A Sesame Street African Adventure

We decided to go to Busch Gardens yesterday, and we had so much fun! It was so stinking HOT outside, but we beat the heat with some water fun and indoor shows. It was one of those days where you literally have to peel your clothes off. I think the heat index was like 110. And if you're wondering how hot that is... IT'S HOT! I even got to the point where I did not even care if I took pics or not. We lasted way longer than we thought though. Actually Parker lasted way longer than we expected. He did take a little nap in his stroller, but he was wide open the entire 9 hours we were in the park. I don't know why we expected anything different, but we thought the park would surely wear him out. Needless to say, we all slept like babies last night.

Busch Gardens has a new Sesame Street area of the park, and it's full of water rides, carousels, and other rides/playgrounds for toddlers and kids. All of their favorite characters are walking all around too. It was neat to experience that with Parker. He LOVED it and must have said Elmo a bazillion times. He loved getting to splash around in the water too. We had lunch with some of the characters close by. They would sing and dance and all of the kids could dance with them and all. It was cute. Although Parker was terrified of Cookie Monster at first, he warmed up to him and was dancing with them before long. It was SO funny to see his reaction when Cookie Monster walked over to him. Parker was sitting in his high chair eating, and Cookie Monster walked over to him and went to give him a high five, and I am not kidding when I say Parker nearly jumped right out of his seat in like 2 seconds. And he held onto me for dear life. I just could not help but laugh. Don't think that's cruel of me! It really was funny.

We also got to see lots of animals and that was really neat too. Parker kept saying the names of the ones he knew. He wouldn't get too close to any of them though. He surprises me with the things he is afraid of. He could jump head first into a wall or dive off a bed, but don't let any animal get near him.

I've shared just a few pics below! They are really out of order, but I don't want to try to rearrange them right now. Enjoy! All of the grandparents would be happy to know he's asked about you all! We've talked about nona's, pappie's, papa's, pa's, mimi's, granny's, and gigi's.

Some interesting things we learned: Elephants have a gestation of 22 mths, and giraffes give birth standing straight up so the baby drops 6 feet to the ground when born. Just a little perspective!

This is really a hippo swimming under water. Isn't that neat? Definitely a first for me.

And here's the cutest little rhino. She weighed 150 lbs when she was born 2 weeks ago. She followed her momma around everywhere.

Today we went to Clearwater Beach, so more on that later. I've got to get some sleep to keep up with wild man!