Frida in her natural state, and a bit a canoe trip; two of three

Frida in her natural state. I believe that part of Frida's morning ritual is using her mama's lipstick. Sometimes I think, did she just get cuter, really? Is that possible? Oh joy! The marks around her nose are the beginning of the "cat face" Magdalena is drawing on her using her sparkly glitter body pens from Uncle Tommy and Auntie Luni.

Saturday we, that is me, Magdalena, Augustus, my mom aka abuela, Tita aka Jeanna, Maco aka Dave and Frida, went for a short and sweet canoe trip. We drove north, crossed the wide mighty St. Johns, crossed the beautiful Trout, headed up to Callahan for a canoe trip on Miller Creek, a creek our friend Duke told David about. Let it be known that if Duke is involved, there are going to be critters. And guess what? We saw our FIRST ALLIGATOR! Ever, in the wild, Jeanna, abuela, the children and me, all of our Very First Alligator! (I believe Dave has seen an alligator in his time.) I cannot tell you how thrilling it was! It wasn't close to us, nor was it some humongous 14 foot dinosaur. It did not thrash about and it did not try to dump our canoe over to eat us for a late afternoon snack. It did glide silently across the water, eyes and snout above the water line, out of the way of our oncoming canoes. But believe, I saw those eyes and that snout, it was unmistakable, so did the children, Jeanna, Abuela and David. And OHMYGOD but exciting it was.

We also saw two birds, I'm pretty sure one was an ibis, because of the shape of his bill, and the other might have been an egret. Both still, white, then gone with a swoosh. Then there was this beautiful purple flower with the yellow middle, there on a bare, viney bush hanging over the water, offering up these gorgeous little tidbits of color.

Of course, as with any canoe trip with the Barnas's, snacks were paramount. There was much converging of the canoes as we shared cheddar bunnies, had apples all around, some almond clusters, and the yummy chocolate covered cashews brought by abuela, of course! Abuela always comes through with the special treat.

The gator sighting was extremely exciting, until later that night, after the children were tucked safely in bed and I was trying to fall asleep and I started having total anxiety over being in the same body of water as an alligator. A live hissing reptile with a lethal snap. Can you see where I was going with that? I had to do total mind control and visualization to get past that one.

We missed our man Ethan, papa, Boolu. We missed him in our canoe, we missed him when we saw the alligator, we missed him later at Tito Chuchi and Aunt Su-su's house for the Gator game and yummy game snacks a la Aunt Su-su.
We miss him. Come home soon my love, or I'll come visit you, ok?