One of my favorite things about living in Florida is it seems adventure isn’t hard to find. You don’t have to look very hard to find a fun afternoon or a new experience. I happened upon a Groupon a month or so ago for an Eco-tour monster truck ride at the Showcase of  Citrus. I have always wanted to take the kids to pick oranges and it was something we hadn’t done, and I knew Ethan would be thrilled with a monster truck ride so I decided it was the perfect adventure for Nana’s upcoming visit. I was right.

It was about a half-mile walk to where the oranges were ready for picking. We started off with the kids in a wagon, but we ended up ditching that at the side of the trail. It was more work than help. 

Once we got to the part of the grove where we could pick Bella found the state flower – the Orange Blossom. It smelled just like you might think it would. 🙂 We stopped and googled how to know which oranges were the best for picking and then we got to it.

We picked 2 bags before we were done.

They are actually a bit difficult to pull off the vine, but we learned that twisting first did the trick.

Then it was time for the monster truck, or bus.

And seriously, this thing was huge (and bumpy).

The ride was really fun, and lasted over an hour.

Ethan and Natalie even got to drive a little bit. I think it is a highlight of Ethan’s life – to date.

Near the end of the ride we drove up to a bunch of cattle and the driver had a box of fruit to feed them. Who knew they ate oranges? As soon as the bus pulled up they gathered around and they chowed down. When they would bite into the oranges juice would gush everywhere.

 

This is definitely a place I would return again. If you live here, the groupon is still out there. It cost us $35 to ride the monster truck, and a regular adult ticket is $20. (I think the groupon is good until the end of May.)

If you’re not local and want to come visit us – maybe we’ll take you there too.

After months of saying I needed to get pictures of my own kids….I finally did it.

More pictures HERE. 

I happened to see that there was a Florida Resident deal going on at Gatorland so we decided to make it part of our spring break.

We had a really great time. We learned some about gators, saw some huge ones (Chester the dog eating gator!), creepy ones and plenty of other animals as well.

When we bought our tickets they offered for us to buy the opportunity to sit on a real gator and have a picture taken. We didn’t think the kids would want to do it so we passed up the offer then. However, when we got to the gator wrestling show Ethan wanted to do it. We decided if he was going to be that brave then we should let him do it. He was so excited.

 

To our surprise the girls wanted to do it too!

One of the favorite things we found there was a “bird room.” Basically a room where birds roamed free, you could feed them and they just landed on you – wherever.

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As we were walking down to another exhibit we happened to notice a few peacocks in a corner. We stopped to watch and waited for one to turn around so we could see its colors.

We had lots of fun at Gatorland!