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.
