A long while ago, I purchased a Living Social deal for admission for two adults and one child to the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa. Given that our time in the Tampa area is drawing to a close, I knew I needed to make use of those passes and a rainy Saturday afternoon this past weekend seemed like the perfect time to do so. Ellie and I enlisted her Aunt Heather and Grammy to join us, and after driving through a death-defying rainstorm as we crossed the bridge to Tampa (this is where I pause to grumble about the constant afternoon rain and the driving all that whatnot that comes with Florida life), we finally made it to the museum for a day o' fun. Ellie was psyched.
The Glazer Children's Museum
Ellie was delighted with this mirrored wall near the entrance. If that had been all there was in the whole museum, she could have left happy.
The museum really was a lot of fun. First, we hit up a toddler area where Ellie played with stuffed animals, puzzles, mirrors and ball-drop toys.
Fun for toddlers
Then we did a little water play...
If you're wondering if she ended up soaked, why, yes. Yes, she did.
...touched an alligator...
She had no fear!
...played in a ball pit...
She's delighted.
...and explored a tunnel.
She wasn't really buying what we were selling.
It's safe to say, we were having a good time.
Happy face!
We also pretended to be Publix employees, following in the great footsteps of Ellie's Great-Gramz and Auntie Kelley...
She's a natural.
...had a dance party...
She likes to move it, move it. (Still sporting her Publix apron!)
...tried our hands at veterinary medicine...
Nursing a doggy back to health
...and donned our doctor coats to review X-rays and perform surgery.
Paging Dr. Ellie to the ER!
(Not going to lie, I'm hanging onto these in case I get the opportunity to show them off at her med school graduation someday...)
After all that, we were pretty much museum-ed out.
Resting in the gift shop
So, we went outside where we could really stretch our legs.
Sweet freedom!
Then, Ellie found the Promised Land: a water feature.
Oh, yeah. Now we're talking.
As excited as she was, she was still a little timid at first and had Grammy help ease her into it.
Hitting the water with Grammy
But not to worry, she found her nerve soon enough, and then she was unstoppable (and we had the soaking wet clothes to prove it).
This is a water baby if I ever saw one.
Then she really got serious. Strip-down-naked-in-public kind of serious.
Clothes just slow you down.
That girl loves her some water.
As the thunder started to rumble, we grabbed Ellie's back-up outfit out of the diaper bag and went to dinner, which was very nice. Aside from a slight face-first tumble as we paid our parking fees at the end of the day (resulting in a bloody lip, poor thing), it was a perfect afternoon!
I have to say, Ellie is really at the coolest age. I love watching her walk all over the place, exploring her world and so freely showing her delight. She is absolutely awesome.
The children's museum is so awesome, been a few times with friends that have kiddos :-) My 900th post was yesterday, where does time go? haha
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