Safari!

We had the most exciting field trip this week with Ellie's school. We went to an animal park featuring an "Outback Safari Ride." The ride involves a rickety old school bus painted with zebra stripes and no glass in the large windows. Each child is given a box of stale matzoh bread and instructed not to eat it. (Yeah, right! Evidently these people don't know preschoolers, if you say "don't" they hear "do" - assuming they are listening to what you are saying at all.)

The bus rumbles along a slippery muddy path and enters a field where animals of all sorts roam free, and apparently peacefully together. As the bus pulls into the field the animals come running for their matzoh snack.

What an experience!

We saw huge bison, yaks, llamas, zebras, horses, emus, cows and bulls, and many other slightly less frightening animals. And they were ALL charging toward a wide open school bus full of three and four year olds.

The kids fed the matzoh to the animals directly, sweet juicy baby hands inside animal mouths. Being in that bus was like being in a popcorn popper - the kids were um, shall we say... spirited?

Here's when things were still tame. Ellie pet the baby zebra and lots of goats.

I like snacks


Hello

Things got really exciting when that big guy with the horns started shaking his head, sweeping those horns into the bus.

I was so glad Sadie was strapped to me!

I have very few face shots of Ellie she was very focused on the animals! (Who wouldn't be?)

I know!!
Sadie likes field trips!

Hello Sweet Pea

Sadie turned nine months old this week. Honestly, where does the time go??

Ellie loves playing soccer!

Smile!

Sunset

We love watching the sunset...

Walking onto the beach

Ok, that's the moon, not the sun

*sigh*

Girls on the Beach

Shell Collecting

The beach was covered in pretty shells. Ellie couldn't get enough of them. Literally. She really couldn't get enough. From the moment we stepped on the beach to the moment we left she'd be collecting them by the bucketful. If only we'd had a backhoe.

Eventually we were all in on the shell hunting...

Geology lesson

...and shell foraging into the night.
Check out the pelicans flying by. The bird watching in the area was spectacular.

Exploring the area

We actually did take a break from pools and beach to explore the area a little.

Deeeelicious!
Ice cream at the beach. Does it get any better?

Spring Breakers Relaxing

We loved the condo we rented. It had a pool and was next to the beach.

Here we are reading books

Mmmmm tasty! "Reading" is a relative term

Here we are relaxing

And of course dress up came down to Florida with us.
No vacation would be complete without a fairy.

Goggles

Ellie got some new goggles and they came EVERYWHERE with us.

Here's Sadie, wondering who this alien creature is

Doesn't she look like a big kid here?

Fabulous Swimming Pool

What a trip! We had a great time on our spring break. The drive down went well, the weather was perfect, the girls had fun, we all relaxed... aaaaah!

We arrived a day early (I know! What a great slip up!) and there was not a whole lot available on short notice during spring break season. We were lucky and got the last available room at a nearby hotel. It turned out to be a huge success. The hotel had not one but TWO pools, this one was very kid friendly, complete with a pirate's ship and various water features scattered around the pool. There also was a great restaurant in the hotel with bands playing at every meal. Ellie danced her heart away every meal. I wish I had photos, or better yet, video. But I was too busy just watching her in her element to catch it on film.

Yay! I love the pool!

We had snow!

This happened a couple weeks ago, but it was noteworthy enough to put the photos up after the fact. Down in these here parts, snow doesn't last long. Within a week the temps got up to 80 again. But for the short while we had white stuff on the ground, the girls enjoyed it!

Mostly Sadie didn't know what to make of all this white stuff...

But Ellie's got plenty of ideas on how to have fun out in it.

Making snow angels


And of course snowballs