To a New Year!

Life has become a little bit crazy, so our weekends have been more for recovery than adventure as of late. But our recovery has been pretty great:

One of our good friends here has a lake in her back yard. Since it's Miami there are 50 neighbors all lined up along the lake to share it, but it still is very peaceful. She is kind enough to let us come use her kayaks to go out on the water.

They are pedal kayaks. That way I could pedal and drink my shake while I went :)

 It was also fun to pedal around the lake and snoop into all the backyards. This was during the day, so we were the only people on the whole lake! It was a lot of fun. Thanks Melissa!

This isn't a great picture, but it was a very large toad. It was night, and this jumped out right in front of me as I was walking to our apartment. It just kept jumping against our neighbors door. I realized I'm very glad we don't live on the bottom floor. That would scare me when I couldn't figure out who was knocking! Plus, I would probably open the door and it would jump inside... which would make for a comedic video for sure!

 I was recently put in as our ward's young women't president. One of the first activities was a youth fireside on the temple grounds. How beautiful huh?!? The Fort Lauderdale Temple is a little over thirty minutes from us, and will be dedicated May 5th. We are getting very excited to prepare the cultural temple celebration, and help out with the open houses. Some of our youth were lucky enough to get to go in and help clean on this day. (haha, yeah, that's rare for youth to feel lucky to get to clean. I guess that's just one of the temple blessings ;) )

Marc is the ward mission leader, and so we are lucky enough to get to know the people the missionaries are teaching. We've been able to see many baptisms in the last couple months, and have really enjoyed the Spirit at each one. We love having you in the ward Henry!

Sometimes Marc has to stay late at his store. I often stay awake working on projects until he gets home. However, this night I was so exhausted! I didn't even wake up when he took the picture. It looks like I have no legs, because I was sitting cross-legged when I leaned over and fell asleep!

Last topic, but lots of pictures! Our church changed from 3-6pm, to 9am-12pm with the new year. Suddenly we have all of Sunday afternoon free! We went home, ate, had a nap, and still had time for a quick drive to the Everglades National Park. We are getting further into the dry season, so the alligators are congregating more and more at this water. It's crazy to watch the alligators so close.

 Don't get confused on the left and think there are ANY hills in southern Florida. That would be wrong. There just happen to be some groves of trees that look a little like hills.

 This guy is a bit skinny. I think he's gotta be hungry!

Alligators everywhere, just sunning themselves in our 70-80 degree evening. 

 This is cool, because you can see the two alligators watching the water, and the two birds in the bushes watching the water. Just waiting for dinner! The area was very alive as the sun was setting.

Marc taking a picture of that bird.

This picture is cool, because you can see my screen. The picture I took is right below this. In my picture there is a bird. But in this picture, there is a splash in the water under my elbow. Marc took the picture right as the bird dove in after a fish. This is called Anhinga Trail, after the anhinga bird. They are known to be deep diving birds, and this one was showing us it's skill.

 And then the sun set... and we couldn't stop taking pictures!!

  This vulture flew onto this pavilion right next to my head. Then he walked right to the end staring me down. It was really a little unnerving. I couldn't take a picture for a little while, because I was sure he wanted to steal my phone. (If you remember from a previous post, the park has big tarps to put over cars, because the vultures like to tear up the rubber on cars- specifically around windows.) Marc got the picture of the bird landing.

 It was so peaceful- minus the vulture threatening attack.

Marc was practicing voice commands. He told his phone to "shoot" and my phone took this picture! I was just holding my phone in my hand when it heard his command and acted. 

Unfortunately the last pictures were difficult not to blur. Not only was it getting dark, but we didn't bring any mosquito repellent. Suddenly, in an instance, they came out with a vengeance! If we stopped walking for more than 10 seconds, we were SWARMED! It was terrible. And so ended our night!

Aaron and Lisa, we hope you guys are excited to come see all these alligators next week!!