Happy Birthday Kylie

Saturday we celebrated Kylie's birthday with her friends. She really enjoyed her family party back in Missouri, but she was really looking forward to her birthday party here in Florida because it was at Florida's Gulfarium.

We had Kaedyn's 5th birthday party here too, so Kylie knew it was coming. We try to do big parties for the milestone years. We consider 5 a milestone because it marks the age they get to go to school. It was bittersweet though because Rob had to miss both parties at Gulfarium. We missed him tons, but took lots of pictures to show him. He was there in spirit!

The first show we watched was the dolphin show. Here is Kaedyn and Kylie waiting for it to start.

The dolpins are my favorite

They do sereral tricks during the show. Here is one of them doing a jump.

Karen captured this picture of the dolphin going through the hoop. WOW!!
After the dolphin show we headed to the sea lion show. One of the benefits to having a party at Gulfarium is that you get reserved seating for all the shows. Our seats here were right up front!
Next, we went to see the sharks! They don't have a show for them, for obvious reasons, but they are really cool to just look at.
The last show was the multi-species show. This is a show with dolphins and sea lions. Here the dolphin is taking a fish out of the sea lions mouth. That was pretty cool to watch!

The BEST part about having your party at Gulfarium is that the birthday boy or girl gets to go up on stage after the multi-species show and pet a dolphin. I got to go up also to snap a photo. Kylie was so looking forward to this moment after seeing her brother do it 2 years ago.

After the show, Kylie's friend, Emma, wanted to pet a dolphin too. She had to settle for this one though. Sorry, Emma!
This is one of Kylie's friends, Savannah. Savannah will be moving in September, so we were so glad she was able to make it to the party. We will miss her and her family. They are some of our best friends.
Kylie had lots of good friends at her party. This is her friend, Mia, and her mom and sister. Jen, Mia's mom, is one of my best friends, so I am so glad that our kids get along! What beautiful girls, huh?
Another one of my best friends, Melissa, and her daughter Hayleigh, who is sooooo adorable

All of these pictures were taken in the Living Sea room at Gulfarium. We were the first birthday party to use this room, as it is a new set up for parties. It was really cool having the aquaruim in the background of all the pictures. The kids thought it was really cool too!

Kaedyn picked out a Littlest Pet Shop toy for Kylie. She really likes it.

Karen and Kylie posing with the fun things Karen bought her
My friend, Becky doesn't have kids, but she loves mine, so she came too. Kylie really loves this polka-dot shirt Becky wears, so she got her one of her own!
Gulfarium even provides the cake for your party. This time it was a Hershey's ice cream cake...yum!

I told you Kylie had lots of friends there! They all had so much fun. Thank you everyone for coming!

After the Gulfarium, Becky, Misty and her kids, Karen, and me and my kids all went to the Olive Garden. I wasn't really hungry since you get lunch at Gulfarium too, but I was excited to catch up with my friends I hadn't seen in a month. Misty told the hostess that it was Kylie's birthday, so they brought her out another cake! There was enough that we all got a piece. It was yummy too!

Here she is blowing out the candle.

After another lunch, Karen and I said goodbye and went to my house to relax a bit before heading to the beach. Karen was so excited to go to the beach and try to spot dolphins, so I took her to the one place I thought we might see some: the pier on Okaloosa Island at sunset.

Well, we didn't see any dolphins, but we did see a sea turtle!

And Kaedyn even got to get the mouth of a shark!

Okay, so they were fake! Karen was bummed about not seeing dolphins, but walking in the sand, I think, made up for it. She loves Florida and kept saying she wants to live here.

We let the kids play on Angler's play area for a while and then we walked down to the boardwalk play area.

Here is Kylie on the slide

Then, it was down to put our feet in the water. I think after this the kids were officially happy to be back in Florida! And me too! I love the beach!

What a fun Saturday we had!