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Sunshine State (Part 2)

| patmcg

After the big family meet-up in Siesta Key, the four of us headed towards Clearwater, Florida.  While in Florida, we had to meet the most famous dolphin in the world: Winter!  Winter is the real-life inspiration for the movie A Dolphin Tale, a favorite of 8-year-old girls around the globe.  Claire had even donated some of her allowance money to Winter in the past.  That is how much she likes Winter.

On the way up to Clearwater, we toured Sarasota a bit.  We spent the morning at Selby Botanical Gardens, which Kit really enjoyed.  The girls got to see some amazing tropical plants.  Kit had also been scouting great local dining locations, and we ended up having some fantastic lunches at little restaurants like The Serving Spoon in Sarasota.  We headed up to a family-ish resort called Tradewinds, in St. Pete’s Beach.  It was not as cozy as our house in Siesta Key, but it was nice to have a swimming pool and a beach cabana.  We did the paddle boats around the resort too, and the girls loved feeding the swans as they followed us.  Kit nearly had a heart attack when she realized that her iPhone had slipped out of her pocket on the paddle boat.  By almost freakish luck, the phone ended up safe and dry on a little inch-wide lip on the exterior of the boat.  It was a quarter inch from becoming swan food.

Once in Clearwater, we spent most of the day at Winer’s home, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which is really a marine animal rescue and rehab hospital that suddenly got famous with the Dolphin Tale movie.  Claire had talked about seeing Winter for years now.  We got to see Winter floating around in her tank.  The poor thing was indeed missing her tail and was somewhat lethargic.  Having come all this way to Florida, Claire got do a special (as in expensive) “dolphin encounter” with Hope, who is Winter’s friend and apparently the star of the upcoming Dolphin Tale 2.  Molly was too young to do the dolphin encounter but was familiar with the movie and enjoyed seeing Winter and all the sea animals.  Molly got a Winter stuffed animal, unique with its missing tail.  

After many hours at the Clearwater aquarium, we headed off for our last night of the trip, near the Tampa airport.  Kit had picked out a local Greek restaurant for a nice final meal.  When we finally fought our way there through the St. Petersburg sprawl, hungry and thirsty from a long hot day with only a small snack or two, the family restaurant was closed for two weeks for vacation.  This was a disappointment to us all, especially our stomachs.  Trying to avoid a small riot, Kit directed us to a family-owned Italian restaurant nearby.  It was also closed for two weeks!  We all started to complain bitterly, and Kit even went so far as to say that it was “Un-American” to just close like that.  Late and now really hungry, we found a Chili’s on the iPhone and headed there, mostly on the grounds that it would probably be open and have, you know, food to eat.  Mercifully, they were indeed open, and we stuffed ourselves on steak and pizza and even shared a big dessert.

Then next morning, we flew home.  Claire and Molly spent the next two days resting up from our big, busy family vacation in sunny Florida.

Frozen

| patmcg
Frozen cast poster
The much loved characters of Frozen

The movie Frozen is a pretty big deal, at least with little girls.  The movie was released in theaters five months ago and seems to have only picked up steam since.  It probably helps that it’s now on iTunes and DVD.  Anyways, this movie definitely ranks as a favorite — no, the favorite — movie for both Claire and Molly.

We have had endless discussions about “Who do you like better, Anna or Elsa?” or “What’s your favorite song in Frozen?” or “What character do you think I am in Frozen?”  On the drive back from Corpus Christi this weekend, Claire and Molly watched Frozen in the car.  When they weren’t watching Frozen, Molly was singing it.  “The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…” she always starts quietly.  Molly seems to know most of the words.  Claire started a series of family votes on who were our favorite characters (Anna won overall), favorite songs, etc.  At first, Molly thought Elsa was a “bad guy”, but Claire has slowly convinced her that Elsa is not bad, she has a good heart but she just has a problem to deal with.  Molly doesn’t understand that, but she believes Claire.

We had a babysitter last weekend, and she told us that every single girl under the age of 13 who she sits has been singing Frozen songs, mostly Let It Go.  She says it’s a “phenomenon”.  I found myself at an after-school dinner for Molly’s school, sitting with Claire, Molly, and another dad from Molly’s class.  He went on about Frozen, complete with trivia (the main character names came from the name  “Hans Christian Andersen”, etc.)

There is also a backlash.  At a second grade roller skating party, the skating rink played the song Let It Go, and all the girls sang along.  But all the boys apparently took of their roller-skates, slid around on their socks, and screamed in protest.  There is also Let It Go Goes With Everything, which shows just how generic (but still lovely) that song is.

Claire seems to enjoy my personal take on Anna vs. Elsa, which is that Anna is a true optimist and person of action who is always trying to make things better, while Elsa just runs to the nearest mountain to sing a song about how sad and misunderstood she is.  Boo hiss, Elsa!  😉  Claire thinks it is funny that Elsa sings on three separate occasions the words “Conceal, don’t feel…”  Okay, we shouldn’t be too hard on the cursed, orphaned ice queen.  I’m just saying we get it, already, Elsa.  It’s time to move on!

Anyways, Frozen is the only thing to really break through the My Little Pony stranglehold for Claire in the past several months, and that is really saying something.  I mean, occasionally Claire likes to watch Frozen, although MLP still forms the core of her entertainment universe.