A Few Pretty Much Unrelated Pictures

Here are some pictures from the time we returned from our trip to Arkansas until recently - in chronological order I think.  I would like to get back into the routine of posting routinely, but for now a catch up post will have to do.

In the summer, we try to do a lot of wet activities.  Otherwise, the summer gets a little oppressive.  I know that it gets hotter almost everywhere else, but it stays hot here from April until October. 

One thing I appreciate about Miami is the availability of Caribbean products.  Champagne cola is a common Caribbean soda and it seems that every country has it's own version.  It is similar to cream soda.  This one is Haitian.

Natalie excelled in swimming lessons this summer - a big change from last year when she refused to go off the diving board!  She loves to swim.  Fortunately for Irene, seeing that change in Natalie was encouraging to me throughout her 2 weeks of swimming lessons, which accomplished very little.

Summer = Bufo Toads, this is a smallish one.

The Village of Palmetto Bay put up this unusual piece or artwork in a roundabout.  They have another one that is a very dramatic fish sculpture, so this one was pretty puzzling.  I think it was unpopular because they removed it.

For Irene's birthday we got her a pony ride - there is a stable in Davey where you can rent a pony for half and hour and you (the parent) lead the pony with your child riding.  They have a huge area to ride in, a big improvement over a regular pony ride.  Irene was beyond delighted.

We went ice skating on the first day of public school.   It looks like Annalise is alone, but there were several other homeschooling families with us.

We found this black racer at the park one day.

Natalie and our neighbor's maltipoo, Milo

Caleb went on a trip to the Cayman Islands with the church youth group and brought back a rum cake, it was pretty small, so we decide to try making one ourselves, this is it:

Some friends from Trinidad brought us some Trini hot chocolate.  It was not powdered, it looked like a  big chocolate bean and you grated it into hot milk.  It also has some spices and orange peel, so it wasn't exactly like Swiss Miss.

We did a unit on American history, I had wanted to make several recreated pictures, but this is the only one we did - it's the Gold Rush.

Annalise has been cartwheeling all over the place.  She even learned how to do a 1 handed cartwheel.

Irene riding off into the sunset on her balance bike - which I highly recommend.  She can already ride a regular bike without training wheels, but we don't have a small enough one currently for that to be safe.

A Week into May Already

Ah, blogging...it used to be so easy.  So just to keep a tab on things - a few pretty much unrelated pictures:

Irene has been drawing a lot.

"Elsa in the dark"

We got our youth fair ribbons.

Rob ran in a 5K - he got 3rd place in his age division.

Our zoo got an aardvark!

We went to the beach.

We saw Romeo and Juliet - the boy under the sword is the boy who played William Clark in the movie we made at enrichment.

A local park got a new swing.

A Few Pretty Much Unrelated Pictures

Just checking in...

Julia butterfly caterpillar

Easter Smile - Classic Irene

Howdy!

Midas Cichlid

And finally two *related* pictures :)

December Roundup

When I envision my New Years blogging resolution, I think it will be in the form of updates, that is if I have inspiration and energy at the same time!  So maybe something like this:

December is a month of transition to the dry season, some Decembers here are really rainy, others are not.  This year has been a dry one, so it have been a good start to the yard sale season.  I like yard sales and usually I don't buy a lot of things, but I like seeing other neighborhoods, discovering unusual things (that I don't usually buy), and haggling for better prices when I do buy something.  By contrast I don't like shopping in stores.

We have been talking about camping next time we go to the Smoky Mountains and we knew we would need a bigger tent.  I bought this one for $5 at a community sale.  Dubious at its low price (retail was about $140), I set it up in the back yard and cannot find any flaws.  It sleeps 8.  Naturally the kids begged to sleep in it that night and we let them, but at 11pm they all opted to come back inside.  Obviously I now need to be looking for air mattresses!

Another yard sale find was a classic Guess Who game.  We had some heated contests the week after I brought it home.  Guess Who is a game I remember playing with the kids at the day camp where I worked and I loved it. 

One of our neighbors gave us a bottle of Creme de Vie - that is Cuban Eggnog (made with aged Cuban rum and coconut milk)  It was very good.  I gave another Cuban neighbor a gingerbread house and she was so amazed at it - not because it was amazing, but because she had never seen one!  Living in a community where traditions are so important to identity, I sometimes feel a little bland, so this was very gratifying for me!

Annalise broke the 3rd bone in her middle left finger the same day we moved the girls to the new room.  She slipped and fell and caught herself in a funny way.  She has to wear the splint for about 4 weeks.

And we have two new "pets" - we named them Bitsy and Big Boy,  Bitsy is a cherry tomato plant and Big Boy is a heirloom tomato plant.  Bitsy is actually bigger, but her tomatoes won't be!  We move them to the front yard for the morning sun and to the backyard for the afternoon - otherwise, our deep southern sunshine does not hit any one spot more than 6 hours - yes in the Sunshine State!

Christmas is coming and I've made a few goodies and am planning to cook a ham and make scalloped potatoes.  We started a tradition 2 years ago that on Christmas Eve after the candlelight service we get Pizza Hut pizza and that is in the plans too.  My birthday is next Wednesday, somone asked it I still plan to count them and I said yes!  I am totally playing the birthday card and told the kids their gift to me will be to do all the cooking that day!  So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

An august August

We had a very full August:

It started off with swimming lessons :

Then the kids went to a week of day camp at our church.  Irene went most days, but one day she stayed home and I asked her if she wanted to do something special, she said yes, make valentines.  So we did:  (these blogger does not want rotated and I'm not in the mood to argue)

Zebra valentine I made for her

Horse valentine she designed herself.

Bunny valentine for Natalie that we made together.

The big kids made a video about a family visiting Australia (a geography project) and this is them pretending to visit the Great Barrier Reef, which we know isn't this shallow, but we had to improvise.

Rob put up a new ceiling in the new room:

Caleb caught this fish, which isn't a goldfish, I'm not sure what it is.

We made a model of blood.

We got Irene started on her first chores...
Folding wash clothes:

Putting away spoons:

The big girls and their dolls went to a sleep over:

We went ice skating and I skated so much, I didn't take any pictures!

Rob build a thing that showed the eclipse on our wall

We got a flat tire.

This is what the traffic was really like while Rob changed the tire:

We went to the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota  (super cool)

And we squeezed in one more field trip to the History Miami Museum downtown.

And lest it look like all we do is play, the kids produced almost as much schoolwork as I culled from last year's pile for their portfolios, so our new school year, at least for documentation, is off to a good start.