Okefenokee Swamp

While we were in Florida, we woke up early one morning to go to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia to go on a riverboat tour and see alligators! You might have guessed that I am obsessed with nature and animals, and this trip was pure eye candy. The whole drive there was through thick, green forests and occasional small towns that were made up of a baptist church and a mobile home or two.

As we drove up to the Okefenokee swamp, we spotted two alligators laying out on the grass. I was beyond excited to see them, and it just kept getting better and better from there on.

Before the river tour we walked around the park and saw a whole bunch of alligators in a pen.

We were so thankful for this sign because we totally thought that alligators were as sweet as kittens :)

We loaded the boat and were off on our river tour! The tour guide is the man behind Preston's mom and sister and he was the best! He had the best accent and was everything you would expect from someone who lives in the deep swamps of Georgia :)

The whole ride was so beautiful!

The water was complete glass. This is a reflection of the trees in the water.

This picture also shows how reflective the water was.

Lily pads!

Halfway through the tour we got to get out and walk out to this tower and (after climbing a million stairs) get a great view over the tops of the trees.

Coming up on a huge alligator out sunbathing! I was a bit shaky when we got right up close especially since the tour guide said the alligators can jump up to six feet! (and it was mating season so they were more aggressive!)

This gator was right up by the parked cars. Hopefully the people going to their car saw him! Also the tour guide said that sometimes the alligators crawl underneath people's cars, that would be a tad bit scary...

Notice the alligator behind us in all these pictures? Well like 2 seconds after we finished posing with him another gator came out of the water and started chasing him! We ran after them to see if they would fight but I guess he just wanted to chase him away from that part of the swamp

These things are creepy when they're running on the land!

Safe and sound in his own pond :)

Florida 2013

We took the most wonderful trip to Florida about two weeks ago with Preston's family. We went to northern Florida, Amelia Island, and stayed in a house on the golf course with the white sand, tall grass beach just minutes away. Everything was just perfect.

Basically it seems like a "blogging faux pas" to post tons of pictures, and a double whammy to write a vacation post, but I'm totally breaking both and I encourage everyone else to do so too because I loooove pictures and also love hearing about people's trips :)

So here's my overload of vacation pictures:

P.S. in case you don't get to the bottom I'll post this up here :)
Good news: I got an internship in NYC this summer doing advertising at Union Square Media!!!! So that means that Preston and I will both be busy bees this summer, and it also means that I will officially graduate from BYU in August!!! Woohoo!

                                                                                                                                                             

A lot of our pictures were taken when we would go to dinner in the evenings in downtown Fernandina Beach. It's this super quaint, cute town with lots of great restaurants! The Phillips family loves eating (not in like an obese way) so we went to a fantastic restaurant every night.

Eating on the pier

The whole group

My adorable niece, Sophie

I only have a couple of beach pictures. The little girl in the second picture is just a random girl that I became friends with and we sat in the warm pockets of ocean water and chatted for quite a while!

On Sunday we went to church there and fell in love with the ward and the fact that the church's backyard looks like this. We totally want to live there someday.

love the spanish moss

After church, Preston's mom's cousin and his family came to have dinner with us. They have four kids who are all named after different destinations like Cayman, Staten.. I can't remember the others right now. But their parents take them to their place when they turn 12. I thought that sounded pretty cool. Also they have the BEST christmas cards I have ever seen! I would post one on here but that might be weird since I hardly know them :)

Not really a great picture of anyone but oh well :)
Oh also this is our backyard- I loved opening the curtains every morning!

On Monday we took a little road trip down to St. Augustine, the oldest city still in existence in America. I thought everything on the main street was so beautiful. It kinda felt like Europe to me (even though I've never been there ha)

Preston and his dad went golfing every day, and I went out with them once to see the beautiful golf course.

The last night we were there we stopped at the beach to get a few pictures of it, but it was so super windy! It's seriously like a Nicholas Sparks book/movie there, it's pretty dreamy.

I want that blue beach house soo bad!

And of course we went to dinner in Fernandina Beach our last night. It started to get stormy the day we left so we were pretty happy that we came when we did!

She's the cutest

Missing Cass already (she left on her mission the other day)

And that's pretty much everything! Except we went to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia one day and saw lots of alligators but I'm making a whole other blog post for that!

Have a great weekend!