Monday :) Aside from all of us needing some time to gear up on Monday morning, after "The Night of No Sleep", we had breakfast together, then got ready and got on the road (after a MUCH-needed stop at Starbucks for Mama) towards Miami for a really fun afternoon at the Gator Park. I was VERY nervous about taking Kendrick out much this day, considering how bad his cough sounded in the night (and was sounding on the way there while he slept), but after a stop at Walgreens to pick up a few supplies to help him out, he did great!
We took the "shortest route" which seemed like an eternity, but it was really fun to see the agricultural side of Florida, where they grow trees and corn and fruit and all sorts of other stuff.
Looks surprisingly like Minnesota, eh?
We stopped at a run-down barbecue joint that wasn't too far out of the way. It was pretty good overall, but Cashel was a hot mess and refused to eat anything. Some "kind" gentleman thought it'd be a great idea to try to convince him to eat by offering the boys ice cream sandwiches, so, of course, that just made matters a thousand times worse. Cashel turned into a slobbering mess and ended up knocking his food on the floor. Thankfully, though, that was the MOST stressful part of the day. The waitresses were really sweet and were all flirting with smiley man Kendrick :) The place was fun, though, and the atmosphere was fun too. This would have been a really fun place before we had kids to hang out on a Saturday night with the tiki hut and all.
After lunch, we headed just a few miles down the road to Gator Park. We decided to do the airboat tour, and it was SO FUN! The boys had to wear life jackets and headphones and I may be a tinge biased, but I think they are just the most adorable little boys I've ever seen :)
We saw a ton of gators, although I was surprised to see that the vast majority of the gators out there aren't really all that huge. they are maybe 3-6 feet from nose to tail. I always envisioned them being more like 8-10 feet long. In addition to gators, we also saw turtles and lots of birds.
This was our closest encounter while on the air boat tour. This mama was being very watchful over...
...her babies! Apparently only about 1 out of 60 gators make it to toddlerhood. The rest are eaten by turtles, other gators or birds, which would swallow a fairly good sized alligator WHOLE!
Both of the boys really loved the airboat tour, even if Kendrick was a tinge skeptical and got upset when we went really fast and were swinging around the Everglades.
After the air boat tour, we took in an alligator show. This picture cracks me up: It looks like Kendrick is consoling Cashel and telling him it'll be okay :)
After the show, I got the chance to hold a little alligator, and it was surprisingly really cool! Cashel touched it too just for a second. The skin felt so different than I thought it would. It really wasn't scary whatsoever. They had the mouth clamped shut, so it's not like it could have eaten me or anything.
In fairness, I'm fairly certain that the alligators had WAYYYY more to be worried about than Cashel did haha :)
I was able to get SO CLOSE to this peacock. I was kinda shocked that it didn't run off.
Kendrick was completely wiped out at this point, but it took Cashel a little longer.
On the way home, we stopped at a little fruit stand and picked up some fresh fruit for breakfasts the rest of the week.
One thing we didn't do much of was eating popcorn this trip, but this was the one night we did. I got a little tinge better at taking low-light photos with my new camera :)
Cashel also discovered the game Candy Land, and is in LOVE with it! I can't believe I have a child old enough to play games! And not only PLAY games, but legitimately BEAT us in them!
