direct flights both ways.

We ended up staying an a very nice hotel on the beach, Grand Plaza Hotel.  We had a nice room with a view of the northern side of the beach and gulf.  it was a great view of the sunsets and happened to be right above the bar from the hotel next door.  They had live music the first night and it was a lot of fun hanging out on our deck with the kids asleep in their bed.  We had excellent service and from driving up the strip it was clear we had made a good choice.

The hotel also happened to be right next to an interesting seafood restaurant, Crabby Bills.  Both nights we ate there the wait was long but the food was very good.  The first night we ate there I had a bucket of seafood.  It was full of shrimp, clams, mussels and crab legs. it's an interesting place to eat with good service and a nice selection.

Now besides spending time at the beach and the pool we did hit the Tampa Zoo and we went on a pirate ship cruise.  The kids absolutely loved The Pirate Ship at John's Pass where they had a water gun fight, danced, hear a pirate story, looked for treasure and had face painting.  The 2 hour cruise was great for the kids and a nice boat ride for the adults.  The Tampa zoo is a very nice zoo with lots of animals.   We went on a Sunday when it rained in the morning but ended up being a beautiful day.  Colin, Leah and Erin road a live camel while I documented the ride.  It was cool to see their elephants and rhinos.

The whole vacation was a great trip for the family.  It was nice to see Florida again and get out and enjoys the warm weather.  It was also nice to see how the kids would travel in a plane.  We'll be going to Arizona in October for a wedding and plan on hitting the Grand Canyon.  Going to Florida was a lot of fun and I can see us doing this on a regular basis going forward.