Turkey Camp Out

Every year, our ward has a big campout the weekend before Thanksgiving, and they have a big turkey feast the next morning. Dan went for the camp out to help his dad, who was in charge of a lot of it, but Hannah and I stayed home in our nice warm beds and came up the next morning. I am NOT a fan of camping and had no desire to do so with a 16 month old, and it also got down into the 30s that night, which made the decision that much easier-NO THANK YOU!! But we had a lot of fun the next morning. There were horses to see, a nice hiking trail, delicious food, and great company. Dan's brother Curt, his wife Natalie, and their 3 girls came along for the fun, and Hannah enjoyed having them there to play with.

Neigh! Neigh!

Up close, Hannah was a little scared and not so sure she wanted to touch it.

Going for a hike with Daddy

The view

Snuggle time!

"Ella, what are you doing??"

And back to say bye to the horses before going home

Aquarium

The day after my mom left, Dan and I took Hannah to the aquarium. It's not the best aquarium ever, but they have done a lot of work on it in the last few years, and it's a lot better than it used to be. We were there at the perfect time. There were a few other families there, but we hardly saw them at all, and there were a couple of school groups too, but we managed to avoid them almost the whole time. Most of the time it seemed like we had the place to ourselves. Hannah loved it, which was nice since the last time I took her to an aquarium she cried the entire time.

You can't tell, but there are sea lions in that tank.

Sea turtles are my favorite!!!

teenaged mutant ninja sea turtles! There were 4 of these guys, and that's seriously all I could think about.

We decided to feed her to the sharks

 Hannah loved the sting ray tank, even though she never got close enough to actually touch one. She was just stoked to finally be allowed to splash in the water.

Her hair looks so red in this picture!

This was one of her favorite parts. We were trying to get her to touch one of the horseshoe crabs, but she went for the spider crab instead, which of course gave me the heebie jeebies, but she loved it. 

The best part about the Virginia Beach aquarium is that it's actually split in two parts, with a gorgeous nature trail connecting them. It is on an inlet of the beach, so you are walking by the water and walking in the woods at the same time. That morning also had probably the best weather of our trip, which was awesome. The fall colors were so pretty!

Otters!! This is one of my favorite animals, but Hannah wouldn't even look at them. Go figure.

We discovered that there's a kids area now. It was pretty nice, but Hannah was pretty tired by this point and just kept stealing this kid's toys.

All in all, it was a great morning. Now we need to take her back to the one here...