Eagle Lake Park

One of our favorite things to do here in Florida is to go to all of the amazing parks nearby.  We haven't even begun to visit a fraction of them yet, there are so many!  There are beach parks, urban parks, nature preserves and parks with walking trails, parks with kayaking trails (still want to try that), and parks with playgrounds...the list could go on.  I tend to go to the playground type parks with the kids during the week and then on the weekends we get a little more adventurous with my husband.  My favorite park with a playground that we have visited so far is Eagle Lake Park.  We found it on a whim when I was driving past it after Bible Study one day in the fall.  I had my camera with me and took these photos.  You can tell they are old photos because my daughter's hair was still so long.  We just went back to the park this past weekend and it reminded me that I had never shared these photos.  And since the seasons are so similar here I pretty much could have taken them this week and you would never have known if it weren't for my girl's haircut!

There are actually two small lakes at the park.  This one is my favorite.  The other one is covered in some sort of green algae which is pretty gross.  We've been to this park many times and this last time is the first that I've noticed the 'Please Do Not Feed or Molest Alligators' sign. I haven't seen any though, but now I'm on a mission to find one.  They were actually looking at something in the water in this pic though.  Take a guess of what it is.

Can you see them?

Turtles!  We usually call this park 'the turtle park' because of this.  As soon as they hear you walking on the dock they start swimming over from all directions.  If you take some old bread you can feed them.  We have seen fish here too and lots of birds, but no eagles yet!

Another reason we love this park is the trees.  They are so massive that I don't even think photos do them justice.  I seriously love the trees in Florida.  Can you see how tiny my girl looks on that branch?  It is way above my head if I were to stand under it with my arms raised I couldn't reach it.

See my little monkey?  I still don't think you can really tell from the pics how massive this tree is.  It's awesome.

It scares me to death when my kids climb this tree but I don't want to be a helicopter mom and not let them experience things just because I am paranoid, so I keep my mouth shut and try not to look.  My boy got stuck in the tree last time we were here.  He was so high even my husband couldn't reach him.  Luckily we were able to coax him to a lower spot and get him down, but I don't think he'll be climbing it again any time soon.  I was totally freaking out that he was going to fall!

Just some more varieties of trees around the park.  I love the blue skies here.  They are always gorgeous!  And I swear that Dr. Suess could have been from Florida because there are a lot of Suess like looking trees around here.

This is a different tree that is right next to the parking lot.  It's branches are much closer to the ground so I think we might stick to climbing this one next time.  

I love my little tree huggers. :)

We need to get out and explore some new parks so I can share them with you.  I just need to remember to take my camera when we go.  I'm working on that!