Tuesday, August 10, 2010

a taste of florida

We have been in the not so sunny, kinda rainy sunshine state for over a month now. We have only started to taste all of what Florida has to offer. There are a lot of things here that are different than Utah. First, the humidity. You are instantly wet when you go outside, even when it's not raining. Then, there is the plant life. There are of course palm trees, but my favorite are the spanish moss and the royal poinciana trees. (pictured below)

The Spanish moss tree is just that, mossy. It grows these large bushels of moss until it is too big then falls to the ground. Lucy particularly likes to pick up the giant bundles of moss and carry them around with her. There are so many streets that are perfectly shaded and made so beautiful by these mossy trees.

I really love these. They seem like they should be somewhere like Hawaii or Bahamas, but lucky for Floridians they are here too. They are so pretty and every time I see one they bring me much joy.

The last thing that is totally different from Utah? the zoo. I don't mean the actual zoo, I mean the fact that I now live in a zoo. I am constantly stopping Lucy from chasing toads, lizards and chipmunks. I can't even tell you how happy I am that she hasn't noticed the gators and snakes yet. I really pray that she doesn't. I don't want to imagine what would happen if she tried to 'play' with a gator. Here is a video of the first time I saw the gators. Mind you they live NEXT to our apartment. Remember how everyone told me I wouldn't see a gator while I was here? I do. liars. Not only am I seeing them, but I am sharing a living space with them. oi.

*please forgive the out-of-breath-freaked-out-boiling-hot-cussing me. Also please note that the fence around the lake has a huge opening. So no, they are not fenced in.

2 comments:

Karina said...

Hi Aly, I'm Karina Hurst. We go to the same ward. Haven't met you yet 'cause we've been out of town for the last few weeks but Amanda sent me your e-mail, book club sounds fun! Where do you live? Those gators are waaaay to close for comfort!

MA said...

Oh that is hilarious! Those gators are huge. Definitely keep your dog away from there. We used to live by a pond that wasn't fenced in that had gators. Whoosh. Welcome to Florida:)