Visiting the Manatees for the First Time -

We are incredibly lucky to live in Florida especially this time of year. We can enjoy the sunshine in January and February without freezing or scorching temps. Even though we are moving back to the Midwest (hopefully within the next year!), we want to take advantage of everything that we can while we are living here in FL. We especially want to do this for Coop. We want him to experience as much as possible down here (Disney aside – more on why in an upcoming post).

So far he has been do the beach, on a boat tour of the Gulf, the Glazer Children’s Museum, the pool, and many other things since we have been in FL. Because he is 1 now, we plan to take him to other experiences since he can really notice and pay attention to what is around him. And, we decided to start with seeing the manatees!

The town next to us is right off of the bay and has a Manatee Viewing Center that is free to the public. This is such a great deal for any families that are looking for something to do that is free (even parking is free!) and gives your kids the space to burn off energy. The Manatee Viewing Center has a deck that looks out over the water and, if you are lucky, you will see an aggregation of manatees. It is best to see them when the waters are cooler because that is when they like to swim inward to even cooler waters. You can also see schools of fish in the water as well. The manatees will swim under the deck and some will even come up and blow bubbles. It is really fun to show the kiddos.

The Manatee Viewing Center also has a stingray encounter where you can learn about and touch the stingrays. Coop is still a bit young for that, so we just watched other visitors with the stingrays from a higher deck. There is also a gift shop, cafe, and a play area with sand for kiddos to make castles or whatever they would like! They have also built some nature paths throughout the area to their Energy Conservation Center so it is a great place to get some fresh air, walk around in nature, and see some cool aquatic animals!

Hubby had the day off yesterday when we went and it was a great day. We spent some quality time together just the three of us and Cooper loved to see the fish, manatees, and stingrays. He also loved all of the manatee statues that were along the path to the center. He is growing and learning so fast! It really was a great way for us to spend a beautiful Friday morning. #coopsadventures