Fun at the BEACH

We all got up bright and early this morning so that we could go to the beach. We have found that if we get there early there are less people and finding a parking place is much simpler.

The weather was perfect, the water on the cool side but the waves were just the right size. We walked way out into the waves, the water got deeper and deeper when suddenly it got more and more shallow. We had walked out onto a sand bar, it was so much fun. I love the beaches in Florida because it does not get deep very fast.

We would float on the waves it was so relaxing, I've never been one for big waves so this was perfect, I could have floated there all day.

Josh found a sea star!! I have never seen one before in Florida. A sea star is something that I think of finding on the west coast.
It is beautiful!! Josh said that it did not want to let go of his hand. He found it washed up on the beach, once we were done looking at it he took it way out and let it go.
The girls had a ball, there was not summer camp today and Will had the day off so it made it a perfect day to go to the beach. Autumn is at a camp for the weekend but she, Josh, Ben and I went last week.

Heidi loved playing in the waves and she collected a pile of shells she found. Nothing was too small or broken for her LOL she loved it.
Hannah also had a great time finding things on the beach she was especially proud of the crab shell she found, she ended up finding two but she gave one to Abby, because she did not find one. Hannah is very sweet and will share almost anything at a moments notice.
Abby is our little mermaid she would have stayed out swimming all day if she could have. Once on the beach she was fascinated by the tinny fish that swam up with each wave and then race back out to sea when the waves went back out
After we were done on the beach we all washed our feet off so that we could go and play in the fountains they have up on the boardwalk.
The water was warm the girls had a great time running in and out of the fountains. The best part for me was that it washed the rest of the sand off so that once we got home we did not have half of the beach with us.

All done and ready to head home for lunch and a movie. It was a wonderful day we all had a great time. The only thing that was wrong with it was you all were not with us.
We hope you had a wonderful day as well.

I hate daycare

I hate daycares. I have yet to be in one that I feel actually cares for the children. They tend to smell bad, be dirty and have broken or old toys to play with. Heidi has been in daycare for over a year now. The first one she was kicked out of due to her behaviors, unfortunately those behaviors were one that the daycare taught her.

At first they were like she is sooo sweet we don’t want to make her behave and we feel sooooo sorry for her and what she has been going on that correcting her in any way makes us feel bad. But when she starts hurting other children they went to the other extreme and declared she was uncontrollable. Mind you we never had the level of problems they reported to us.

Well we got her in a new daycare and things were good for about 5 months then the behaviors started up again, granted it was after visitation with the bio father started again. But this place is out of control they no not have any routine or consistency. Heidi needs consistency more then anyone I have ever met. She needs academic stimulation and this place does not have any of that its kinda free for all, kids doing what they want when they want and the adults basically watching from the sideline.

I want to move her. I also want to keep her home, but her therapist want her in daycare for socialization because there is no one in our home or even in our neighborhood her age to interact with.

I just hate daycare and wish that I could find one that was wonderful. The ones that have been recommended to use are so expensive we can’t afford to have her there. That makes me feel bad.

Morning photos of Florida

I was in the mood to take photos the other morning, it had been raining all night and the yard looked so fresh and new. I don't know what it is about being outside and seeing all the glory of our world, but there just is nothing quite like it.

This butterfly lay's its eggs on the Passion flower it is the purple flower that looks so crazy that I posted a photo of before.
This is just one of the many bugs that likes to crawl around the yard.
I found this mushroom next to the fort Will built with the boys. Its amazing to me that they come up and die in one day.

This is a flower on a vine that I have been working on growing for about 3 years now, and it is finally blooming I'm so happy.

This bush blooms all year round. the only time it did not have flowers was after the freeze that killed so much of my plants.

This flower is on that I have not looked at much it is a wild flower and it grows all over the yard it likes to grow in the middle of the lawn and unfortunately it gets mowed over.

This flower blooms in big bunches all over the bush. Butterfly's love to drink the nectar.

This is also a flower that grows on a bush in my yard. This is also a tasty treat for humming birds and butterflies

This flower is called a Dutchman's pipe. the Caterpillar below eats this. I have not been able to take a photos of the butterfly yet but later this summer they will be all over and I will post a photo. The green thing hanging down in the front of the bloom is the bud you can see how it looks like an old time pipe. This flower is over 10 inches long and 5 to 6 wide.

This is a kind of Swallow tail butterfly.

This is a male lizard. It flaps the orange thing down to attract the girls...ooo lala

Eating some nectar from some Porter Weed.

If you click on the photos it will make the larger so you can see them better. I hope you enjoyed a trip into our backyard.

Bird in the garage

Some of you may or may not know we have Chimney Swifts nesting in our chimney. Each spring they arrive and we can hear them fluttering their winds against the damper of our fireplace, and then a few short weeks later we hear the twittering of baby birds begging for bugs from their parents.

This morning as Will was taking Heidi to preschool, she discovered a BIRD!!! Flying around the garage. She was so excited she yelled a BIRD!! a Bird!! A Bird!! Over and over again. She then ran through the house calling for me, “Mommy a bird in the garage! Come see!” she could hardly contain her excitement and I could not get to the garage fast enough to satisfy her.

She showed it to me. it was now on the window of the garage, these kinds of birds can not land like regular birds because of the positioning of their feet; they are specially designed to cling to the walls of caves. So it was clinging to the metal bar on the window,

Ever so often it would try and fly and it would circle the garage and then try to land if it missed it fluttered helplessly on the cabinet in front of the window until it could get into the right position to fly again. (They look so helpless)

We had Heidi get into the van so that she would not be in the way as we tried to catch the bird, she provided us with running commentary the entire time, “its flying….It’s in the window….Its over here…”

Forest our cat had been out in the front of the house and he had been attracted by the bird’s attempts to get out the window and so now he was perched outside wanting to catch it.

(Sorry this photo did not work but he looked very frustrated with the glass separating him from his pray!!) YUMMY

After only a few attempts Will was victorious and captured the little thing and we let it go.

We have some practice at catching Chimney Swifts because of the way our chimney is, there are two flues one leads to the fireplace in the living room and the other goes down to where the oil heater use to be that heated our home in the olden days. LOL . Well the chimney for the fireplace is rough so the birds can cling to the sides of it but the one that comes down the other side is smooth thus giving noting for the bird to grab onto; so if the bird flies down the wrong side it is trapped.

The first time we had this happen I was in the garage and I could hear some fluttering and chirping sounds coming from the hole in the wall I got out a latter and looked in but I could not see anything. I noticed that the chimney continued down past were the opening came out into the garage so I went and got a mirror and used that to look down the hole.
I found to my surprise a bird trapped down there. The way the chimney is made created a trap. Once the bird flew down the flue it needed to land to get its bearings to fly back out but because of the smooth sides it couldn't do this; the birds came down that side but there was no way for it to get out. In fact I could see the remains of a number of other birds that had at one time or another fallen down and died. Well I got some gloves and was able to reach down and pull the poor thing out. We then stuffed news papers into the hole so that if any other birds fell down they would then be able to fly into the garage and we could let them go.

Each year we get at least one, I think it must be a newbie because after that first mishap we don’t get any more. I think they tell the other birds don’t go down that side.

We have had people tell us to cover the chimney so they can’t nest there any more. We don’t want to do that these little beauties eat their weight every day in misquotes! And with us living in the DeLand of misquotes we need all the help we can get.


All’s well that ends well.

Rain

Look it stopped raining!!! Oh wait never mind its just not raining as hard! LOL

Oh bother it has been raining for 3 strait days now. We got 3 inches from midnight last night until 7 this morning. I know I had been praying for rain but I never in a million years knew that I had this much power in my prayers. I had better start praying to win the lottery. But I will have to do just one thing first...buy a lottery ticket. I understand that is an integral part to winning the game.

It is so dark outside it looks as if its around 8 at night, we have to have lights on in the house all day just to see, its so strange because with all the windows in our house we usually don't have on any lights once the sun comes up.

Over the last 3 days we have gotten over 10 inches of rain, that is good because we were over 11 inches short of where we should be for this time of the year. We have been having brush fires all over the place, the bad part is that there is starting to be flooding around and it is getting into peoples homes that is sad. I'm glad we bought our home up on a hill; if our house floods then there will be no Florida left for anyone to care about!! LOL

We had chile for dinner last night and boy was it good I Love to eat cold weather food but when its all sunny and warm most of the time it takes some of the comfort out of eating it, so we all sat down to big bowls and stuffed ourselves YUMMY!!

The forecast calls for rain for the rest of the week and into next week. We already have vampires moving in to the state because the sunshine state is quickly becoming the overcast state!! It's creepy seeing all those pail dark circled individuals wandering the beaches...Oh wait there not vampires they are just tourists from up North!!

No photos to show the deluge its too dark, and the I'm too week from lack of solar recharging I can barely lift each finger to type!!! We are slowly slipping into habits of totting flash lights around so that we feel that we have some sort of light to lighten our dreary world. Oh the pain of not seeing the sun, I know we must have a sacrifice we have obviously offended the sun God by all those pail fat people wearing speedos on the beach!! The Sun God must be so angry at us, the horror of it all. Now whom do we pick???

It will have to be a native of Florida because if we sacrifice a tourist that will only infuriate the God all the more, could you imagine how hard that pasty skin is? But finding a native of Florida is going to be some task, most people who live her are transplants...I suppose we will have to collect birth certificates from every one and then all those who were born here before 1975 will have to draw lots. The reason it has to be before 1975 that way we get a pure blood!!! 2 Generation would be best!!

Well I'm off to Hunt down the lucky person who will free us from the dreaded overcast sky!! It will be glorious once more in the land of the SUN!!

Flowers

The sun has finally gone behind the clouds and the liquid held within has at last fallen to the ground and thus flowers are born. We have been so very dry. Its kinda funny seeing as how one of my more recent posts had videos of a tropical down pour. Florida is a strange place it needs to rain a lot because of the sandy soil, it does not hold moisture and so when it does not rain it can quickly turn into a desert.

Our yard was shriveling up and basically it began to look like the foothills of Davis County in August in our yard. (No offence to all you Utahans I just want you to have a visual so you could appreciate what I'm talking about LOL.) the rain began to fall last week the nice kind of rain that falls softly and then sinks into the ground nurturing the roots and bringing the green out.

William went out and took some fabulous photos of some of the flowers we have growing in our yard. I have always loved flowers and I don’t think the world could have too many of them. I’m not picky they can be small, tall, wild, cultivated, wonderfully scented, or stinky. I wish there were many more.

I remember going up into the Uintah Mountains in the spring and seeing the meadows full of color the entire ground was covered with millions of flowers of all kinds. It was like I was in a painting. I could have just sat there all day and watched the soft breeze blowing across the field causing the flowers to dance gracefully like some giant ballet; The bees and butterflies moving gracefully from bloom to bloom it is so majestic. I love this world so much beauty.

We call these firework flowers. it is some kind of Orchid.

This is a Passion flower. There are two kinds of butterflies that lay there eggs on this vine, when we get some caterpillars we will take some photos of what they look like. One of the butterflies that lay eggs on this vine we posted a photo of before it is brown with a yellow strip on its wing.

This is one of our many wild pets that have the run of our backyard.

As more flowers bloom we will add them so you can see how wonderful it is in Florida. and Then all of you will want to come and live by us. Or at least come and stay a day or two. We miss you all and think of you often.

Things have been crazy for us of late. Kids, School, work, the normal stuff. School will be out in just a few weeks. The girls are going to go to summer camp they are very excited. The boys will probably just play-play station and computer games.

I have been working on writing a book. It has been a lot of fun. I have the first two chapters written and another chapter written but I don’t know where it will fit into the story. I get these ideas and start to write, unfortunately they don’t go in order; so at some point I will have to get them to match up but for right now I’m just letting the story play its self out.

Will is also keeping busy working on a board game, its about pirates and so far it looks really cool, he is having a great time researching all kinds of stuff for it. I think it will be a great success someday.