If you had spoken to us before we left for our trip and we told you what we were going to be doing in Florida, you most certainly would have heard about the mermaid show! Bracken has been super into mermaids for awhile now. Jeff and Bracken cut a mermaid tail out of cardboard awhile back, painted it green, and made a way for Bracken to attach it to his feet while he waddled around the room with it. I overheard him once praying for mermaids to come live in our pond (it’s not that big of a pond for a mermaid, I told him some faery-sized mermaids could fit.) One of his very favorite things to draw are mermaids and one day he told me how easy it was to become a mermaid, you just attach a fin. Easy!

Grandma Julie knew all of these things, so when she heard of a place in Florida with real-live mermaid shows, she put that at the top of our list. We drove across the state just to get to Weeki Wachee Springs for the mermaid show and it was definitely worth it. (Here is a fun video about the place.) One of my favorite parts of the show was not planned and took the mermaids a bit by surprise. A turtle was following the mermaids around wherever they swam and at one point they formed a circle and the turtle swam through it! That was nothing short of amazing to me. The crowd was cheering like crazy! There was a “scary witch part” that none of us enjoyed, but the rest made up for it.

Bracken got to meet a mermaid, bring her a mermaid drawing he made, take a picture with her, and feel her mermaid tail. He had one other wish besides seeing the mermaid show, and that was to see peacocks. Well, his wish came true and not only did he get to see peacocks, he even got to see an all-white (albino) one. We lucked out in getting to go on the boat ride there because it was so busy that day and we lucked out even more when we saw a manatee in the water!

So, that was how we spent our Valentine’s Day… with mermaids!