We had a few days of a mini vacation to do some day trips with the family this weekend.
We started out with a camp out in our living room. (Maren has been begging for this since March. She was so excited!)
We spent a day visiting the zoo...
(Then on to the dentist for Maren to get a filling. She was a trooper, and very cooperative.)
And yesterday we visited a nature reserve in southern Louisiana.
Dave has wanted to do this since we moved here, I have been leery as there are lots of gators and well, I have a few small children. It turned out to be a lot of fun, we even got a great close up look of this guy (about a 10-12 foot gator I think, he was in the marsh right next to the parking lot.)
(We watched a guy try to egg this gator on feeding him some popcorn. Did you know alligators "hiss", it was weird to hear it that close up.)
We took a mile hike around the reserve. It was so hot. We felt like we were melting (it was 95 and 80% humidity).
Every time I took out the camera I had to clean the lens as it had fogged up from the humidity. But we did see lots of cool birds and turtles and Dave even got to hike down under a lookout tower to retrieve Maren's hat that blew off in the wind.
Maren showing off her tooth she lost this week.
And to cool off we took a dip in the oil filled ocean (actually their was no oil, although I was paranoid about it. This area is on the other side of the spill, and the gulf current protects a large amount of the LA coast from being affected, at least for now). The girls had a ball, it has been a while since we have enjoyed such great waves. 
Amanda after being smashed in the face with a good sized wave.
Maren would stand like this anticipating the waves, then jump over them.
And Jacob and Spencer loved the sand. (I keep failing to get good pictures of Spencer, as he is always moving.) Spencer is still afraid of the waves, but loved digging up a storm. And Jacob was happy as a clam with a shovel in both hands digging away.
Maren would stand like this anticipating the waves, then jump over them.
It was a good trip and fun to see this part of the deep south, and to show the kids some true LA marshland. Although it did leave me further saddened to think of all the devastation caused by this oil mess.
3 comments:
Great times. I love Maren's stance waiting for a wave to jump. I remember doing that forever with my older sisters.
Good for you for braving the Gators. I don't know how close you were to that 10-12 footer (hopefully you were using the zoom), but that would have freaked me out!
As our next stop is Florida, and all anyone has told me about it is how beautiful it is there, I'm a little sad to think that we will never get to see it, that by the time we get there it will be nothing but sludge covered beaches.
I'm glad you had a fun trip! The only alligators we ever saw were at the zoo. We weren't as adventurous :)
Post a Comment