Author: Mom

Since I will be at a 4-H camp on my actual birthday we had a little party at the spray ground before all my friends scatter for summer vacations.

 

We had a great time splashing around and staying cool in the water. We enjoyed time on the playground as well.

YAY ME !

From MOM: We are so proud of the young man you are becoming. You are kind and caring, even if you are a slight bit LOUD! Your compassion and dedication to the earth is amazing. You are always willing to take on new challenges with gusto. We are excited to see what the world holds for you.

 

 

 

Practicing for the family clown games. Okay, that’s not a real thing. We were just being goofy! DOG PILE! 

TA-DA!

DAD! HANDS ON THE GROUND! AHHHH!

As an early birthday gift we got some things from BioQuip for insect collecting. I was excited to have all these cool new collection tools and mounting helpers.

Eager to get out and catch some new critters, we loaded the gear and hit the park.

We caught several butterflies. I was really excited to mount them!

We watched a lot of videos and read in books about how to do everything. I am pleased with how everything turned out.

Some of my other bugs!

 

We spent Sunday at Grandma and Grandpa’s house while Dad worked on a motorhome project. We had a fun walk about the trails collecting bugs and then headed back to swim the day away in their pool.

This week we are spending wrapping up school for the year and cleaning the house. E attacked me with silly string and a huge battle broke out.

The silly string stuck to our hair and Mom has to scrape it out.

 

 

We drove up to Gainesville for 4-H Insectathon training. I loved holding the tarantula. It felt weird but it was so cool.

We had a mini mock contest and I realized how much I have to learn. I did managed to learn a bunch of the orders of insects just during the session.

We got to tour the University of Florida Entomology department. This room was entirely full of cockroaches!

BIG COCKROACHES!

Then an entire room of mosquitoes!

The ants!!!!

This one Mom wouldn’t go near, bedbugs!

It was great to work with the kids from Alachua county.

At the end of the day we worked on a service project. We helped make terminate monitoring stations that will be placed around Jacksonville soon.

I came home and was excited to get to work on my bug collections.

 

 

 

We have been enjoying painting, hiding and hunting for rocks around town. This is one from Marshall Street Park.

Thunder got in a lot of trouble this week but has finally calmed back down.

We went and saw a dress rehearsal for King and I at Countryside High School.

The tooth fairy visited again and this time brought Chinese yuan! How cool!

We had a fun 4-H meeting with more rock painting.

We wrapped up the week with a huge pool party at a friends house.

We made lots of funny videos and had a blast playing and creating together!