Thursday, June 28, 2012

Boys in a Boat

Our next activity at Cypress Gardens after the butter fly house was the swamp boat adventure!  With Nana in the very middle - the middle seat of the middle bench - making sure no one went overboard and Mama in the back paddling, we made our way among the bald cypress trees across the black water of the swamp.  Since I was paddling there aren't too many pics, but here's a few:
Danny was great at spotting the white arrows that marked the path 
- can you spot one on a tree above?
 Benji, Nana & Danny really seemed to enjoy the ride.

  
And here is a difference between my boys in two pictures: Benji, above, spent almost the entire trip hanging over the side of the boat with Nana firmly holding the on to some part of him or his clothing and with his hands splashing in the water.  Danny sat upright, just about as close to Nana as he could get - I think he was a little worried about the potential for meeting up with an alligator.

We did spot a white egret, an osprey, a few turtles and a rather large alligator - however, he was at such a distance that the kids couldn't really see him among the lilly pads. Paddling under bridges was also a lot of fun:

Next up: alligators!





Monday, June 25, 2012

In the Butterfly House

One of the things that we did while at Nana's house in South Carolina this past weekend was visit Cypress Gardens, which was a beautiful place and super fun for the kids.  Our first stop there was the Butterfly House.  Benji was a little impatient to get to the "atta-fy house!!!" as you can see by the pained expression on his face as he is made to pause for this picture on the way to the entrance:
The butterflies inside were very beautiful indeed:


 Oh, and there were fascinating bees, too:

Stay tuned for another post...there was much more to see there!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

He's a Kindergartner Now!

Today was Danny's last day of PreK.  He is very excited to go to Kindergarten next year, but we'll definitely miss his great teachers, Profe Ilcia and Profe Gris.

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Birthday Recap

Clearly it was a very wonderful 5th birthday for Danny!
(and yes, that was a baby praying mantis sitting on his birthday candle at the breakfast table)