Manatees & Kayaks

My mom & dad came in for a quick visit over the past weekend.  We were excited to greet them with beautiful weather in the sunshine state & decided to spend Saturday outside.  Blue Spring State Park was our location of choice since we heard the manatees were all over the place. The plan was to pack a picnic lunch, enjoy some walking, eat & head out on the kayaks.

The Ellis family LOVES being outside. My growing up years consisted of lots of camping in Texas State Parks & various trips outside of the state. We even pulled our pop up camper all the way to Orlando to camp at Disney World one spring break.  I bet if we lived close to my parents & brothers we would do a bit of camping together. During the kayaking portion this visit at Blue Spring I was having flashbacks to being on a canoe with our family & watching our dog jump out of the canoe into the water.  I was trying to imagine taking Bennett & Bella out with us ; )

Robby did some fishing by himself around this time of the year before & not only saw manatees but had his kayak bumped while he was on the water! The rest of us had only seen manatees swimming around in tanks at Sea World which is neat but seeing them in their natural habitat was amazing.  There were so many & they were all different sizes.  The girls loved when they would raise their nose/snout out of the water to make a funny noise which I think was just breathing or blowing some water out. We walked all the way to the head of the spring & saw all sorts of activity including a baby with it's mama.  Some were splashing around like they were playing & others were just swimming along slowly.  It was difficult to get clear pictures of them at the angle we were at but you can see a few in the photo below...

The little ladies were so happy to have Grandpa & Grandma along with us for many reasons including shoulders to ride on, binoculars to look through & having the extra attention from two people who love them so very much. We enjoyed having four more hands around to manage our busy girls....we hope they want to spend lots of time with us come spring as it's only getting busier at the Valentine Nest!

Eloise was happy to see leaves on the path & collected many along the way while Gaga walked along with her.

Charlotte had a hard time looking through the binoculars that Paw Paw brought along but I think she got the hang of it by the end of our walk.  Take note of the large amount of bracelets on her wrists....little fashion queen ; )

Elo also spent some time on her favorite guy in town.  She thought she would feel more safe if she hooked her fingers in his nostrils.

The boys & I are growing a little more each day....

Our last kayaking trip was almost 2 years ago to the day. Char was just about Elo's age & Elo was in utero. It was fairly simple with one child to manage. This time around, we took our two kayaks & then my parents rented a canoe so we could all go out on the water together. I was SO thankful that they had a larger sturdier boat we could pass Eloise into when she got restless in my kayak & tried to jump overboard. Here we are before loading up.  Eloise climbed right in & got all comfy in the seat in Daddy's kayak. 

Here are the riding buddies....

Rob had it fairly easy once he told the three year old Diego wannabe that they were on a "turtle hunt." They did a lot of paddling along the side so they could get up close to each & every turtle along the way. I did more paddling up to the side of the canoe to trade off the squirmy one year old. I also did quite a bit of singing "Row Row Row your boat" to entertain her. Eloise actually started singing it on her own after awhile.  My Dad was a trooper & did nearly all the paddling once Eloise was a permanent rider in my Mom's lap. Here we are scooted up next to each other.

a little half smile once she was snuggled up with one of her favorite Grandmas

Oh yeah, it was nap time so that definitely contributed to the irritation level

I must say I enjoyed that Gaga was willing to keep Eloise happy while I had some alone time.  This is my favorite way to spend time in a kayak...

Beautiful day & wonderful company as we enjoyed the great outdoors.  I hope we can make one more kayaking trip happen before I get too much further along in this pregnancy because I can assure you that it might be years by the time we do that as a family again ; )