Breighton's Journey

Camp Update and Art Fun at Home

I had an amazing time at the Science Center of Pinellas for my “Fun with Science” class. There were only 3 kids including me in the class. The daily themes were:

Monday-Solid Liquid Gas

Tuesday- Water cycle and how water helps us (salt vs fresh)

Wednesday- Random day of animals and games

Thursday- Rocks, Gems and Minerals

Friday- Magnets

I made lots of art projects, science experiments and mud pies. We got to play outside and go on nature walks as well. There were really cool grasshoppers, frogs, dragonflies and lots of other things that I caught!

It was such a fun camp and I behaved rather well considering my camp track record.

Before camp each day Mommy had to come up with things to do… camp started at 1 and we had to leave at noon to get there on time. We did lots of letterboxing and arts and crafts. I am finally enjoying crafts so Mommy is just letting me take the lead.

I love drawing with glue and then sticking things on to it. I love cutting with scissors (ever if i cut both left and right handed!).

I love being silly. Mommy thinks I will be a class clown next year. Good thing I am homeschooled!

This is my artwork of snow covering the ground in the winter and seeds waiting to grow up up up in the spring.

This is a happy face with a mole on each side of his nose.

We are also in the process of making a fishing game. I had to help cut out lots of fish. Mommy needs to finish making the poles and we are all set to play!

Didgeridoo Down Under

Today I went to a VERY fun show at the library. It was called “Didgeridoo Down Under”. I sat with all my other homeschool/unschool friends. I was super well behaved! It was a bit loud for me but I only covered my ears for a little of the program.

I absolutely loved the sound of the didgeridoo. It made my insides giggle.

It was really neat to learn more about Australia, their people, animals and culture. But that didgeridoo was pretty AWESOME!

The man was hilarious. He had the entire room laughing. He was very silly with his jokes and all this stuffed animals. Mommy was shocked how many of the kids in the room (well over 75%) didn’t know that they were mammals! HUh? Probably why I am homeschooled! Mommy was equally impressed that I knew a name of a mammal that lays eggs! I now know a new word: monotremes! COOL!

We laughed and learned!

Protect the planet. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

At the end of the show we got to be super goofy! I was so well behaved and Mommy was so proud of me. Here is a video of the event.

Click to view

Mommy still isn’t sure why but Emmerson and I tuned into owls at the very end. Who knows?!

This explains my behavior somedays…

Mommy and Daddy love me very much. However, Daddy says that my name must be periodically influencing my behavior.

Yes, you read that correctly.  The only anagram for my name in common use is: “bothering”.  Yup.  ”Bothering”.  Daddy did a face-palm and rolled his eyes when he typed my name in.

(This is from the WolframAlpha Widgets website: Anagrams)

Wonders of Nature with Matt Edmonds

Today we went to Clearwater Main Library to see a show called Wonders of Nature. This may have been the best and most interactive show I have ever seen with animals! I got a seat in the front row with a group of my friends. We were all glued to the show.

The show started out with “Jedi the Augur Buzzard”. He is basically a hawk! Matt Edmonds’, the teacher, held him on his glove so he didn’t get cut from his talons!

In mid sentence the hawk took off and flew around the room and back to Mr. Matt!

I was so amazed!

A goofy picture while about 100 camp kids piled into the room from the local YMCA.

Mr. Matt had the bird do a few more flights across the room. Truly beautiful. I kept telling MOmmy it was the most beautiful thing I had even seen!

Up next was “Stitches the Grey Squirrel”. Stitches is the kid of squirrel we have in our yard but Stitches is trained!

He likes to hunt for peanuts in the dirt.

He climbed all over Mr. Matt while I giggled with delight!

This is “Scooby the Burmese Python”. Scooby is 24 years old and had belonged to Mr. Matt since he hatched from his egg and fit in Mr. Matt’s hand!! WOW!

One girl got to go up and pet the snake. I guess normally all the kids get to do so but there were well over 200 kids plus adults in the room.

There were a few other animals: a rat named Sagan, an Amazon Parrot named Moby and Sun Conures(didn’t get their names). They all did tricks and preformed on command. Mr. Matt is a professional animal trainer! When the parrot was preforming he told us that it took him EIGHT years to teach him the tricks he knows! Wow, and he is a professional trainer.

The next animal out was quite hilarious! it was called a Red-legged Seriama. His name was Bambam.

In the wild they catch lizards and bash them against rocks until they die.

Mr. Matt gave the bird a plastic alligator to do it with. Over and over the bird smashed it into the rock. Neat way to kill your prey.

Next to last was a flying squirrel. I think this was my favorite because he was very cute, tame and could FLY! He ran all over Mr. Matt.

Then he sent him up a pole and the squirrel jumped and FLEW to Mr. Matt. I was so amazed!

The show wrapped up with a “Nova the Eurasian Eagle Owl”.

Really watching intently and learning.

The owl flew from Mr. Matt to a perch on the other side of the room. It was so QUIET! The only way you could tell(besides seeing it) that it was flying across the room was the wind from the wings when it first took off!

Then it would glide into its house.

It would perch and fly back out again!

This was such a wonderful show and I want to see it again some day! WOW! I talked about it all day!

Back From Vacation

We got back in town late late Sunday night after a long drive home on US19! Very pretty drive and no highway stress for Daddy but I just wanted to be home. We spent the entire day Monday recovering from the trip: unpacking, cleaning the house and playing with all the toys we missed for the near month we were gone.

Tuesday I spent the day with friends (without Emmerson!!!!) and we went Letterboxing at Philipee Park in Safety Harbor and then I went to my friend Zachary’s house and went swimming at the HUGE pool at Innisbrook. What fun!

Wednesday we went to Music with Mar and then chilled out for the day… no major plans.

Thursday we met up with some friends again for a morning of Letterboxing and then playground climbing fun. I took a long nap because I was so exhausted! Mommy work me up at 3:45 and said “TIME TO GO” and we went to go see Toy Story 3 at the Clearwater Cinema Cafe (my favorite movie theatre because you can have milkshakes and popcorn while swiveling in the chair!).

Today, Friday, we headed down to Indian Shores to the Goldman’s house (Miss Lynn and one of my best buds Zachary). We spent a while at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary enjoying all the wonderful birds. I even saw a baby white pelican! Very cool! Mommy found a Letterbox at the sanctuary so that was a cool extra treat… it even had a hitchhiker (a traveling letterbox that you have to go hide in another letterbox!).

Afterwards we headed out the back door of the sanctuary and saw all the birds of the beach… there were thousands!!!

We were all being very silly! I look like a giant here… I was just closer to the camera and Zachary was doing a straddle.

Emmerson watched on as Zachary and I played in the water. At first I asked Mommy if I could take my shoes off and not get wet. Then I asked if it was okay to get my pants a LITTLE wet… next thing you know I was in up to my ears! Good thing MOmmy is always prepared with a change of clothing.

The dark-ish skies are courtesy of Tropical Storm Bonnie coming across the state of Florida today! Nothing major!

After a long play on the beach we came back to Zachary’s house and all got showered off and had lunch. After lunch… TV COMA!

We played hard all morning and continued to run and play inside up until about 6pm when we headed home. What a fun day! Glad to be home but miss my Grandparents…

Final Day of Our LONG Vacation

I had a blast with my cousins today. Aunite Kim, Her friend Gary and my cousins (Anna and Ian) stopped by on their was home from Virginia Beach. I enjoyed the morning showing them my tree fort and then a hike down to the bridge. Cousin Ian is crazy! He climbs everything! If it is high off the ground he NEEDS to find a way to climb it!

We had a very busy day at the Cradle of Forestry, Trout Farm, Looking Glass Falls and then Pisgah Recreation Area.

I loved hiking with Ian on the trails.

We got to dig in sawdust to see what we could find. I found a LOT of nothing!

Once again Ian had to climb the train!

ALL ABOARD MY CHOO CHOO TRAIN! WOOOOO WOOOOOO!

Iam climbing something else! I climbed this too but Mommy wouldn’t let me up the crane part.

Yee Haw I am a cowboy!

Looking Glass Falls and home of my meltdown of the day! I wanted to go in the water but Mommy said we weren’t going to swim here we were swimming later in the day.

Finally to the swimming place after a stop at the Trout Farm and a quick Letterbox grab.

Cousin Ian jumping off the rock face.

I am mighty! I am strong! I can lift ANYTHING!

Goofing around in the water.

Iam must have jumped 30 times!

Building a dam with Emmerson, Anna and Mommy. We tried to get the water to pool and redirect. After a good 20 minutes of work, we finally did it!

I had an amazing day and LOVED being around my cousins. I have missed them. I am not looking forward to 10 hours in the car tomorrow but I miss Lightning and my house, friends and toys. So I guess it is time for our adventure to come to an end.

My Tree Fort

At the top of the hill in Grandma and Grandpa’s neighborhood is my “tree square” or “tree fort”. I took my cousins up to see all the hard work I have been doing. Ian kept climbing up the pine trees.

Anna helped me work on my “tee-pee”.

It got one thumb up from me! Mainly because I locked Emmerson inside of it. See him hiding in the orange shirt behind the sticks. He is in jail!

Woodsy Owl’s Club, Trout Farm and a COOL Toy

Today we went to the Cradle of Forestry for the Woodsy Owl’s Club. The theme was “poking around the pond”. If you know me you know that there is nothing in life that makes me happier than being knee deep in muck looking for bugs! There were about 25 kids plus their adults at the meeting today. We all had to learn about Smokey the Bear and Woodsy the Owl and their mottos. We learned all about the wetlands and what we could expect to find around the pond. We then took a short hike down to a pond. We listened to all the directions and then got our nets.

Mommy helped me scoop a bunch of muck out of the pond. The teacher said I scooped too much but I found a lot of bugs including a dragonfly nymph, 3 baby salamanders, a sack of eggs and a few other things.

Getting more muck.

Some of the bugs and things that all the kids caught. My eggs are on the spoon. The teacher thought they may be salamander eggs but I told her they were too big and were probably frog eggs.

You could not pry me from this bucket unless you bribed me with more bugs!!

Grandma Jo helped me put some bugs into the viewer.

This was sooooo cool!

I enjoyed showing all the other kids the buts I put in the viewer.

Amazing that with this many people NO ONE fell in the lake and ALL the kids were so amazingly well behaved!

After the pond adventure we went back to the classroom to talk about where the different animals were living in the pond.

We each got a picture to put on the pond. I got a “Water Skimmer” and correctly placed it on the top of the pond.

They had a craft at the end (make a turtle from a paper bowl) but I had already done that craft at home with Mommy before so I wanted to move along. We loaded up the car and drove down the road to the fish hatchery. I love the Trout Farm! They have these long rows of trout with running water. for $.25 you can get a handful of oily stinky food to feed the fish.

I had a blast feeding them. I figured out that if you go to a big group near the edge and drop in the food that the fish will get you soaking wet!

When we came home and Emmerson went down for a nap Mommy gave me a new toy she had been saving for me. It is called Bizarre Builder “In-Sections” . It is like Mr. Potato head but all the pieces are bug parts and you can chose to follow the directions or free build you own bugs.

My first of MANY creations!

My next of a zillion creations.

Great Smokey Mountain Railroad

Today we drove over to Bryson City, NC to take a ride on the GSMR train! It was raining when we arrived so we spent our time in the Lionel Tot Train Railway Museum. They had a LOT of trains moving. One had 3 separate levels of track that totaled over 5000 foot of track! AMAZING! There was so much detail.

We killed a little more time at the Thomas Train table.

Almost time to get on board. I just kept giving Mommy goofy grins when she went to take my picture. Oh well, I guess I have to live with them posted here now!

Watching out the window from the “family first class” coach. There was LOTS of kudzu. I became an expert by the end of the train trip. I could point out all the kudzu between the starting station and the return trip home. PLus I now know that they can make honey from kudzu flowers. COOL!

Despite the rain the views were pretty neat.

Chilling out with Grandma Jo.

We ate lunch on the train and had our own car attendant. She refilled our drinks and even found me hot chocolate to drink!

We arrived at the break point and got out and walked around for a while. This is where the white water rafters pull out after their trips down the river.

Heading back to get on the train to ride home.

I really liked this little waterfall.

On the way back we got to ride on the other side of the train (we all had to swap seats!) so we could see the other scenery.

I had a really great time even if I got wiggly towards the end. That is a long time for a kid to sit still! haha

Blue Ridge Parkway Adventures

We took a nice drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway today. We made a few stops to look out and enjoy the view.

Doing my model pose and showing off my new “Dinosaur on a bike” shirt! RAWR!

We went to the Cradle of Forests and enjoyed an educational and fun walk.

I was allowed to make all the noise I wanted in this tunnel! SO MUCH FUN!

I greatly enjoyed watching the lady weaving.

This man was making bees wax candles.

Chilling out after a nice hike.

Emmerson and I insisted that we had some of this liquid stuff! It is called Sugar Not. Mommy kept joking it was Sugar Snot. This was “Booger Blue Raspberry” and Emmerson had “tropical loogie”. They were actually really gross. We are not use to sweet tasting drinks. YUCKIE!

Before we headed out for more fun I LOVED playing with the blocks and “tree cookies” (a tree cookie is a slice from a tree). I made all sorts of neat sculptures!

Then I wanted to make a chair.

Mommy said I should check it out.

So proud! I worked!

Now I build up up up!

One more sculpture before we head out.

We visited the little river that I love to look for salamanders in.

Mommy caught me a fish!!!

Back to looking for more living things. I did find one blackish salamander but I couldn’t catch it. It was too fast for me!

Having a blast out in nature!