Daytona trip - July 2 - 9, 2008

We drove all day on the 3rd, then crashed at a hotel - the kids were wiped out after 8 hours in the car and swimming at the hotel. Definitely no problem getting them to sleep!

When we go to Mom's place in Ormond Beach (a suburb of Daytona) on the 4th, we went down to the inlet/river/whatever in Daytona Beach to see the fireworks, but never made it that long. The kids were wiped out and cranky, so we walked around a little and went back to Mom's house to get them (and us) to bed. Zoe and Ryan fell asleep before we even made it back to Mom's and it is a 15 minute drive!

July 5th - our first real day in Daytona Beach and this picture of Shelby says it all!!! The kids LOVED the beach and Shelby could've chased waves all day!

All of the kids loved the waves, digging in the sand and trying to find shells, although we didn't find many the first day.

Doug and I went to the race at Daytona International Speedway on Sat night - it was fun, but neither of our drivers won (my favorite had to leave the race with the flu). It was cool to finally see a race there after watching so many on TV from there.

We went to Busch Gardens in Tampa on Sunday - it was pretty cool - lots of amazing plants and fun animals to see. We got rained on twice - big time. The first time, we weathered the storm under a fake tree - the picture below is of Zoe, Shelby and Ryan in the tunnel under the tree. The second time, it was a downpour and it was getting late, so we bought ponchos and made a break for the van.

Aren't we cute!!?? - ok, I'm not - but the kids sure are! We had extra clothes for the kids, but not for us, so we froze our bottoms off the whole drive back to Mom's house.