Everglades Holiday Park

While mom was here at the beginning of September we did a lot of cleaning, unpacking, and shopping, but we were able to fit in a couple adventures as well.  One of the things on both our bucket lists was taking an air boat ride through the Everglades.  It felt only fitting for our first adventure to be specific to Florida...hanging out with gators!

The Everglades Holiday Park is located in Broward County and is called the "Gateway to the Everglades."  It's a 29-acre park and offers an air boat ride, gator wrestling show courtesy of the Gator Boys, boat docks and ramps, places for fishing, and even campgrounds, although who would want to camp in gator central is beyond me.

Call me childish, but I thought the wording in these signs were quite humorous.  I mean seriously, not a good enough reason to use the word molest!

When we arrived at the park, we immediately bought our tickets for the air boat ride and were very happy that even Daxton could go on it.  I had researched several different spots for air boat rides and all of them had said riders had to be at least 4 years in age.  I think the main difference is that these air boats had a roof covering instead of completely open.

 Daxton had to wear an annoying life vest which he wasn't a fan of, but he was just happy to sit on daddy's lap.  I love how serious he can be at times!

 

Daxton was pretty excited when we started to move, but none of us realized how loud an air boat's motor was going to be.  Dallas immediately put Daxton on the seat next to him so he could use both hands to cover Daxton's ears.  After a few minutes we noticed that Daxton's eyes were starting to close.  The vibration and noise of the air boat put him right to sleep.  Thank heavens Dallas was there to hold him for the entire hour tour through the Everglades!  His arms were burning by the end.

At one point our guide stopped among the plants and within minutes the most beautiful birds had jumped on board.  They sat right next to me as the guide fed them pieces of popcorn.  It was pretty awesome and they were absolutely gorgeous!  I wish I remembered the name of them.

The Everglades did not disappoint.

I was in awe of the amazingly beautiful scenery.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from our air boat tour...

Our first alligator sighting!

Family pictures after our first air boat ride (Daxton had just woken from his nap, so don't mind his stink eye.)

After the air boat ride, our group went to the gator wrestling show.  The gator wrestling is put on by the "Gator Boys" from the TV show on Animal Planet called none other than the "Gator Boys."  The day we went Ashley was the one in charge of wrestling.  I have to admit that I was quite impressed with her.  She's tiny, maybe a little over 5 feet, and to watch her handle a gator was pretty cool.

After the gator wrestling show, they brought out a baby gator for everyone to touch and take pictures with if they wanted.  It was so much fun to see how excited Daxton got while feeling the baby gator.  He kept reaching out to hold the gator's hand.

It was such a hot and humid day that we were dripping sweat by the end of our adventure.  It was all we could do to sit in the shade and wait for Dallas to bring back water for us!  It has been fun seeing Daxton's curls come through with all the humidity though.

We couldn't leave before tasting their famous Gator bites.  They were deep fried, so they tasted pretty much like a chicken nugget, just a little tougher to chew.

Driving home from the Everglades Holiday Park, we were able to get a good look at the new temple in Westin.  It's so exciting to know that a temple will be only about 20 minutes away from us when it opens in January.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, even if we did melt in the process!

Our New Home

It is going to take us some time to feel like we have truly "moved" into our home, so as things get up on the walls, bookcases are in place, and decorations are beautifully displayed, I will take more pictures of the inside of our home.  For now I will simply give highlights from our first couple weeks in our new home (the first couple weeks of September.)

Our first sunset looking out on our backyard, pond, and neighborhood.  I am totally in love with our large palm tree in the backyard and fully plan on draping it with Christmas lights come December...Dallas will be the one climbing it :)

We moved in right at the beginning of the rainy season and holy cow it pours here!  With any tropical climate, the rainstorms don't usually last a long time.  But when it rains, it pours!  The storms last about 5-10 minutes and the warm rain pounds down in a deluge.  I couldn't help but bring Daxton outside to dance in our first tropical rainstorm the day we arrived.  Now every time it starts to rain, Daxton tries to get outside to continue on our tradition.  He's such a sweetheart!

Within the short storm, the amount of water dropped is crazy.  It quickly floods the lawn and streets.  We noticed, that first rainstorm, that several frogs like to congregate on our front walkway trying to escape the flooding lawn.  We had a blast watching them hop around through the window.

There are several playgrounds in our little neighborhood, so while mom and I were unpacking Dallas took Daxton around to explore the area.  Most or the playgrounds have sand in them instead of wood chips that rot easily from all the moisture.

While my mom was visiting, she not only spoiled us, but Daxton as well.  She got him a perfect chair, just his size that he immediately fell in love with...

And all sorts of fun toys to add to the playroom.

Mom was in town for our first Sunday together as a family.  I was so glad she could get a quick picture of our sweaty family.  Our ward is extremely diverse.  It's 1/3 Creole, 1/3 Latin, and then 1/3 white.  Everyone has been so welcoming and within a week of us arriving we were asked to serve in the Young Women and Young Men's presidencies.  Daxton will be joining the nursery, which makes me cry every time I think about it.  I have no clue how he has grown so quickly!

After church we showed mom around Fort Lauderdale.  We loved putting our toes in the Atlantic and watching the waves.  Since it was Sunday we didn't swim or bring extra clothes for Daxton...thus his lack of clothes when he wanted to play in the sand.

My mom and I

Can't even put into words how much I love and appreciate her and all she has done and continues to do for us.

These next few pictures were taken the week after mom left.

Daxton and I needed to be housebound for the majority of the week due to different furniture and package deliveries.  I was so glad that he had more than enough to occupy him throughout those days.  He watched Yo Gabba Gabba while lounging in his new chair, rode loudly through the house on his new Mickey car (courtesy of grandma as well) and played with all sorts of toys and kitchen items.

 Some of the different rooms Daxton has claimed as his own...

Top left: the all windowed playroom.  Top right: the living room.  And Bottom: his bedroom.  We both LOVE the organization skills of grandma for Daxton's closet!  So many books!

My favorite room of the house is the kitchen.  I feel so grown up to have an actual cooking area instead of the dirty closet we had at our old apartment in California!  I am also madly in love with our new dining room set.  The distressed wood, leather padded chairs, extra leaves to extend the table, seating for eight...I love it!

My other favorite addition to our home...this gorgeous carpet from West Elm.  I've been a bit crazy about no shoes and no food anywhere near it.

Our neighborhood is absolutely gorgeous with several different ponds that run throughout.  There are hundreds of different birds that have made residence in the area which Daxton loves to watch.  They definitely have the right away and don't seemed phased with making cars wait for them to cross the road.

The bottom left picture is a view of the back of our house.

Daxton is in heaven and loves going on walks to explore all the different areas around our home.

He also has a new found love...fruit snacks!

This is how happy he gets whenever he is given them.

It's been so nice getting to know some of the members in our new ward.  Within the first week, I met the most amazingly sweet girl who has three kids.  We met up at one of the local parks for Daxton's first play date.  Her littlest boy is only a few months older than Daxton and they immediately hit it off together.  I can see many more play dates in our future! 

It seemed only fitting that our first big dinner party be for the missionaries.  Our stake is the highest baptizing stake in the US, which is pretty amazing.  There are several sets of missionaries, three of which are in our ward.  It's going to be a big responsibility being a member in a ward that demands so much help with reactivating and retaining new members, but we are excited about the opportunity to serve here and know that we have much to learn!

Overall our move has been successful.  It'll still be awhile before I feel totally at home with everything, but we couldn't feel more blessed and excited about this new adventure!