nice to meet you, mr. turtle

When we headed to the beach a few days ago I brought my new camera {even though I was terrified of getting sand and/or salt water in it!} hoping to get a few shots of Asher enjoying the shore. 

He didn't.

Actually, for the first part of our visit I was given a lot of this face:

Ash was very unhappy to be on a marvelous beach vacation and only wanted to hug on his mama's neck.  Which we did.  Honestly, I didn't mind too much - I kind of love being loved.  :-)

Then, something wonderful happened...the turtles arrived!

A conservationist approached us {we were the only ones on the beach} and asked if we'd like to see some newly hatched loggerhead turtles.

Of course we said YES!  How awesome!

She said that since the oil situation happened in the Gulf last year many of the turtle nests had to be relocated to the Atlantic coast of Florida.  These particular little guys had just hatched a few nights ago.  They were the last ones to come out of their nest and couldn't make it to the ocean before day break.

 A little turtle info for those who don't know...

Sea turtles hatch at night and orient themselves based on the moon.  They crawl to the ocean and swim away to live {hopefully} very, very long lives.  If, however, they don't make it to the ocean before the sun comes up they will almost surely die since baby turtles are a favorite snack of sea birds.  Since loggerheads are endangered their nests are closely watched and the stragglers are helped along.

That's why we got to meet these little cuties!  Can you believe they'll grow to over 400 pounds some day?!

Asher was a little hesitant at first

but warmed up to them pretty quickly.  He was very gentle and stroked the turtle's head.  I was SO afraid that he might give it a squeeze {sea birds have nothing on an affectionate Asher} but he didn't!

Unfortunately I didn't get to hold one since I was busy manning the camera and capturing all of the memories.  ha!  That's ok - just chalk it up to a mom duty.

I am thrilled that Asher got to experience this.  It's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime event!

This was a little out of order, so tomorrow we'll head back to the beginning of our trip.  I just couldn't wait to share our most exciting part!  Hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend!