DCC has a visitor’s center with this giant. His name is Gus and he is over 12 feet long. He didn’t want to leave the orange grove when they were trying to pick oranges years ago, so here he stays.
It was amazing to see all the different wildlife and landscape there. Even their cattle look different.
It was a fun trip, but I was happy to get home to the kids and my Sandhills isolation.
Saturday morning we traveled 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to the Orlando Temple. It was so nice not to have to travel nearly 6 hours to get to a temple and then Jason and I were able to go in together since we didn’t have any kids to worry about. It was a nice morning.
After attending the temple and lunch at another noisy restaurant, we headed east to the Space Coast. The boys would have loved it. We passed by the Astronaut and Space Museum, where this shuttle model was parked. And we also passed by the Kennedy Space Center where they were constructing an addition to house Atlantis.
We made our way south to Cocoa Beach and saw these huge cruise ships in port.
We stopped at the beach in Cocoa and Jason finally swam in the ocean. The water was way too rough for my likes and there were way too many people, so I enjoyed sitting on the beach collecting sea shells.
We stopped on the Banana River to take some pictures of the sunset.
We took Flat Stanley (he’s a school project) with us so he could be in a picture, and he blew into the river. Thankfully the water wasn’t very deep so Jason jumped in and saved him.
Jason and I went on a trip to Deseret Cattle & Citrus in Florida last week. Grandma Bagley and Aunt Wrestley (Leslie) were kind enough to come stay with our kids so we could go. We left Thursday afternoon and the flight from Alliance to Chadron to Denver was miserable. The little planes are so loud and rough and I was worried about being away from the kids; I was afraid it was just the beginning of a miserable trip. Thankfully as soon as we made it out to the ranch late that night my nerves had calmed.
DCC is comparable in acreage to Rex Ranch, but their stocking rate is so much higher because they have grass coming out their ears. It was amazing to see how different everything was down there. Friday we toured the ranch,
went into Melbourne for lunch and saw the beach.
And I thought the Columbia River was huge. This is the Indian River. I think I might consider this part of the ocean though.
Later that afternoon we went on an airboat ride. It was a little scary. They definitely need seatbelts. It was windy (for Florida) so when we got out onto the river we were hitting pretty big waves and I was holding on for dear life.
We saw a few alligators, but they’ve had so much rain lately that the banks on which the gators usually lay to sun themselves were covered in water, so we didn’t see near as many as they usually see. We did happen upon this dead gator. It was pretty gross.
The St. John’s River. It doesn’t look too rough, but believe me, it was.
That night we went into Melbourne for dinner with two couples from the ranch. It was a fun restaurant, but it was so loud. I thought it was just the type of restaurant, but Saturday night we went to a nicer restaurant and it was still just as loud. I wonder if that’s just the volume Floridians use.
We got to our house after dinner and found this in the kitchen. Creepy! This picture really doesn’t do it justice. It was huge. And it was so fast. It took probably 10 swats before Jason nailed it with the broom.
I love General Conference. I think it may be my two favorite times of the year.
Saturday after the afternoon session, Jason and the kids worked on their snow fort. The kids had built most of it on Friday so Jason just helped rebuild the melted parts.
Sunday in between sessions the kids flew their kites. Dallie was upset here because she had to share.
We couldn’t find the kite string, so Kache used yarn.
Most of the snow melted on Sunday (thankfully), so this was all that was left of the snow fort.
