Keeping Busy!

 

 We finished school on Thursday, but I wanted to post one of my favorite memories.  Avery loved when Maia would sit with him while he worked.  What a great homeschool perk!

 On one of our Enrichment Fridays we learned about Christopher Columbus and then went to see an exact replica of the Nina and a close comparison of the Pinta.  The boats are considered sailing museums and do a tour every year traveling the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, The Great Lakes and the Midwestern River system.  The Nina is an exact replica of the original ship and it was built in Brazil, the same location, using the same techinques as the orginal ship.  I was surprised at how small the ship actually was.  It was pretty crowded on deck and had less people on it then was probably on the original voyages.

 On this Enrichment day we learned about robots and made a robot hand out of cardboard and strings.  It was pretty cool to see it work.

 We went to an airshow and visited the innovations tent.  This tent had a lot of neat science activities.  The kids loved building things with the spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. Nasa had a few tables there with cool robots too.

 Austin really got into his design.

 It was a great day to ride a horse!

 We have enjoyed learning about all of the creatures of Florida.  Avery is holding an antlion in this picture.  We discovered them because of the odd holes all over the ground which prompted my very curious children to find out what lived in them.

 
 This gopher tortoise roams the campground.  We decided to share a few carrots with him. 

 
 This is called a velvet ant.  It is a velvety orange wasp who has one of the worst stings.  They are often called cow killers because of their ability to sting with a vengeance.  The female doesn't have wings and can sting and the male has wings, is black and can't sting.


This is a regal jumping spider, who happens to be the largest jumping spider.  Her colors were beautiful and she was so interactive with us.

 We drove to Orlando to visit one of my best friends.  It was a much needed afternoon of conversation from one of my oldest and dearest friends.

 There is an awesome park in Ormond Beach called the Andy Romano park.  It is right on the ocean and has a splash pad, a park, and clean restrooms.  The kids love everything about that park and we visit it often.   

 We have weekly dinner dates here.  Alia was happy here despite the expression.  When we finished taking the picture she said, " I made a mean face to be funny!"

 We spent a very quiet afternoon at Ponce Inlet.  This is one of my favorite beaches in the area because the beach is natural and uncrowded.

We decided to bike a portion of the beach in Daytona Beach Shores.  The Beach goes unbroken for 56 miles so we have a lot of miles to cover!

This is Sugar Mill Ruins in Port Orange.  This park has the largest intact sugar cane press and a lot of dinosaurs.  This park has a lot of intersting history.  It started out as a sugar mill and was destroyed several times by the indians.  Then it was turned into a theme park and dinsoaurs were added.  When the theme park ended, they preserved it as a botanical gardens and left everything.  The kids loved running through the park looking for the dinosaurs. 


Filling shoelace orders!  The business is steadily growing and we are learning so much.  It has been great watching it grow and change over the last year.