THE EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

We took the kids the the Everglades National Park a while ago and here are the pics from the day. On the way there Kyler couldn't stop talking about the alligators. My Dad loves to tell the kids stories about when we wrestled an alligator, so on the way Kyler asked Erick if he would wrestled an alligator like Grandpa did. Since we knew we would actually see some alligators, we told Kyler that the rangers wouldn't let you wrestled them in the park.
It was really fun to see all the alligators, birds and turtles. We didn't have any cross the road in front of us (this is a common thing to see apparently) but we were really close to them in the water. There were a few moving around but mostly they just sit there in the water. It was a really fun day!
This is the board walk that goes all around the water so you can get a good look at the alligators.



While we were walking, we heard the loudest snap ever. We came around a few bushes and saw this one in the water, I am sure we just missed him getting his lunch.




Here is one of the turtles we saw. There were a lot in the water, but this was the most active one.

Our next move

I have not been great at keeping everyone updated on our next move, so for those who don't already know.....
We are moving to Atlanta, Georgia on June 16th. Erick will finish a rotation here in Miami on the 4th of June and he starts his first rotation in Atlanta on the 21st. Bryn gets out of school on the 9th, so we didn't want to leave before she finished, and we need to get this baby here before we head out as well.
We have found a place to live and we are very excited about it. It is a townhome in a gated community. The area is beautiful, are we will only be about 15-20 minutes from downtown Atlanta(depending on traffic). The freeway is about 2 minutes, so it will be an easy commute for Erick.
We are really excited to get there and get settled since this will be our last move until residency. Yes, that is correct, Erick has ALL his rotations scheduled from June 21st until he finishes and applies for residency. We will be there for about 2 years unless we are lucky enough to land a residency there as well!
Here is a pic of the townhome we found, I don't have any inside pics because there were people still living in the home when we saw it, I will post more when we get there! It has 3 Bedrooms, so Bryn is VERY excited to have her own room. Anyway, stay posted for more pics once we get settled.

What a way to end an a wonderful anniversary........

Tuesday was our anniversary and luckily Erick had the day off, so we decided to go to the beach. We had everything ready to go and picked Bryn up from school and headed out. There were not very many people there, so we had the beach mostly to ourselves. It was such a fun day. When the kids were tired of the water we went up to the picnic area, they have grills up there you can use. So we, as Kyler says, "burned some hotdogs" I think he just really likes the whole fire thing, so he calls it burning them! Anyway, we had dinner and then headed back to the car. Erick got there first and I heard him yell, "your purse is gone." When we got to the beach, I had covered it under everything we had in the back of the car trying to keep it out of sight. But apparently I had not done a good enough job, or it was obvious it was there. The back window was broken out and my purse was gone. Three other cars in the parking lot had busted out windows as well. I love that there are people who don't have anything better to do than that! It took the police about an hour to get there and then we filled out all the forms and papers and drove home with glass all over and the wind about blowing out our ear drums.

Jack Sparrow AKA Kyler

After we went to Disney World, Kyler has been obsesses with Jack Sparrow. He always has his sword with him that he got at Disney and is fighting all the bad guys. Then one day, we opened a tote that had some of Erick's things in from when he was little. One of the items was the vest Kyler is wearing. Erick used to wear this all the time as a kid, and Kyler immediately took it over and added it to his pirate get-up!! He gets so sweaty when he gets all his gear on, but he is not ready until it is ALL on.

Miami Metro Zoo

The Miami Metro Zoo is HUGE! We have been about 4 times and still haven't seen the whole thing yet. The kids love to see all the animals, and play in the water. Kyler was a little unsure of the alligator at first, but he really wanted to wrestle it like Grandpa!
Here is the real alligator. These were the babies, I haven't gotten a picture of the big ones yet.
They have little bike cars you can rent for 2 hours, so we decided to get one and see as much of the zoo as we could. It was really fun to peddle around on it.


When we were in the Amazon, they had a snake out that you could pet, I couldn't believe Bryn did it, but she was more brave than Kyler was. He was so fast I couldn't get a picture of it :)
The stingrays.



These were called Caribbean Flamingos. You can't really tell, but they were the brightest color I had ever seen. They were really pretty.

Disney World

Our way to Miami, we stopped in Orlando and spent a day at Disney World. My parents helped us out with the tickets to the park and with the hotels on the way down which made it possible to take the kids and spend the day! We can't thank you enough Mom and Dad, we had so much fun and really enjoyed the break from driving!
The kids talked the whole trip about how they needed to get a picture with Mickey and Minnie to show Grandma and Grandpa- so here it is.....
This is the kids in Pixie Hollow waiting to see the fairies. It was so cute, they had everything painted huge to make you feel really small.



Rosetta gave Kyler a kiss as we were leaving, so I had to get a picture before he "rubbed it in"It was so fun to get pictures with so many characters, and the autographs are also VERY important!















This is when we were waiting for the parade to start. We had a seat looking right into the sun, but it was perfect seats once the parade started. Both Bryn and Kyler waved at everyone as they passed by.




Aladdin's magic carpet ride was one of their favorites. It held 4 people per carpet, but only the front seat could control if the carpet went up or down. So we rode it a few times to make sure everyone got a chance to control.

This is Bryn "sewing" in Minnie's house.
After Pirates of the Caribbean, Kyler picked a Jack Sparrow sword for his souvenir. He was entertained the rest of the day. While we were waiting to see some more characters he found this wall to jump off and "fight the bad guys". I managed to get one picture that wasn't too blurry.
This was another fun roller coaster that they really liked riding. It was a little more calm that The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad that we took them on earlier.

Driving on these cars was the last ride we made it on before the fire works started. They LOVED this ride. Erick rode with Bryn and I was with Kyler. They both laughed the whole time and was so busy looking at each other, it was a really good thing it was on a track!!

My pics of the fireworks didn't turn out, but they were amazing.
We had a wonderful day! Both kids were asleep before we got all the way out of the park. They keep asking if we can go back some time. I think I am looking forward to going again as much as they are!