It's Been A Busy But Fun October

The kids got gift certificates for ice skating at the mall for their birthdays. Parker stayed pretty close to the rail with Mommy.

 Chloe made a friend and was all over the place. She was a natural!! Her rollerblading practice definitely paid off.

 Chloe had a sleepover at a friend's house. She wasn't quite ready to stay the night, but she went over for a couple of hours in the evening. They painted these awesome Halloween paintings!

 While Chloe was at her party the next day with Daddy, I took Parker to a birthday party at the bowling alley. He had fun with his friends!

 We went to a pumpkin patch at a church close to our house to pick out pumpkins this year. They had a very nice display and tons of pumpkins to pick from.

 Chloe posing with the scarecrow and Parker being Parker. I'm pretty sure he makes a lot of people's days when he is dancing through Walmart without a care in the world.

 After the pumpkin patch, we went down to the pier to throw the football and see if we could see anything in the water. It's getting harder and harder to get a good picture. I thought it was supposed to get easier as they get older...

 We also made a trip to the beach one weekend. The kids got to fly their kites since it was so windy. They let almost all of their kite string out so they were WAY up there!

 The kids had a day out of school, so I took off and we went to the zoo. It was a beautiful day!

 The kids had Fall Fest at school last weekend. They got to wear their costumes. They had all kinds of bouncy houses, a 3 story slide, obstacle course, haunted trail, games, sweet walk (their version of a cake walk), several food vendors (including Chick-Fil-A!!!!!) and carmel apples and hot apple cider. It was really nice and we had a great time!!

 We went to the Seafood Festival at John's Pass over the weekend. It was a gorgeous day out! We were stuck at the top of the bridge because the drawbridge was up, but I later found out that the pictures that I thought I took didn't really take. Since we couldn't decide what to get there, we decided to go Seabreeze to eat since we knew we would all like we got there. 

 After the Seabreeze we headed over to the beach to catch the sunset. Absolutely beautiful!

Swimming with the Sharks

For Chloe's birthday, Nana and Papaw John got her a certificate to swim with the sharks at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. She was SOOOO excited! She's wanted to do this since the first time we went to the aquarium a couple of years ago, but you have to be at least 9 years old to do it. She was pumped! 

 She was ready as soon as we walked in

 We got there early enough to go through the aquarium, and they had a baby gator out for the kids to touch and learn about.

 The kids were glowing all over in the blacklight. Even Chloe's earrings were glowing!

 Time for action! Chloe had her own locker with her name on it, wet suit & shoes and a goodie bag inside.

 All suited up

 The girls strutting their stuff to the aquarium. It was just Chloe and one other girl that also turned 9 in September. Blake and her mom had a hard time telling them apart in the tank because they were the same build, same hair color, same hairdo and the same outfit.

 Chloe posed in front of the smaller tank that would be the first tank they would snorkel in.

 They had a divemaster that was with them the entire time in the water. Everyone there was great!

 Getting the rundown on what to do and what to expect

 Getting geared up! They had an oxygen tank on their bellies with a regulator so they didn't have to deal with snorkels. Chloe thought that was pretty cool, and it helped them float too.

 A surprise that they got was that they each got a GoPro to record what they wanted in the smaller tank. The smaller tank had a lot of smaller fish and a few large stingrays. They were able to kind of float on their own in that tank and go where they wanted to go since it was a small area. Their divemaster also had a GoPro and was recording them as well. We found out when reviewing the videos though that Chloe was holding hers backwards the entire time...

 Off they go!

 I was up top with Chloe the whole time so I got the behind the scenes and above water pictures. Blake was in charge of the underwater videos and pictures. Some of our videos are too big to upload, so I just uploaded the ones that I could.

 Now to move over to the big part of the aquarium where the bigger fish, sharks and sea turtles are! They had a long pole to hold on to. The divemaster was in the middle and the girls were on each side of him. He did all of the steering and moving, and the girls just held on for the ride.

Flip the sea turtle came over and visited them!

 Chloe gave it 2 big thumbs up and was already asking before we even made it back to the lockers to change out of her wet suit when she could do it again! Thanks Nana and Papaw John!!