Merry Chirstmas

Ollie and Jolly toilet papered the house before they left for the year. We had a great Christmas. We failed to take many photos. Sorry about that! There was lots under the tree and we were blessed. Mom actually went around the house and wrapped a bunch of things for Dad for the motorhome so the huge boxes are all stuff we bought anyway.

We were up early waiting for breakfast. Grandma Susie, Grandma Joa nd Grandpa Howie all came over for the day.

HO HO HO!

We got some new lego kits and some fun toys.

The highlight of the season was new laptops! The skins on them are photos we took in the Maritimes this summer! How cool is that!

Sorry we didn’t get any photos of people or gifts. Mom needs to up her game with camera operations!

 

 

December Fun

More schoolwork! Mom gave us a break from all the other schoolwork and I am focusing on my FLVS class. I love showing Emmerson things that I learn and he is a good student.

Taking over Dad’s chair as I work work work on FLVS Biology. It’s been a fun class. I am basically done now, I just have to wait until after the holiday break so I can take my last two DBAs and tests. I will take the EOC in April/May just for fun. I don’t have to take the end of course exam since I am a homeschooler but I want to see how I do on it!

We spent a night in Bethlehem again this year. We went to Hebrew school and wrote our names.

We learned how work working happened in biblical times.

We wandered the village and then heard the story of Mary and Joseph. It was a fun night with family.

We spend a fun day at Legoland before our passes expire. We rarely would go on a weekend but wanted to check out Christmas Bricktacular. It was a lot of fun.

I has a little tummy bug and so did E. E got it worse and was down for almost 10 days! His tummy hurt a long time.

I spent the hours being crazy while he slept and tried to feel better. I made several neat stuffed animals and learned to sew!

I also helped Dad with Christmas cookies. I changed the wreathes into Mele kalikimakas — that is Hawaiian for Merry Christmas! They looked like little hibiscus flowers.

When E felt a little better I helped him sew too.

Uncle Matt sent a new box of rocks! We had a blast going through them and seeing all our new treasures!

Busy with 4-H

We were supposed to take off December but we failed miserably and have been doing 4-H things all month.  Mom went to wrap gifts for a fundraiser and I gave my Bernoulli’s Principle demonstration at Barnes and Noble several times. I had a good crowd a few times.

Most of the times it was just a few kids. But It was good practice for public speaking.

I also read stories to kids! That was a lot of fun.

It was good to hang out with my friends too!

We also hosted a table at the Florida Botanical Gardens annual plant sale. We did a fundraiser for the clubs to help buy t-shirts for the upcoming Forest Ecology Contest in April.

I led a little class on how to make pipe cleaner flowers!

We als had a year end party/celecbration at Largo Park. We decorated cookies and then passed out candy canes to promote 4-H as we sang carols through the park.

 

I am absolutely loving the new, smaller club. We all really focus and learn a lot. Not to mention it is super fun!

 

 

 

Disney Cruise

Mom and Dad did it again. They managed to keep the secret of a Disney cruise until the night before the cruise. We headed over to Cocoa Beach and enjoyed some wandering around before hoteling then boarding the ship. I have opted that surging it not for me…Love long and prosper!

The Fantasy is my favorite ship.

We were on deck for the sailing away party and to listen to the ships horns.

We wandered around and enjoyed the ship. Mom broke basketball! OOPS!

My fill of stone crab!

I thought Emmerson how to make pipe cleaner flowers. We made so many crafts of the ship! I think we made it to every single program that has the word craft in it.

I played ball with Stitch in the Edge! 🙂

He came back another night for our formal dance party.

We did a character breakfast. I am not sure if I enjoyed it. I won’y admit I still like to watch Disney Junior. The whole thing felt rushed but the food was good.

Our dinner server found out I like cherries. I had a huge bowl each night!

We visited Tortolla in the British Virgin Islands and St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. We also stopped at Castaway Key, Disney’s private island.

Tortolla was beautiful!

We were a bit goofy, as usual!

We took an island tour and thought for sure we were all going to die. The roads were steep, narrow and the driver went FAST!

That’s him in the pirate hat! He was a great guide and very entertaining. He made sure these large trucks slowed down and didn’t knock us off the island!

What a view!

Mom was a bit nervous when we took photos.

The tour continued and we learned a lot about the history and culture of the island.

We arrived at our hiking place Sage Mountain National Park. We were told it would be a bit muddy!

The first half of the hike was fantastic and then we hit the mud. It rains daily and the ground turns to muck. We managed to stay reasonably clean. It was a hot hike in the woods.

We found lots of neat snails and huge spiders.

Our reward at the end was a drive to the beach to play in the water. The adults had adult beverages on the deck and we splashed and played and cooled off in the warmish water.

Our next stop was St. Thomas. We opted to not book a tour and figure it our ourselves. We took a cab out to the aquarium. We saw lots of wild iguanas.

They has a few pools with sea turtles. I was sad because the pools weren’t very large for them to swim around and they didn’t appear injured.

They had a neat underwater viewing platform. I followed a few different species of parrot fish around. There were also tarpon.

More iguanas!

There was a nice display on Lionfish. Since that is my area of expertise this year I was happy to read and correct their signs. I have become a lion fish expert!

I forgot to mention we finally had cellular service! So some Pokemon Go to catch a few in the islands was needed.

We walked downtown and took the gondola up to the top.

Then we wandered back towards the ship and the Butterfly Gardens. Sadly it is closing its doors soon.

I still had a great time with what species they had left. There were lows of morphos.

Back on board and ready to sail away.

The ship next tot us waved goodbye! haha

We did a fun towel folding class and now we are experts and keep making animals!

Our last stop was Castaway Key. I went kayaking with Dad. There were no photos taken. The wind was terrible and we had to work really hard and if we stopped to take photos we would have been blown backwards and had to paddle harder. It was a lot of fun but we were exhausted. We had a quick lunch and boarded the ship. Mom packed up and we enjoyed the clubs one last time. We were delayed leaving the island due to a medical emergency but we dint notice as we were having too much fun in our clubs.

 

 

 

Having Fun

We have been busy lately just living life and having fun. We enjoyed the Safety Harbor Market and has some great Thai food!

I have been plugging away at my FLVS Biology class. I am really enjoying it and learning a lot. I hope to finish in the next few weeks.

Emmerson has become my lab partner for all our fun experiments. This project was about populations and survival and what traits survive. My results were really off but I could justify why! 🙂

Hedgie is still hanging in there. He is as cute as a button and still very active. he is getting old. I can’t believe I have had him for over 3 years now.