No Fish on Thanksgiving

Mike scheduled some work down south in Port St. Lucie 

during Thanksgiving week.  The kids were out of

school Wed-Sun, so we made a vacation out of it.

We decided that we wanted to do a untraditional dinner.  

So we went to do some fishing on the Indian River.

Indian River is a waterway that is between

 main land Florida and the barrier islands and the Atlantic Ocean.

We found these spots on Google Earth. 

We saw there were a bunch of dirt roads heading off of A-1A,

 so we googled them to see where they led.

We found a beautiful spot tucked away from the road.

So, we put baits on the hooks, cast them out, and waited.

Waiting... 

Still waiting.

Even the bird was waiting to see if we'd catch anything.

Finally!

Caught something!

Of course!  A poisonous Puffer Fish!

*FYI* all puffer fish are poisonous if not properly cleaned 

and prepared. Since the risk is most often fatal,

we threw Mrs. Puff back.

The next day we tried our luck on a pier in a little

area called Blind Creek. Its on the Indian River too.

Here we had better luck...

If all you want to do is catch and release that is.

We got several Gray Snappers.

And a Pin Fish.

Yet another Pin Fish

And again, another Pin Fish.

I finally stopped taking pictures of the pin fish.

 They would not leave our bait alone!

They are too small to make cleaning and

cooking them worth it. But at the end of the

day, after catching and releasing 12 or more,

you think, "All together they would have fed me."

Unless it was the same damn fish 

over and over again.

Finally not a Pin Fish!

A BIG Puffer Fish.

Fishing might not of been the best,

but we had a lot of fun any way!

We brought lunch and had a picnic on the pier.

Nobody else was cold, only me.

It was about 77.

We stayed till sundown with no luck on bringing back

anything but leftover bait.

But that was ok! We stopped at the store and got

a whole chicken, a lemon, some seasonings, 

gravy makings, potatoes, broccoli, mac n cheese,

 rolls,  blueberries, pie crust, and a few other items. 

While Mike and the boys went down and played golf  

I cooked up a Thanksgiving dinner.

We made sure our suite had a full kitchen!

Dinner was great and we had leftovers for

Friday nights dinner.

Mike had found yet another hotel that has a 

putt putt course running along the outside of it.

They played first thing in the morning,

and till 10pm at night.

Caleb would of played longer "if we hadn't of

wasted all that time fishing."

Christina had Thanksgiving with Ben and his family.

She didn't take any pics to share, but she made

Sweet Potato Casserole that turned out wonderful!

We came home Saturday which was great 

because I love having an extra day at home before

the kids have to go back to school.

Zachary and Caleb had a  Scout Pack Meeting

 at their school Monday night.

It was Skit night.  Mike came up with 

Calebs troops skit since the den leader wasn't there.

 Again.

This is Zachary's troop.

Their skit was about the emergency alert system on the tv.

"if you were to hear an actual alert it would sound like 

BEEEEEEEEEP.

But thats not correct. The real sound you'd hear is,

AAAAAHHHH!!" 

 Then they ran all over screaming and

shaking their arms in the air.  

Very cute!

Calebs troops skit was -- one boy crying another asking

'whats wrong?'  

The crying kid whispers in the 2nd kids

ear, and he starts crying. 

Then another kid shows up

and asks, 'whats wrong?' and the same thing happens.

It goes like that till all boys are crying.

Then Mike says, "whats wrong?"  The boys answer with

"We don't have a skit!"

They all loved the skit and practiced it a dozen times.

Who knew crying in front of other kids could be so fun?

And Yes, I know.  My boys are not in their proper

uniform.  I have to get on the ball and sew all their

patches on this week. The Holiday Parade

is coming up, and they need to be in uniform for that. 

My Birthday

I had a great birthday.

Zachary licking the bottom of a bowl of brownie batter.

We had a parent teacher conference first thing in the morning.

It was to reevaluate Zachary for his Special classes, 

speech and language.  Right now he is going 

60 minutes a week for each. Which means he

misses 120 minutes of class time each week.

Thankfully his grades are good, A's and B's.

He has made a lot of progress in his specials

so the teacher wants to move him to only

30 min each, 60 min a week.  We agreed.

All his teachers said he was a very hard worker

and a wonderful student.  He always behaves,

he participates, and he always does his best.

Yay Zachary!

Good news is a great way to start a birthday!

The boys got to miss school because my

brother Frank had tickets to Disney Quest

for the 3 of them.

We took them out for breakfast at IHOP 

then over to Franks.  They had a lot of fun.

Its like a huge futuristic arcade. 5 floors of games.

They played all day till closing. 

Then bro brought them back in time for dinner.

That evening we had our friends

 Al, Diane and Nick over for dinner and dessert.

We had Hawaiian pulled pork on sweet bread, and salad.

Diane brought Red Velvet Cheesecake. MMM!

I spent my birthday exactly the way I wanted!

With family and friends!

Thank you everyone for making my birthday a wonderful day.

Last week we took Caleb to the Dr for his well check.

The Dr did an eye test.  After Caleb didn't do very good on

it, she said, "he might need glasses in the future,

 you will need to  take him to an optometrist to find out for sure."

Caleb said, "I might need glasses? Why?"

Dr:  "You had trouble with the bottom letters on the chart."

Caleb: "I wouldn't of had trouble if you would of put them closer to me."

We are in Port St. Lucie today thru Sat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Elfing Ourselves Early This Year

Time To Raise The Bar

We had our first boy scout meeting here Monday night.

Mike spent several hours on Sunday planning out 

the projects he was going to have the boys do.

Zachary was the 'denner'.

He had the responsibility of calling the meeting to order,

 designating the activities, and reading the rules.

He did a great job!  He wasn't shy about it at all.

Maybe that social class he is taking is really helping?

First he had them sit at the table with poster paper and rulers

 and draw the floor plan of their house.

It was a lot of fun to see

their prospective of how their house looks.

I even drew one and ended up with an extra room that 

we do not have.  Some architect I am.

Then Mike had set up a light bulb connected to wires.

He placed a bunch of different household items next to it 

and the boys had to say if they thought it would or

would not turn on the light.

Gum wrapped in foil?  Yes.

Plastic space shuttle?  No.

Then it was on to a zipline pulley experiment.

They had to think about gravity, tension
and momentum.

Mike took 2 chairs, tied fishing line to each,
then strung it across the living room
and attached them high on the wall.

The boys had to take S hooks and slide them down.

He had charts for how far they would go.

One and four S hooks went all the way to the chair,

while 2 and 3 stopped short of it.

 Then they had to guess how many

weights it would take to get them to stop in a certain spot.

We divided them into 2 groups and they had 

fun racing each other to the answers.

Then it was brownie and juice time.

I was surprised to learn that I was the first parent 

to offer a snack.  I am pretty sure in girl scouts we 

always had a snack.   

Towards the end one of the dads looked at us

and said, "Boy you have really raised the bar."

Yes, yes we have.  

I hope the other parents step up now and 

help make this a great den.

Kevins Visit and a Creepy Night Walk

We have had a busy November so far.

Zachary had a book report essay 

and visual project due that took all week.

He did it on The Children's Bible.

Although he has read it cover to cover twice,

it is still the worlds most complicated book!

My next blog will have pics of all his hard work.

He got to bring home his WiiBot Monster Friend, 

and has yet to dismantle him. 

Look at what happened to my pillows

 from the couch in our bedroom.

I am bummed.  I just stuck them in the washing machine.

This is what they looked like when I  took them out.

Not even salvageable. 

Our herb garden is growing wonderfully! 

I have several jalapenos, tarragon, oregano, 

chives, basil, mint, rosemary, strawberries,

cilantro and parsley.

.

Mike's brother Kevin came and visited for 6 days.

They had a great time.  

Christina and I enjoyed listening to their childhood stories.

One of which was a poem their dad had in the

bathroom, involving a septic tank and what not to

flush down.  Kevin recited the entire thing.

Ben joined in the fun and we sat out on the patio

and talked, laughed and ate Christina's Halloween candy.

The boys had fun wrestling with Uncle Kevie.

Those are all their bottles. 

It was see how much and how fast they could drink.

Not sure who won. I think they tied.

Mike and Kevin took Caleb golfing after school.

They played 9 holes.

Caleb actually BEAT them on 2 par 3 holes, 

and tied them another.  Caleb had 4 on every par 3.

Which from where he hits is actually a par 4 for his size.

Kevin is trying to lessen the blood to Caleb's head

 so that he will have a chance against him.

 The rest of the holes were long par 4 and 5's 

so they didn't keep track of those since 

Caleb hits from where they do.

Mike and Kevin spent the weekend in St. Augustine.

This is the hotel they stayed at.

Mike used some of his Marriott Reward points, 

 so it didn't cost them anything. 

This was the view from their room.  

See the island green in the middle?

 They both made their shots there without going in the water.

 after 4 tries.

Kevin beat Mike on this putt putt course.

They played 3 rounds that week.

Mike won the first two rounds and Kevin redeemed himself 

by winning the third and putt putt.  

But they tied on match play scores.

They obviously play at the same level.

They both ended up in the woods 3 ft from each other.

They went to the World Golf  Hall of Fame.

This is a replica of the famous stone bridge in St  Andrews.

They gave up on trying to play on real courses and took

the easy way out.  Computer Simulated Golf.

 No water hazards, no looking for lost balls in the forest.

After a wonderful week was had by both,

Kevin left Tuesday morning.

In our local paper I saw that fairly near our house 

they were giving guided night hikes through the 

Florida wilderness.  We decided to set one up for our 

boy scout troops.  Out of 14 kids, 6 showed up.

Which worked out great because everyone had to

be quiet while walking to be able to see some

animals.  All but one kid was very good.

Our guide walked us on a trail around a lake.

He had a tape recorder of owls that he would stop 

and play periodically.  One was a screech owl.

As we stood there listening, sure enough a 

small white screech owl came within 15 feet of us

and sat for a few minutes 'talking' to our tape recorder.

It got dark pretty fast and we had several flashlights.

The guide would shine the light at a low angle on the

trail and you could see small glittery things on the ground.

They were wolf spider eyes.

Come take a walk with us next time you visit!

We also shined our lights across the lake 

and spotted an alligator.

 Thankfully he was on the other side.

At the end of the trail is a learning center with

live aquariums, taxidermy animals, and bones.

Normally people have to pay extra for this,

but our guide was kind enough to open it

for the boy scouts. 

The bones here are of a black bear 

that Florida officials caught years ago

as a newborn cub. He was tagged

and followed through out its life.

After he died of natural causes they recovered

 his bones and put him on display.

Our guide was terrific and we learned 

a lot about Florida's natural state

and the creatures that occupy it besides us.

They offer several different night tours of other

areas.  Mike and I are going to take the kids

to them in the next few weeks.

We are in the process of changing the look of our front yard.

We pulled up huge sections of grass. 

We plan on putting red wood mulch down that we

got for FREE because someone down the street

bought too much, and was giving it away.

We took it all.

I will also plant some plants and flowers.

This is not the final shape, 

but it gives us lots to work with.

Yesterday we picked up food 

for the boy scout food drive.

We were very very disappointed in this years haul.

We only got 7 bags of food out of over a hundred houses.

The neighborhood that was older, smaller homes gave 5 bags.

The big rich house neighborhood,  2.

As we walked our way thru the neighborhood we

discovered this poor snake.  He was dead.

Guess he was going in the hole and got stuck.

Glad I am not the water meter person!

Tomorrow night we are having a boy scout meeting here.
Mike has several Engineering things set up for the
scouts to learn about.  They will be creating light,
learning gravity and momentum, and drawing
 their house floor plan.