Sesame Street arrives in Tampa

There was a time when I got up early to go stand in line to get Dave Matthews tickets.

Just a few years later, I got up early to go stand in line at the Ikea opening in Orlandao.

Not even a few years later, I found myself waking up early to go stand in to see Elmo on opening day of the Sesame Street Safari of Fun at Busch Gardens. (Sadly, I was just as excited for this morning as the others.)

They kept us behind the line while we waited for the grand entrance.

Then we saw Elmo and Big Bird.

And Lily said "Emmo? Emmo? Emmo?"

After they let the crowd in, our first stop was the breakfast with Elmo and Friends. We had tickets that I bought several weeks earlier.

There was a buffet and the food was even pretty good. They served lots of fresh fruit, pastries and muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, cereal, all the stuff you'd expect.

My only complaints about the food were (1), I kinda forgot to eat it because I was busying trying to figure out how to take good pictures (and I never really figured that out), and (2) the orange juice came in those tiny little cups like you get at the hospital. WTF? This is Florida, get some real orange juice.

About 15 minutes after we started eating, Elmo, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster made their grand entrance. They did a little song and dance, and then Big Bird and Elmo took their places at the front for pictures, and the other characters went around to the tables to greet the families.

What I really loved about this experience was that we had a lot of time to spend there, so there was time for Lily to warm up to these giant creatures.

Because, well, it wasn't love at first sight.

She was really fascinated by them, though. But she couldn't take her eyes off Elmo. She kept saying "Emmo? Emmo? Emmo?"

Finally, they called table 15 and it was our turn. It kinda looks like she's picking Emmo's nose here.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to prove it, but I swear she did like Elmo. She smiled, gave him a high-five, but it did take us a little bit to get that far.

She actually liked Big Bird, too. I think she really liked his beak. Look at Elmo being all condescending, though. Elmo's used to being the star. Big Bird gets no love.

After our turn with the A-listers, we spent some more time with Cookie, Bert, and Ernie.

Lily liked their hats.

And high-fives.

And their noses.

More high-fives. All in all, it was really a pretty cool experience. We got lots of time to spend with the characters. After a while, we just left, I'm not sure if we would've gotten more time with Elmo and Big Bird or not. (But I'm pretty sure we'll have another chance to find out.)

But we were pretty anxious to see the rest of the attraction, and it was filling up fast.

The only ride we went on was Snuffy's Flying Something or Other. Khan swears that Lily had fun and smiled, but I couldn't see her very well because I was busy making our little plane go up and down, and up and down.

Then we went into Elmo's Treehouse Trek, which was basically just a gigantic place for kids to run and climb and be crazy.

I only went on this bridge because Lily made me. I'm not doing that again.

I wanted to go on Air Grover, which was a little kiddie coaster. But Lily has to grow 6 more inches first. Boo.

Before we left, we stopped by a couple of the other character meet and greets, too. We saw Abby Cadabby, Zoey, Grover, and the Count.

And then there was the strategically placed gift shops near all entrances. We were shamefully close to getting a gigantic big bird for Lily.
But seriously, where would I put that thing?

Bacca came to town.

So I call him Dad, and Lily calls him Bacca. Either it's Spanish for "cow" or short for "Chewbacca," take your choice.

Either way, he came to Tampa and was all "I'm gonna take your husband and go off to a race, and then I'm going to give your daughter a strangle/choking hazard."

So I was all, "Well, you have your fun because you have projects to do when you get back."

First, they fixed toilets. Again.

Then they built a new swing for the yard.

Lily wanted to help.
We've discoverd that she might have a future in management. She didn't actually DO anything. She just liked to tell Khan how to do it. That's my girl.
She tested it out.

Ok, fine. We did some fun things, too. We went to the zoo and saw this guy. He was all, "wassup?"

Lily was all "huh? that doesn't look like the monkey on Elmo's World."

Then we saw these guys. Not cool, y'all.

Bacca took pictures with his fancy lens that he should give to me.

Lily showed me around the zoo.

This picture is just cute.

This one too.

Then we found the petting zoo and got to feed the goats.

Lily kinda sucks at feeding the goats. She kept dropping all the food.

But she wasn't scared.

We also went in to pet and brush the goats.

So anyway, Bacca was here and we saw some stuff and did some stuff. And now I have a swing, plants in the ground, lights that work, toilets that work, and a garage door that works.

Life is good.

Our fair weather.

This weekend it was almost as warm here as it is in Wisconsin. Almost.

So we decided to get out and enjoy our nice weather.

Khan tried to sweep and rake all the leaves.

Lily thought it was more fun to take them out of the bag.
Yup, it was a fun game.
After that chore was undone, we all walked to the park.

Lily brought Kiki in her stroller.

Kiki got out of the stroller for a bit.

Lily has certain rules that Daddy has to follow on the sidewalk.

First, he has to stand on that square thing on the sidewalk. No, I don't know what it is. But there are two of them. One that Daddy stands on, and one that Lily stands. Then they dance.
Then, they have to sit on the sidewalk and take their shoes off. And then they put their shoes back on.
And march.

Eventually, we made it to the park.

Lily got to go on the slide.

The only reason this picture is added is because it's cute.
Same with this one.
After the slides, we each got to sit on a mushroom. Lily sat on the little one, Khan was directed to sit on the medium one, and I had to sit on the big one. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

We saw the neighbor kid at the park. He wanted Lily to go down the slide with him. Lily wasn't so sure about that.

She was OK if Daddy went to. Please let that be a glimpse into the future.

The older kids liked to climb on top of the equipment.
Fortunately, Lily was happy just to wave to them.

I mean, I want her to be brave and all, but not as much as I want her to be cautious.