Alligators!!!

Alligators... I never ever thought that I would just be walking along a path and look out to my left and see a 5 foot 'gator... Guess what people?! I did just that Monday afternoon! The days and nights are getting cooler around here and its almost too cold in the water at the beach or the pool (especially for my cold natured self lol) So instead of doing our usual beach outing we rode up the beach to Barefoot Landing. It is an awesome place where there are a lot of shops, different vendors for delicious food and its all situated on lake, with several piers connecting you to each side of the lake. So we are busy walking along one side of the lake looking at the ducks very innocently when all of a sudden Noah and Abigail and spazzing, I mean seriously freaking out over something way cool. Leave it to my silly kids to have a coronary over an alligator. Yes you have read that right, 10-12 feet away from me and my little crew of kids was an alligator. It was a small one, probably 5 feet or so. Noah kept wanting to go pet it. I kept telling him that he could go pet it, but if he came back missing a hand or a foot, I wasn't going to help him LOL And if that wasn't exciting enough, as we were walking on one of the piers there was another alligator in the lake, floating along. All you could see was his eyes and nose and top of his head. Scott said he looked to be about 7 or so feet long. That was enough for me to keep a closer eye on the older kids and tighter grip on the younger kids.
BUT.... as not cool as it was for me, it did turn into a great learning lesson. They got to 'gators in their natural environment (as compared to a zoo). We had an awesome discussion on the way home from there, which involved the other animals we saw there. Those were turtles, fish (carp, koi, and brim), seagulls and pelicans.
Then later on that night, Scott and I were sitting outside and we saw a mama raccoon and her two babies sneak up and attack our trash can. Needless to say even though we are in a big ole city, we feel like we are in the backwoods with all the animals around us. I do enjoy every minute of it, because I am a huge animal lover (although I prefer furry ones to scaley ones lol) and the kids love animals to, so it is always fun to watch them as they see these different animals.
As for the alligator, yes I did get pictures, I just have to get them uploaded. I am hoping to do that this weekend, but things have been so crazy around here the past couple of days that I haven't had the time to focus on the blog. Which I really need to get back into the habit of doing!!!