And yet more vacation...

Can you believe we aren't homesick yet?!? I usually start wishing I was home about 2 days into a trip, but that hasn't been the case at all. I guess because I'm older and have my hubby and my kiddos with me, this IS home. Doesn't really matter if we're at our house or not. Sierra hasn't said once that she wants to go home, but she has briefly mentioned that she misses the dog and Holly and Brooke (her friends).

All that driving to get to Pensacola gave us the time to play at the beach one last time. I will say it is a very very commercialized beach, but it was TOTALLY right up the girl's alley. The sand there is pure white and the water is completely clear. There are only teeny tiny waves, so they were able to actually play in the water, look down and see fish swimming by and look at hermit crabs. There's also a sandbar quite a ways out so we carried them out there and then they could be away from the shore, but standing up and "swimming" on their own. Sedona is definitely our beach bum girl. She LOVES the water and waves now and is completely fearless. She's also gotten VERY tan, much more so than the rest of us. We've slathered everyone in 50spf sunscreen everyday, but Sedona has some serious tanlines. Her already blond hair has sun bleached white streaks and looks really cute when it's all curly from the salt water. Plus, we found out yesterday that she loves shrimp. We got a plate of popcorn shrimp as an appetizer---Sierra cried (literally), Sedona ate at least half the plate. Maybe she'll teach us to surf one day ;-) Pictures from the beach:






Now we are in New Orleans. We got in last night and grabbed a bite to eat, then walked down to Cafe du Monde for some beignets to go. When we got them out for the girls, there was perfect silence while they chowed down. Sierra was not happy we didn't let them finish off all the extra powdered sugar. On our walk, we passed this Holocaust memorial. It was really neat, just a set of panels set up like big dominoes, but as you walked around, they lined up to give you different images:







This morning we went to the aquarium. Sedona loved it. Sierra mostly moped and complained. ah well! This is the dinosaur robot outside. It was really neat, the eyes moved and the head and jaws moved as it roared at you. The girls were terrified of it though. Josh zoomed in all the way on the picture of me with it---that's as close as the girls would get.


Inside the aquarium:


That very large snake body is an anaconda:
Sierra was scared:

Feeding time for the penguins:

Daddy petting the stingrays (Sierra wouldn't even walk upto the tank):

The tank you can stick your head up in:



Another alligator to boo:

We picked up lunch and then on the way back to hotel, I sent Josh into the casino for a little black jack (he was nervous, but he's good). The girls and I came back to nap, and he showed up about 30 minutes later $40 richer. Aside from knowing the basic tricks to blackjack, his biggest skill lies in his completely not addiction prone personality---he knows when to walk away and has no problem doing it!