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We had a fun 4-H meeting. I like sitting at the officers table! This year I am vice president. I also assumed the role of club historian.

I led a lesson on “what is a leaf” today. I taught everyone how to recognize leafs and structures. There is way more to it than you would think, ask me sometime!

We looked around at different plants and trees and tried to figure out what the leaves were. Everyone picked up really fast. It is quite a hard topic.

We also had a scavenger hunt and followed clues through the park.

We made it to ice skating a little late but had a great time skating with friends.

Of course we had to have an epic lightsaber battle at Think Geek at the mall.

I am trying to catch up the club scrapbook this week. We were a bit behind since he had no formal historian this year.

I am also now taking FLVS Marine Science. I am flying through the class. A lot of it is material I am familiar with. I bounce between rabbit holes of youtube videos and the class. Mom said she is impressed with how much I am enjoying the material compared to the other classes. This one seems to be laid out better and I have an AWESOME teacher.

 

 

All the fun and school we still have chores. Mom is semi-laid up with her wrist/hand/finger issue. She sees the doctor this week again and likely will have surgery. I get to vacuum! well, dance vacuum! BUSTED !

We also started voice lessons with Mrs. Kassie, my old drama teacher. She gets me and tolerate my bouncy personality.

We are learning music theory, reading, speech and so much more in the lessons. I am having a lot of fun singing!

We went to Tarpon Springs to see the manatees with our dear friends. We had a great time climbing trees and playing Pokemon Go too!

Emmerson and I had to lead another activity at 4-H. We taught about invasive species. This was a game we found online. It was all about an ecosystem of a pond. Each fish ate a different color food and in a different way. Invasive fish were introduced and we saw how quickly the pond ecosystem was upset and the biodiversity crashed. The kids int he club enjoyed playing a lot!

I am also working on my wanted poster for the club. We all have to make posters on different invasives. I picked melaleuca. This is just the rough of my poster as I ran out of club and nothing attached just yet!

Since I am basically down with my first semester Marine Science class, i just have the final exam to take, we headed to Universal for the day. It was a cold start. E was an ice pop.

We cast lots of spells.

We rode the train a few times.

We dialed MAGIC.

It was a great day of just goofing around. Dad couldn’t make it but we are dying to take him back soon to ride Reign of Kong now that we know it isn’t TOO scary!

We also met Doc Brown and discussed time travel and flux capacitors.

 

 

 

I managed to derail my bow again the night before the 4-H State 3D tournament in Gainesville. Mom raced me out to Adventures Archery and we got it fixed. I was able to sight in at 10 yards but the rest will be left to chance. I was so upset but know this is my first of many tournaments and I am really going to have fun not to win!

I was hitting well at 10 yards.

We got to the tournament and warmed up. We were ready for a long day.

It was insanely cold for Florida!

I was with a great group of kids. I was in the middle o the pack for shooting. But I was defiantly off and some random person kept telling me what to do, people aren’t supposed to coach shooters. I was flustered.

 

In good spirits but flustered.

I finally started to figure out where I had to aim because my sight was wonky. I did get one awesome shot! 11 pointer! Perfect shot!

I didn’t get a ribbon but I had a good time learning how the tournament worked. We have now set up a small range in the side yard. I am having fun using that!

Still shooting at WAC each week as well. I THINK my sight is better but something is still off. We are working to figure out what is wrong.

 

 

 

We went to downtown St. Petersburg to check out the FWC Shark ID program. While we were waiting for it to start we relaxed and listened to the new Moana soundtrack.

The program began and we were all excited to see what we would learn.

We watched a 45 minute presentation on how to ID sharks and how to use a dichotomous key to help. Then we were turned loose with 25 sharks samples to ID them. Some were super hard and some were fairly simple. Since many were juvenile samples it was really hard.

Not bad we got 19/25 but a few we had almost right! We took good notes and know what to look at next time. Some of the ones we missed were because they were preserved samples or a identifying feature was missing. I think we did excellent!

This was a bonus question! We both knew the answer was Angel Shark!

This was an amazing program and really opened our eyes to how to ID sharks and how difficult it can be for the FWC officers to tell let alone fisherman!

Shark Identification Workshop with the FWC Research Institute

 

 

 

We loaded up the motorhome and headed to St. Augustine for the long weekend. We camped at Faver Dykes State Park. It was a quiet and sandy campground. Mom fought constantly to keep the sand and mud outside!

We went to the Castillo de San Marcos (St. Augustine Fort) and learned about the history and structure of the fort. It was neat to learn it was made of coquina, crushed shells and sand.

We saw the 10:30am cannon demonstration. We had front row spots so were really close! Not I just want to shout FEUGO all the time!

We walked the grounds of the fort and completely around the outside. We loved the cannon fire. They would heat up cannonballs in here and then shoot them at ships in the harbor when under siege!

Next we visited Fort Matanzas. The fort itself is currently closed because Hurricane Matthew damaged the docks and the ferry can’t run. We instead took some hikes along the trails and checked out the flora and fauna.

Next stop was the beach! You can drive your car not he beach, we did not! E got a whistle and blew and blew in the wind. I chased waves and looked for shells.

Back at the campground we played outside in the cooler weather.

On E’s actually birthday we visited the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine.

We pet snakes.

We explored the entire zoo.

We fed the alligators. Boy were there a lot of different types of crocs and gators!

I was obsessed with the huge gator, Gomek!

We had a great time exploring and learning. We also earned two more National Park badges and did the extra work and got two cool patches as well!