Emma's first airplane ride, aka Turkey Day in Florida!
Emma, Mommy and Daddy went to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with Gramma Bindert, Aunt Betsy and (great-) Uncle Lenny this year. It was Emma's first time riding on an airplane, and Mommy and Daddy had a little trepidation about how smoothly the trip would go. We left in the middle of the night (3:45am) in a blinding snowstorm for the drive to the Buffalo airport. A short time later, and we were on board the plane! (Okay, we're skipping the whole "lug the luggage, kid, stroller and ginormous car seat into the terminal, through the check-in line, through security, and down to the gate" part, but that went pretty smoothly, all things considered. The only slight issue came when Emma and Mommy were waiting just inside the airport doors for Daddy to park the car in the long-term lot, and Em took it upon herself to yell "ONE, TWO, THREE WAKE UP!" to the family who were trying to catch some Zs on a nearby bench. She didn't quite get that it was just short of 5am at the time...) Once Emma was safely secured in her car seat - or was it a plane seat for this trip? - she had her eyes glued to the window and her hand glued to Mommy's for the taxi and take-off part of the flight. After we reached cruising altitude, Emma turned away from the window, let go of Mommy's hand, and said "Oh, fun!" before closing her eyes and instantly dropping off to sleep. When she woke up almost two hours later, she gave a mighty stretch and promptly snagged herself a breakfast bar from the airline's snack basket. She found the whole flying thing to be delightful, including the very messy banana bread breakfast bar (say that five times, fast).

Once we landed, Emma couldn't get over the novelty of being in her stroller while on board the shuttle bus, something she'd never experienced before. Then it was off to Gramma's house, arriving just in time for a nap and then a delicious Thanksgiving dinner! We all sat down to eat, and Mommy tried very hard to get a good picture of the family enjoying all the yummy dishes, but this is the best shot she could get. Among the exotic things Emma enjoyed about her first trip to Florida were the palm trees, all the lizards that were running around Gramma's yard, and Zeke and Henry, Gramma's two cats. After Thanksgiving dinner, and a couple of other nights too, we took a walk to the next block over from Gramma's street, where the residents go CRAZY with the holiday decorations. There were lights and decorations on everything! (Gramma reported that as it drew closer to Christmas, there were even MORE lights and decorations going up on that street - we're pretty sure there were enough lights to be seen from space, or at least an airplane!) Mommy was trying to get "arty" with the camera, and this was the best result. (Mommy was using the various "fireworks" and "night action" settings because she'd never had the chance to use them before.)

The day after Thanksgiving, we headed to the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park with Gramma and Aunt Betsy. Uncle Lenny had to work so he couldn't join us, but he stopped by to say hi on his way to work. There were all sorts of cool animals at the refuge, like alligators, birds (Em loved the "mingoes" especially), bears and a hippopotamus, who we later got to watch as he was fed his lunch. (Mommy feels obliged to share at least one hippo eating photo since she took like 2 dozen shots of him...) Em, Gramma and Daddy checked out some very big kitties - even bigger than Zeke, Gramma's very own "little lion" in Emma's terms. (If you look between Gramma and Emma, you can see the kitty too!) Then Gramma, Daddy, Emma and Aunt Betsy posed by the only cat that was safe to pet, and we continued on our walk. After our tour of the refuge, we had some lunch and headed home for a rest, and afterwards Gramma took Emma, Mommy and Daddy to a really cool playground near her house. Depsite all the really neat playground equipment, Emma was fascinated with just two things: the lion water fountain and playing with a stick in the sand under all the equipment!

The next day, we had to say goodbye to Aunt Betsy, who was heading home to NY. Before she headed to the airport, we went over to the local mall so Emma could visit her favorite Man in Red, Santa Claus! It was a little bit odd to see Emma on Santa's lap in shorts, a tank top and sandals, and Mommy was cracking up at Santa's distinctly Southern accent, too! This turned out to be the first of many visits to St. Nick that Emma would make over the coming weeks.... Once Gramma got back from taking Aunt Betsy to the airport, we decided to take advantage of the sunny, warm afternoon and we headed for the beach. Emma was mightily impressed at the size of this "sandbox" and dug right in with both hands! It was a nice afternoon on the beach, even if we didn't actually make it to the water for a swim. (Mommy used the "beach" camera setting for those last two pictures, that worked a lot better than the other settings did for the Christmas lights!)

We got up and at 'em on Sunday and headed into Tampa to visit one of the greatest zoos Mommy and Daddy have ever been to - the Lowry Park Zoo. It was amazing! Not only did they have an adorable baby elephant, but Emma got to feed the giraffes (that's Emma's hand feeding the giraffe the biscuit), Emma and Mommy got to feed and pet the rhinos AND ride on a camel, too! We also spent a lot of time in the "Outback" area, where they had a huge goat pen the kids could go into - with parents, of course. Emma sure loves goats! She had lots of fun feeding them with help from Gramma and Daddy, too. We finally had to head for home, exhausted from the heat and the walking, although we hadn't even seen half the zoo yet. We can't wait to go back there and check the rest of the zoo out on another trip!

Our last full day in Florida turned out to be rainy, so our plans to spend the day at the beach were out. Instead, we drove to Tarpon Springs, where Emma's great-grandparents lived, and we walked around the town. We checked out the Tarpon Springs Aquarium, where Emma got up close and personal with an alligator and a scary snake gave Gramma the hairy eyeball. Emma and Daddy checked out one of the open tanks but didn't actually pet the rays or sand sharks. We stayed long enough to check out the diver going into the big tank (filled with beasties like sharks and groupers and eels), then headed back out in search of a snack. Stopping in one of the many Greek bakeries that line the town streets, Emma had her first taste of baklava before picking up some pretty, purple seashells as a memento of the day. We headed home the next day, back to the land of snow and cold, but now that we've survived one round trip plane ride with the Emster, we're confident that we can do it again without any worries!
- posted by Heather @ 5:00 PM