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.

 

 

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We got home from camping and by the evening had the outside lights up and the tree up and decorated! The cats were a tremendous help with making sure the beaches all smelled okay.

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After several hours of work it was complete.

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Some final touches.

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E and I went off to holiday camps. I spent my days at the Humane Society learning about how the shelter works and how to care for pets. It was a great few days filled with learning, crafting and cats! I only wanted to adopt 12, well maybe 27, of the cats I saw!

Tuesday I came home and had to work on a project for FLVS.

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I loved that they used Pokemon to explain a Cladistics example. It made it make a lot of sense!

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We spent time playing with our plank blocks. My tower ALMOST reached the ceiling before it came crashing down.

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Happy Thanksgiving! We kept the holiday low key this year. Dad had some work to do not he motorhome in the morning so Mom, E and I headed to Safety Harbor for the first annual Gobble Wobble 5K. We stayed at the front of the walking pack but did jog many segments. It was a lot of fun!

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We made it through the entire 5K without complaining and were rewarded a bit of time to Poke hunt! This game keeps us moving for sure!

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Blue Spring State Park

We spent several days at Blue Spring State park camping. We had a fantastic wide campsite in a quiet wooded campground. We enjoyed getting up early in the mornings and going to the springs to see the manatees. Many were up in the springs because the temperatures were so cold outside.

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Friday we drove up to DeLeon Springs to go to the Old Sugar Mill pancake place. We had fun making our pancakes at our own table.

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We explored De Leon Spring and tested the water temps.

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Back at Blue Spring we hiked the boardwalk trails for a few hours and then headed out on an eco tour.

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We had a two hours tour up and down along the St. Johns’ River. We saw a lot of wildlife including birds, alligators, turtles and fish.

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Saturday was dessert for dinner. I had a rough day being a pre-teen and waffles helped make my attitude go away

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On Sunday we got up super early since it was so cold out and headed out to see the manatees. The spring head was full! There must have been 15 in the waters playing and splashing. It was quite a site!

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