We’ve established a bit of a Labor Day weekend tradition, which I really quite enjoy and I hope we can keep it going. Over Labor Day weekend we take a trip to someplace in Florida for the weekend and spend some time together. Last year we went north to Amelia Island, this year we went south to Tampa Bay.

Carol found a sweet hotel deal online which allowed us to stay at an Embassy Suites for pretty much the same price as you’d normally pay at a Motel 8 or something. It was great to have a separate room to set up Grant’s pack-and-play in so he could go to bed and Carol and I could stay up and watch tv in our room. Here are some pictures of our suite.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and decided not to venture out of the hotel for the day, so instead we spent some time down at the pool. We learned of the nightly free hors d’oeuvres and drinks in the restaurant area so we participated in that before eating dinner in the restaurant while watching the Gator’s play on TV.

On Sunday we decided to go to the beach, so we found instructions and made our way to Clearwater Beach where we ate our picnic lunch and spent the afternoon. Here are some pictures of the beach (it was quite busy):

On Monday we checked out of the hotel and then drove to downtown Tampa Bay to visit their children’s museum. It was awesome. I think Grant enjoyed it, but I know I did. There were all kinds of learning activities and everything was hands on. I definitely would recommend the museum to any of my Florida friends who are parents. Here are some pictures from the museum.

After we were done with the museum we had another picnic lunch and then we let Grant play on the playground and run through the fountains outside of the Children’s museum since we had clean dry clothes in the car. He seemed to enjoy that part of the trip a lot.  Here are some pictures from the playground and fountain: