More Pictures from Haines City

I thought we'd try to take some pictures of the Christmas decorations.

Some of the houses are so beautifully decorated.  

This house has quite a big snow scene which is funny on green grass.

This is another beautiful house.  We only took a picture of the middle section.  

There is more decoration on both sides of the photo.

The lights go on and off, there is music playing and there are patterns that come up in the lights flashing.

It is quite a scene!

This is a rose in someone's front garden.  

There were lots so even though it's a little chilly here, you can see that it's not TOO chilly.

We are driving down this red dirt road.  Some of the roads here are like this in between the orchards.

The roads are red but as soon as you get into the orchard the sand turns to grey.  

Those are orange trees that have been picked already.

We came to a lake and went down to the edge to see all the birds.

They are spectacular!!

I want to get a book about birds so we can identify them.

They are all so different and colorful.

You can see a couple of these birds squawking away as they run along the grass.

I thought the color on this bird was pretty.  You can see the green in the feathers. 

In the sun they really stand out.

I wish that I had taken this picture a couple of seconds later.

He stretched out his wings to take off.

Boy, was he beautiful!!!  He had a huge wing span.

These birds were so plentiful in the reeds.

Beautiful shades of brown.

How about the color on this guy?  I like his lovely beak!!

There were tons of these little fellows.

This guy is taking a bath and is making such a noise with his splashing.

He really put on a show for us.

Here he is still bathing and splashing.

Can you see how dry his feathers are right after his bath?

He quit splashing and tucked in his wings.  

He's using his beak to tuck in his feathers after his bath.

I wish I could remember the name of this bird.

Sister Summerhays has a book about birds that I looked through.

What a beautiful beak!!!

Another sort of a duck but with turquoise feathers this time.  

He was beautiful.

I couldn't believe the nose on this little guy.  Actually he's quite big.

He looks a little like the elephant man I think.

Can you see his feathers trying to grow out of his neck?

The whole flock of these birds were gathered around in the parking area.

Someone threw a piece of bread out to them.  They clamoured to get the bread.

I think I'd be worried about get clipped by one of those beaks.

Here's the guy in the front showing us his catch.  

He got one of the pieces of bread.

This is a common sight right now in the orchards.

These trucks line up on the roads and this is how they transport the oranges.

That is a lot of citrus!!!

Some of the houses here are the brightest colors.

I thought I'd take pictures of some of them as we see them.

Doesn't this blossom look like a bottle brush to you?

I haven't seen a blossom like this before.

This is a picture of the whole tree.

Neat, eh?

Some people decorate their outside trees but not with lights.  

This is one of the ways they do it.

Ornaments on the tree.

We've seen many garages that have this big garage door and we were wondering what it was for.

Now we know!!

Just a the corner where we turn off the main road to our house is a carpet store.

These hang outside all day.  

I thought the little girls might like the Tinkerbell carpet.

This is one of our fabulous Elders.  Elder Wright.

It's early Sunday morning and we picked them up for our early meeting.

He was in a hurry!

I'm not sure what this is but it looks like a seed pod of some kind.

It's on a palm tree of some sort. 

I thought it was amazing.

You can see how large this palm tree is by the size of our car.

It is so thick through the trunk and at the roots.

I can see how you'd never get through things in the jungle.

Here are the trunks and roots.

This is a picture of me with Melissa.  

She is one of our friends here that we are helping.

You can see that she isn't in very good health.

She is trying to get her son baptized and go to the temple herself in the next while.

She is so good to the missionaries.

One of the cooler nights she called to see if we had enough blankets.

So thoughtful!!

When the night is going to freeze the fruit they water the trees so that they have ice freeze on them.

When they freeze it causes the air to warm up a little to save the fruit.

You can see the icicles on the trees here early in the morning... about 6:45 am

We came home tonight with a visitor on our step.  

It's cold out so I hope he finds a warm spot to rest.

I guess he's cold-blooded so it doesn't really matter, right?

In our sun room I'm writing about who we saw today and who we need to see tomorrow.

There is a lot of record keeping going on here.

I thought my grandchildren would like this tree.  

There are many like it.

Wouldn't it be fun to climb?

You can really get up high in this type of tree.

It is a huge Oak Tree.

The acorns for this oak are about the size of a large green pea.

Amazing!!!

We love the sites but we especially love the people we are meeting and sharing the gospel with.  

We hope we can continue to lift people and strengthen them.

Where would we be without the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

I'm so grateful for the Savior.  I know He is our Redeemer and our King.