Author: laurie

Mom and Dad were cleaning stuff up int he garage and we had a lot of outdated water. We enjoyed jumping on them and making them explode! Then we recycles all the containers 🙂

We spent Monday at Animal Kingdom and EPCOT with some great friends celebrating Ds birthday. I loved the river rapids and even rode a few new rides for the first time! I especially loved Primevil Whirl! 

We had an epic battle in the gift shop!

After we said goodbye to our friends we spotted for a glo-nut! Its a glow in the dark donut! 

What an awesome day! I love going to the Disney parks with friends.

I love our new marine team club this year. We have been having fun trying to catch fish and other critters. I really just like playing in the bait bucket though! Someone caught a puffer fish. I think they look really neat!

I am taking my first FLVS class, photography, this year. I have been having a great time with it and am really learning to use the camera better. I use Mom’s phone for most of my photos.

I was eager to attend the 4-H forest Ecology Clinic in Gainesville this year. I really want to try to get first place this year! Last year I missed it by one point! I hope to do really well! I enjoy learning about different plants and trees. 

I did well in the trial contest. I have a few areas I need to study some more but I am really excited with what I already know! 

We had a fun critter catching day with 4-H. We found all sorts of amazing creatures! 

We got to spend some time with Grandma Susie as Dad was in DC and Mom had to go to Georgia for a 4-H conference. She got to hike out to the Rock Eagle again! 

We arrived home in time to joint he chaos of prepping for Hurricane Irma. Since we were out of town most of the summer we didn’t have all the supplies we needed. Mom and B ran to Costco to secure some bottled water and other goodies.

Boy was it crowded.

We watched the weather and prepared the house the best we could. Thankfully we have hurricane windows, doors and more.

We helped prep all the flashlights and lanterns. We took before the storm photos in case there was notable damage. Irma continued to shift bringing us closer and closer to the worst part of the storm. Before she arrived we enjoyed a long walk in the rain and low winds. We knew this was the last time out of the house for a while. IN the morning we awoke to lots of downed trees on the street and in the neighborhood. We had minimal damage and mostly to the palms out front but they are designed to shed their fronds in high winds. Some of the fronds blew quite a ways away! The palms in the back dropped a lot of dead fronds and we got them all cleaned up.

We were basically trapped on our street for a few hours until neighbors helped neighbors and pulled all the trees blocking the road towards the edge. They just fell like twigs.

We were happy to find the owls! They will probably be leaving soon to make room for the fall squirrels and blue jays to nest.

We did end up having to bring the motorhome to the house to stay in for a few nights. Our AC stopped working after a surge before the storm arrived. Dad got it all fixed but it took a while to get parts since UPS and FEDEX were still closed from the storm.

We passed the time outside playing games in the shade of the tree and offering free phone charges to the neighbors. It took almost 5 days to get the power back. That wasn’t a bad wait considering how many people long power and how many trees were down throughout the county of lines.

We did sneak out to Animal Kingdom shortly after the storm to get away from the heat of the house. If we were going to sweat we opted for Disney! We enjoyed low crowds at Avitar land and got on all the rides. We arrived home to find Dad and a portable AC unit! We had ONE cool room in the house with the AC running off the generator. Once we got power se still used the portable to cool the room. It was too loud at night for sleeping but we managed.

We now watch Jose and Maria.. will this season end soon?

We enjoyed a day at EPCOT as well when the crowds were low. I found new food to eat!

Since school was essentially canceled Mom kept us busy with some wok on our 4-H Sewing Project. We learned about sergers and also worked on Breighton’s service project of making dg toys for the shelter.

We had to make an overnight stop on the way to St. Louis. We were able to but hunt around the campground and call it an early night. We settled in at the campground in St Louis at the casino. It was a nice campground and very quiet except for the road noise of the highway. We had buffet at the casino one night and it was okay. E ate a lot of shrimp, he now eats shrimp… weird. B ensured that no dessert went untasted! The next morning was out trip to City Museum. The boys have been waiting for several years to come back here. We had an awesome time showing Grandma and Grandpa around inside, outside, above and below the main floors. We got Grandma and Grandpa to try everything we could. You have to really involve yourself in all aspects to really understand this place. We discovered an insect collection we didn’t see last time. E loved the stateless park. Everyone enjoyed some crafting with the Snowflake Lady. The hamster wheel was a hit and a drag. No-one was hurt other than ego. Something caught fire and was smoking so the museum was evacuated. We stood outside waiting for a while. Everything was okay and we got to go back and enjoy the less crowded museum for a few more hours. What a spectacular place to visit. If you haven’t been, you MUST!

 

Now we enter the long drive home. The summer draws to an end and we dive right back into school and 4-H in 3 days.

We made several trips around the wildlife loop when we were there. The buffalo apparently broke through the boundary fence and were excited to see the fresh tall grass on the other side. They were all over the roads. This jam took us almost 30 minutes to get through. The little car doesnt have engine noise so the buffalo just wouldn’t move! We stopped and fed the burros carrots. They were a bit aggressive and they we discovered E was in the backseat waving carrots and then closing his window. We saw a lot of pronghorn. Ha

B found a dead bug but didn’t want to carry it because he was too busy. He passed it off to Mom and the thing immediately started wiggling its legs and trying to flip over. Mom was not excited!

And some random photos out of order on the camera from the Buffalo Safari Jeep ride.