Bash Bish Falls

What do you do in New England when the temperature in December is in the upper 40's? Go for a hike of course! And that's just what Debbie, Abby & I decided to do.

We had planned on hiking down from the top of Bash Bish Falls, but the trail was still way too icy, so we made our way up the 3 mile (roundtrip) trail from the bottom. Our hike brought us from New York to Massachusetts and then back again, through icy and muddy patches of trail, and to the waterfall itself. The falls were huge and the stairs down were covered with ice. Abby and I had on snow boots (no traction) so we almost didn't go down, but "Debbie The Brave" went ahead of us on the stairs and kicked the ice off each one so we wouldn't fall.

Abby made a snow puppy on the way back

Christmas with the kids

I was so excited about spending Christmas with Seth, Becky, Faith & Tommy this year. Since we started traveling our Christmases have just not been the same, but this one was absolutely perfect. We made cookies for Santa and decorated them, cut out gingerbread paper dolls and colored them to look like people in our family, visited Santa, went to Yankee Candle and made Christmas candles, and just had a great time all around. And to add to it, Dad & Kay came down to join us for a few days over Christmas. I really enjoyed seeing them and was able to finally find the perfect gift for my dad. It was one of those "picture perfect" holidays where you wouldn't change a thing!

The Christmas Tree Carol - BY ABBY

Hi, I'm Abby. We helped Kati & Vern this week at a Christmas Tree stand. It was so fun. Me and my Daddy drilled the Christmas trees holes so they could get onto the stands. And, I got to help deliver the Christmas trees to people's cars. Also, I sharpied my dog Christmas colors. My friends helped me to sharpie my dog. My mommy and I, Miss Kati, Zoe, me (and maybe even Auvi) had a Christmas tree fashion show. We dressed up in Christmas trees and put ribbons on our hineys! We didn't have any power while we were there and we had to use the gererator. We couldn't watch any TV (all because of the stupid generator). But the only thing that was the worst was that we had to buy 5 gallons of water to use for dishes cause we were out of water.

Me and Zoe made a little Christmas tree and it's in our camper right this second. Also, I wanted to make a Christmas windchime, but I couldn't because we didn't have enough time because Kati & Vern's friends (Steve & Bryce) were coming over. I had a lot of fun with Steve and Bryce's kids. They usually stay out until 1 in the morning, but now they just stayed until 1 minute till 8pm cause they had borrowed their cousin's car and had to get it back. Our parents wrapped us up in the tree netter. We had millions and killions and jillions of fun!

Me and my mommy and one of my little friends, Winston, made popcorn. He has red hair like my brother! He was 4 years old. Me and Winston had a lot fun- in fact, I think he was the only friend I played with all day long!

Chicky-Chick-Chock,

Abby

Pirates in Paradise

The Pirates in Paradise Festival was in Key West today. It wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be, and Abby got scared with the re-enactment so we had to leave early. But we did get some AWESOME hippy pictures of us on the beach! Be on the lookout for these on our Christmas cards!

Christmas Parade in Key West

Christmas Parade

We got to be on a Christmas float in the Key West Parade. I had joined the Key West homeschoolers group and when I found out they were going to be in the parade we asked if we could join them on their float.

Truthfully I thought Abby would have fun with this (and she did - throwing candy and wavng like a little princess) but EDDY was actually the one grinning from ear to ear the entire parade route!! Turns out he had never been in a parade!

Kayaking and Key Deer

If someone ever tells me we're going on a 6 mile kayak trip again remind me to check the weather first! Pat, Debbie, Eddy, Abby and I all went up to the Key Deer Island for a kayak trip out to see the stingrays and hopefully to see some of the endangered Key Deer. The trip out was against the current but not too difficult, but coming back the wind picked up to about 25mph and blew right at us! The waves were coming in over the sides of my boat, Pat and Debbie had to put Abby into their 2 person kayak, and it took everything I had just to get back. Everytime you would stop paddling to rest the wind blew you back and you lost all the ground you just covered. My back hurt so bad by the time I finally got back. But, on the flip side, we did catch fish, saw some stingrays, got to investigate a mangrove swamp up close and personal, and got great exercise. It was an experience, and I would definately do it again, although I think I'd take a couple of pain pills before I started! Oh, and we did get to see the Key Deer!

Fishing

Fishing and Shelling

Bluewater Key RV Resort

The most beautiful campground ever!

We were suppose to leave from the KOA Friday to Leo's Campground, but we went down to take a look and none of us wanted to go there! So I went online and found the campground that I had actually seen on the travel channel - Bluewater Key RV Resort. All of their sites are owned (each site costs upwards of 1/2 million dollars!) but when the owner's aren't there they rent them out! We got a beautiful site, right on the canal, with a huge fishing dock, tiki hut, and patio set for $88 a night (which for Key West is really good). I can't wait to go!

Abby at our new campground with the fish she caught right off our deck!

She's been fishing for 6 hours straight now!!

Thanksgiving

We had Pat & Debbie over to the KOA for Thanksgiving. Eddy, Pat, Debbie & Abby hung out in the pool most of the day and amazingly dinner turned out good (except for my Key Lime pie which was actually more like Key Lime soup). I miss Seth, Tommy and my Mom. I'm glad we're going up there for Christmas. Holidays just aren't the same without family.

Duval Crawl

I guess you have to do the Duval Crawl at least once in your lifetime and yesterday was my day! We started with lunch (and drinks) at this neat dockside restaurant which had a swimming pool right in the middle of the restaurant (Abby swam before and after lunch) and made our way down Duval Street stopping at each place with music! Three (or four?) drinks and many tee shirt shops later, we headed over to the beach to watch the sunset.

Summerland Key KOA

Well, we've moved on from Long Key and are gradually making our way further on down the coast. We will be at the KOA for about a week. I miss my campsite right on the ocean, but on the flip side, this one does have a very nice pool.

Snorkeling

Snorkeling

Abby had her first real snorkeling experience the other day. She did great! We went out to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and were lucky enough to see some fantastic fish, including lots of reef fish, a nurse shark, a couple baracuda, and of course, beautiful coral. Even I learned a lot as I took Abby thru the coral aquarium when we got back - coral is made from living animals and their skeletons actually are the coral, it takes 500 years for it to grow, it can only live in waters within a 5 degree temperature range, and is easily damaged by pollutants.

Abby's new Myak

The raft was just too hard to pull behind Eddy's kayak, so in comes the Myak! We took it in thru the mangrove swamps, saw jellyfish, and did some fishing.

Kayaking, Fishing, and Chillin'

Kayaking, Fishing, and Chillin'

Our first week in the Keys has been spent at Long Key State Park. The campground is right on the ocean and we have been having a lot of fun! We've been camping with our friends, Pat & Debbie (the workampers from this year at our campground). Both Pat & Debbie are into fishing big time and have started teaching Eddy and Abby to fish. Eddy has been buying tackle like there is no tomorrow, but he wants to make this a hobby that both him and Abby can enjoy. Eddy, Debbie & Pat caught about 4 Jack Cravalle the other day and boy were they good eating! Abby has caught a couple smaller grunts so far, but nothing we could keep.

We took Abby out on the kayak and taught her how to paddle - big mistake!!!! About a half hour after we brought the kayaks in and tied them up, Eddy looks up and thinks he sees me back out on the kayak, but it's Abby!!! No lifejacket, just happily paddling out to sea! Pat and Eddy had to go rescue her, and I can tell you none of them was happy when they got back! Hopefully she won't try that one again.

Other than Abby's little kayaking adventure we've been having a lot of fun. Abby's been learning all about sea life. We went to visit the Theater of the Sea and it was great! It's a lot like Sea World, only much smaller. We went to dolphin, sea lion, turtle, alligator, shark, and bird shows. At almost all of them Abby raised her hand to volunteer and got to help with the training. She even got to hold a nurse shark! She told me today she wants to be a Marine Psychologist when she grows up so she can train dolphins. She has also been walking the beach every day in search of new sea life that she can have "for a sleepover". So far we've had 10 hermit crabs, a seahorse, a conch, and a bunch of Box Elder bugs spend the night. She's learned about mammals, fish, gills, types of crabs, habitats, endangered animals, pollution, reproduction, and so much more I can't even remember it all!

Jetty Park, Florida

We've made it to Florida and are back at Jetty Park again (actually we're only 1 site away from where we were last year). Abby's been playing on the climbing tree, we've found 3 giant horseshoe crabs already, and have met some great people! Abby made friends with the boy across the way (turns out they RV for 3 months each year) and we all had the Browski's (from FOTR) over for dinner. What a cool family they are! Rich was a big help at helping me learn more about my IPod.

Sea Turtle Hospital

Georgia Sea Turtles

The Georgia Sea Turtle Hospital on Jekyll Island turned out to be very interesting and all of us learned a lot! We spent the whole day there, looking at various exhibits over and over again, and got a chance to visit with the injured sea turtles as well. I had called ahead and spoken with the educational director about possible homeschool opportunities and they actually changed one of the scheduled shows so that Abby would learn more about the turtles! They asked for volunteers (we already knew Abby was going to be picked so that was great) and the lady doing the show dressed Abby up as a sea turtle, complete with flippers, beak, carapace, lungs, etc. It was a great learning experience and well worth the few dollars admission!

Homeschool this week

Homeschool this week - The Crabby Adventure

Abby has had a lot of fun this week learning about all sorts of sea life. Since she found the crabs on Cape Hatteras she's really enjoyed finding out more about oceanography and marine life. She has also enjoyed mini golf at pirate cove, lunch at hard rock cafe; Underwater 3D adventure at Imax theater; trip to Aquarium, learned about swordfish, sharks, prehistoric creatures.

Some of the things she's learned are:

Crabs - There are lots of different kinds of crabs (beach crabs, hermits crabs, spider crabs, land crabs, over 45,000 types), each have 8 legs plus 2 claws and water crabs have gills so it can breathe underwater. Baby crabs are call zoeas and are only as big as a flea, then they turn into a megalops which have large eyes, then finally finally into an adult crab. Crabs molt about 27 times in their life when they outgrow their shell.

The biggest crab is the Japanese Spider Crab which has 8 legs as big as a man and 2 feeding claws, lives in the Pacific Ocean over by Japan, and are omnivores so they eat both fish and plants

Some vocabulary words: carnivore, herbavore, omnivore, invertibrate and vertibrate animals

Homeschool the past couple weeks

Language Arts

Book to Movie Comparisons:
- Nimm's Island - the book is very different from the movie
- Horton Hears a Who - compared with movie, discussed moral in book of how you should never let people make you doubt your beliefs, that you should take care of those who couldn't take care of themselves, and about believing in yourself

Reading/ Language
- 100 Book Challenge: 28 so far
- Phonics, rhyming words, antonyms, homonyms, synonyms

Writing:
- Postcards to Sarah, letter to Mema, typing on the computer


Math:
- Patterns with rubber band grid
- Measuring with centimeters, inches and feet
- Adding diameters

Science:
- Caterpillars, habitats, life cycle, cocoons
- Box Elder bugs
- Crabs, shellfish, ocean
- Time4Learning - Living vs. non living, all about Ants, all about Ardvarks

Social Studies:
- Peanut processing plant - factory tour to see peanuts from the farm to the bag
- Crab processing - workers show how to take the crabmeat out of the shell in a commercial fish market
- Election coverage
- Family traditions - pumpkin carving and fall dinner at Uncle Bill's farm

Geography/ History:
Maryland - C&O Canal, Canal Boats
West Virginia
Virginia - cotton fields, peanut fields
South Carolina - Cape Hatteras, beaches, islands, peninsulas, hurricanes, tropical depression, wind speeds

Cape Hatteras, Outer Banks, NC - BY ABBY

Cape Hatteras, Outer Banks, NC - by Abby

It was rainy and windy when we got to the Outer Banks. The wind was so much that you could actually fly! My dog Jewels, when we got to the top of the dune for ocean, she really flew! We couldn't even get to the ocean the first day because it was so windy and the sand was blowing so hard. There was a flood the next day - and oh my golly! it was big time windy and rainy, even more than yesterday, which was not so bad. We thought we were going to tip over in our camper when the wind was blowing so hard. We got to go down to the ocean today because the wind was coming from the other side and the sand wasn't blowing in our faces. The ocean waves were soooo big! They were about taller than my dad, which he is like 11 feet tall, and much, much taller than me cause I'm only 4 feet long! The waves were so totally awesome! The roads were closed from flooding and it was too windy to leave, so we had to stay here another night.

~by Abby Bennett

Junior Ranger Program - BY ABBY

The Junior Ranger Program was awesome! I got my badge for the C&O Canal. I had to do 5 activities. I choose color a picture, draw a picture of a lock and explored the lock in person, do a maze, find all the things at the visitor center, and looked for wildlife on the Towpath. I found an owl, a butterfly, and a bird. I also found a fuzzy black caterpillar which I thought a Wooley Bear, but it turned out to be a Gypsy Moth.

~by Abby Bennett

Caterpillars - BY ABBY

Caterpillars - by Abby

We found 7 Wooley Bear Caterpillars, and 1 green one with a red head that we don't know what it was.

~ by Abby Bennett

On the Road Again!

On the Road Again!

We are back on the road again and off to Hagerstown MD! We will be working at the Haunted House again this year! Fun, Fun, Fun!

Abby is Reading!

Out of nowhere Abby has started to read! Over the past year we've been working with her on phonics and sounding out words, but she has been so resistant that I haven't really pushed her too much. Then two days ago I called the school to see what type of reading program they are using and they mentioned they were doing the 100 book challenge in addition to their regular program. When I told Abby about it she was very excited and wanted to do the challenge also. Since I hadn't heard her really read much without struggling I thought she wouldn't be able to do much more than picture books, but she has already read 27 simple sight word and word family books. She is still sounding out and guessing a lot, but she is definately reading!

Busy Summer

Labor Day is over already! It's been a while since I posted and I figured now that things have slowed down a bit, I might as well catch up on the blog. The summer went by so quickly! Abby had the best time with all of our themed weeks - Pirates & Princesses, Retro, Disney, Country Western, and so much more!

This summer I really saw her begin to bloom and make some good friends. She met a little girl named Autumn who lives just up the road, and her friend Juliet and her seem to be getting along much better this year as well.

We also had a great time this year as well. We met the greatest new friends - Pat and Debbie - and have had such a good time hanging out with them. We're planning on meeting up again with them this winter in Florida, and we actually hope to see Pete & Rita and Kati & Vern sometime as well.

Our New Camper - BY ABBY

We got a new camper this April. It was hard to get a new camper cause I didn't want to go out of ours, but my Daddy did and my Mommy did. So we got a new one. It was not really cool at first. But now it's cool. I like that it's bigger than the other one.

~by Abby Bennett

School & Work

It's hard to believe that the winter is almost over and that camping season starts in just a few weeks. Even though kindergarten is technically suppose to start until this fall, Abby has pretty much completed the K-Program. She has developed a real love of learning and we are always looking up new things on the internet. Her latest sustained interest is in space (triggered directly by the space shuttle launch in February). She loves to hear all sorts of books about space and is very interested in learning about the planets, stars, and galaxies. Lately our bedtime stories have been non-fiction facts right out of the encyclopedia about space -- so much for Goldilocks! We've also started reading the Little Princess and just finished Tinkerbell. She loves the Little Princess book and has decided she wants to read more books by Frances Hodgsen. Oh, and guess what! She got a letter back from President Bush from the time she wrote to him in November. The war memorials really affected her when we went to see them in Washington DC and she had written to the president about stopping the war in Iraq. I never expected for her to get a reply, but one day in the mail was a letter for her in the mail from the White House. He wrote to her directly and also sent her a picture of himself and Mrs. Bush. I was impressed.

RV Shows

Our RV shows went well this March. We went to the Syracuse show and since Binghamton got canceled at the last minute we substituted Turning Stone instead. Overall we handed out over 8000 brochures. In the past Abby had been front and center in helping to hand out the brochures and talking with people about the campground, but this year she didn't want much to do with it. Instead I had her help out at the kid's craft table. That she liked, but after 2 years of RV shows I think the new has worn off and she even got bored with this.

Seth & Becky's Wedding

Seth and Becky's Wedding

Wow! Just Wow! The wedding was absolutely beautiful! Becky looked like a princess and Seth the handsome prince. I was so impressed with the place that they had the ceremony, it turned out to be the perfect Country Wedding if I had ever seen one. The kids even got a picture of them and the wedding party in front of the big barns to complete the picture!

January & February 2008

Well these two months have taken us from Florida to the Caribbean to Massachusetts and back to New York! Talk about busy! We've had such a great time and met the greatest people. Some of the things we've done over the past two months include:



The FOTR Rally in Jetty Park

Disney, Epcot, Animal Kingdom & Splash Mountain

Watching the Space Shuttle take off
Tour Kennedy Space Center

Renaissance festival

Coral Castle

A Carnival Cruise - our 25th Anniversary, renewing our vows, zip wiring and mud baths in St. Lucia, riding the surf in St. Martin, and touring the countryside by train in St. Kitts.

MY SON'S WEDDING!

December 2007

Well, we have just returned from a great visit out to Colorado and are on our way down to Florida. Christmas was spent in Virginia and after a lovely time seeing my mom and sister, we traveled West to visit with Tommy and go to my nephew Zach's wedding. It was great to see Tommy and all of the Colorado relatives, and to make it even more special Becky & Seth flew out to join us as well. We bought blow up mattresses and all crashed on Tommy's living room floor - I have to say I was a bit worried about how that would all work out, but it ended up being really fun!

Our first stop on the way to Florida is actually a detour into Pennsylvania to pick up our new puppy (Brittany is no longer with us ). She is a Sheltie and will weigh about 18lbs full grown so I think she will be a good size for us in the RV. Abby is learning all about puppies and how to housebreak and train them - if she had her way she'd have the new dog enrolled in dog shows by the time she was 6 months old!