Vacation Day 3 Part 1

Location: Merritt Island, National Wildlife Refuge

We decided that we needed a day out of the sun so instead of hitting the beach for the morning before we headed back into Orlando we went North to Titusville. This is where the National Wildlife Refuge is located. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and got some information for our sight-seeing and we were lucky enough to meet this sweet little guy.....okay maybe not sweet but pretty neat to hold an alligator's head in your lap. I love Alison's expression. It's as if she is pushing it away with one hand and only touching it with one finger on the other.

The guide at the Visitor's Center suggested we go to this specific boat dock to see dolphins-check!
and manatee's-check! It was super neat! There were lots of manatee's and they were being quite playful out in the water. There was just one lone dolphin swimming around.
The last part of our drive included BioLab Road where the guide said we were almost 100% sure to see an alligator-check!!! It's a bit hard to see in the picture below, it is mostly his head laying on top of the water. You can kinda see the back left leg also. We were pretty close to it, SCARY!!!
Finishing up our drive we did get to see the space shuttle on the launching pad but it was to far in the distance to get a good picture.

Stay tuned.....one of the funnest moments on the vacation coming soon!!!

Vacation Day 2

Location: Cocoa Beach Florida

Chris wanted to try his hand at surfing...he took a 2 hour lesson.

He loved it and was of course, a natural!

Here he is giving me the thumbs up, "I LOVE this!"

Alison and I spent our time during the surf lesson doing her favs:

wave jumping

sand castle building

sea-shell hunting

The surf instructor was nice enough to take Alison out with Chris

and let her ride some waves in with him, they both loved every second.

Back at the pool that afternoon we might have had a clothing malfunction:

At dinner that night we were near a marina that fishing excursions come into.

We saw LOTS of fish, this was one man's catch for the day and he was nice

enough to let us take some pictures...in Kitty's words this place smelled like:

cigarettes, stale beer, and sweaty men

lovely, hunh?!

Maybe one of the sweetest pictures I have ever taken:

and last but not least, the Bishop names in sand....Cocoa Beach 2011

Just a friendly little game of catch-up

Subject: Vacation 2011

Location: Florida

We started our vacation this year going to Cocoa Beach Florida. We had such a wonderful time. It is SO un-touristy (is that a word?!). We spent our first day playing on the beach all day. Alison had never been to the beach before. She loved every minute. From sand castles, sea-shell hunting, wave jumping, beach walking, and sand burying, we kept ourselves busy.

My two loves

Ta-Day...our sand castle!

Can't pass up a pre-fabricated photo-op can we?!

Thanks for taking such a great picture of us Alison!

Easter Twenty Eleven

We started our Easter weekend activities with an Easter egg hunt at Meme's and Papa's. The girls had plenty of eggs filled with candy and money. I thought this was the best photo, we had just done a posed picture sitting on the trailer and my dad grabbed the hose and pretended he was going to spray them....It was off to the park later that afternoon b/c it was so super nice outside! It amazes me how different Ali's physical capabilities are from one year to the next. Last year she could barely do this log roll and this year she can last a few minutes....

About the time we were headed to bed on Sat. evening my parents were headed to Easter vigil mass. They looked so nice......
Easter morning before church.......
and the official family photo, don't we clean up nicely :)

Please tell me.....

How does her smile go from so sweet and natural,

to so big and cheesy?????

***Please note the Easter Egg kit we used this year said 'Fun without the Mess'...well, I tend to disagree. After scrubbing red Easter Egg dye out of my carpet for 30min. and then using the multi-washing method to get it off our hands....I think not!!!!****