A month or so ago, LiLi and I went to Connecticut to meet Aunt Christine and Lila for a big girls day out for LiLi’s birthday. LiLi chose to go to the aquarium when asked whether she wanted to go to an aquarium or the children’s museum that was not the dragon(our Children’s museum). A good time was had by all. LiLi’s favorite part was the frog exhibit. There were all sorts of frogs and salamaders but by far everyone’s (except maybe Lila) favorite was the ugly frog. This frog kind of looked like a smushed version of Jabba the Hut or Rush Limbaugh. Take your pick. For a month after going to the aquarium, LiLi would say to me every morning, “We went aquarium, saw ugly frog.” I would ask why the frog was ugly and she would reply “someone mushed him.” I don’t know why but that remark said by my 3 year old always made me laugh. Anyhow, here are some pictures from the aquarium.

Trying on the turtle’s shell

Aunt Christine helps

Lila trying on the turtle’s shell

Trying out different sea creatures

And another one

And another one

One more try. LiLi has grown suddenly

LiLi, Thom and I flew in and out of Miami therefore on Monday we headed back to Miami to spend the night and fly out the next morning. We had taken rte 41 on the way there and it took us forever to get out of Miami so we decided we would head back on Rte 75 but after being on the road for about 30 minutes, I realized that Thom was not going to make it all the away across without losing his mind so we decided to take the cut down to Rte 41. Driving along this road, we saw a bunch of people on the left side of the road looking over a walking bridge. Of course, our over exhausted LiLi was napping but when we stopped the car just for one of us to go and check it out, she immediately woke up and we found a river with a whole bunch of alligators hanging out. According to the ranger, they were alligators around 5-6 years of age so they were not fully grown. This ranger told us about this gravel/dirt loop road off of 41 which “looped” back onto the road around everglade national park and how there were a lot of alligators. We decided to give it a try since our 3 year old has a fascination with alligators and other wildlife. Well, at the first stop where we had been told there would be alligators, Thom pulled over to the side of the road and I peeked out of my window to see 2 alligators sitting about 4 feet away on the bank. Needless to say, we did not get out of the car at that point although LiLi was very happy to look at them out the window. Well, we continued along this road stopping frequently to look at the wildlife either getting out of the car and walking around or looking out the window. We saw so many alligators that we became blase about them, we also saw 2 snakes(one in the water and one on the road), a barred owl, a spoonbill, many other birds, 2 turtles and many fish in the water because the level was low enough that you could see them.
LiLi seemed to enjoy this trip very much. She was sitting in her car seat talking about what she had seen and she announced “this is fun, I love this” and you know we did, too. We highly recommend this trip although everyone seemed quite amazed that the road was not wet although the rain level is extremely low right now so maybe the road is often really difficult to drive on.

Alligator on side of road(taken from inside the car

Another alligator on the side of the road

Alligator tail

Some type of bird(I do not know what kind but he looks great)

Barred owl

Crane and alligator

Florida soft shelled turtle

po
Red bellied turtle

Spoonbill

LiLi discovered how much she loved to swim this visit. She loved going swimming whether in the ocean or in the pool. Of course, she is fine with her face getting wet when she is in the pool but still does not love it when her hair is washed although I have to admit that she has gotten much better. Anyhow, her are some pictures of LiLi in the water.

Swimming with Aunt Anne at the beach

Playing in the water with Daddy.

LiLi also enjoyed reading the comics with Poppie

LiLi enjoyed her Easter Day although she did not realize it was Easter when she first woke up. She went about her business until Mommy pointed out that she might want to look over at the table where she had left the carrots the night before and see if there was anything there. Sure enough, she found a bucket filled with “toys and candy” from “Mr Rabbit and Mr Bunny”(I am not sure how she came up with these names for the Easter Bunny. Well, she enjoyed finding toys and then was overjoyed to discover that there were plastic eggs filled with different types of candy. She think she loves candy but really she enjoyed unwrapping the candy not actually eating it but she wanted open all the eggs. After that she went and found the dyed eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden one for her and one for everyone else and then she gave one to everyone and we ate breakfast. While eating breakfast out by the pool, she noticed that there were some more plastic eggs so she had to go and see what she could find. This lasted for about 5 minutes before she lost interest but by that time she had at least fifteen eggs. She was quite generous with them and put one at each seat when we set the table for dinner.
Aunt Anne, Gom, Captain E and Anna P came over for Easter dinner bearing with them more gifts so LiLi decided it was quite a good day. She had a lot of attention, new toys and candy.

Easter Bunny Poppie

Easter morning

Easter basket discoveries

LiLi and Aunt Anne on Easter Day