My absolute favorite thing about this vacation was of course being with family. We don't get to see my brother, sil & niece often enough. But second to that was stalking turtle nests. Seeing a turtle hatching was on all of our "to do" lists this summer. There were multiple nests near us that were close to ready and like any pregnant women, you never know when they will "go". So every day/night we walked to each nest and looked for any inkling that they would be ready to hatch that night. Unfortunately the two closest to us went in the middle of the night with no one around to see it. All you saw the next morning was turtle tracks out to sea (cool in its own right!). The second night we were there we found out they would be inventorying a nest that hatched a few days earlier so we decided to check it out with the hopes of seeing some stragglers. And sure enough, seven babies were still in the nest and we got to see them, in daylight, head to the ocean. There was one baby who had a hurt shell, probably from all the weight of dead eggs around him. It was so sad to see him struggle towards the water. One of the turtle watch people helped him into the water and we saw that he did well enough to actually begin resurfacing (they have to resurface every 3-5 seconds for air). Of course from that point on we'll never know if he actually survived, but I like to hope so!
Our schedules with the girls basically went out the window. Both would get up way too early and go to bed only a little later than usual. Savannah slept in our room so when she would wake up at 4-5am it would wake us up and then she'd hear us rolling around and then decide that since we were up, she might as well eat. So it was early mornings, but that's okay! It got me up early to walk with my mom on the beach each morning which was wonderful! On our last walk of the week we stopped to talk to the turtle watch people who mentioned having found a new turtle nest which had to be moved to the dunes. I really wanted to go see this and one of the men offered to drive us down to the location. We got in a truck with a complete stranger!! But he was a "turtle person" so he had to be alright, right?? Ha, ha...he was wonderful and we got to watch him and his wife dig up 121 eggs and move then back a few feet since they wont hatch until late September when the tide would be higher. Needless to say, we learned a lot this summer about turtles!!! One lady even took my phone number and would call us if anything changed with the nests so we could be there. It was amazing. I think we may move our beach week back the next time in hopes of seeing more nests hatch =)
We wanted to dedicate the girls this year also and what better time to do it than when most of our family is with us?? We asked my dad to facilitate the dedication (for those that may not know, many churches no longer baptize babies. We believe that choice should be left to each person when they are old enough to make the decision for themselves. Dedication means that as parents Jared & I are dedicated to raising them in Christ to the best of our ability. And by having our families at witnesses we are asking them to help hold us accountable to raising them to know and hopefully love Christ as we do.) It was very windy the day we did it and we had two toddlers running around so it was easy to be distracted but we appreciate the time, thought & love our families put into it praying and reading scripture over our girls!
We had such a great trip...cant wait to do it again!
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