Hello everybody, This time I told you it is me so we can just get started. Yesterday morning we went to the beach.
It was cloudy but warm. We saw a sandcastle, a big turtle and a small turtle that both looked like real turtles.
At the end of the beach there was a lighthouse. We all looked at it.
Then we went to find a place to get out because it was a wall of plants behind the beach and small places to get in and out of the beach. Once we found a place to get out we kinda got lost and went to the keeper’s house. For those who don’t know what a lighthouse keeper is, it is a person who lives next to the lighthouse and makes sure it has enough fuel in it to make sure it is always running at night. So that’s what a lighthouse keeper is.
When we were walking past the keeper’s house I heard my mom say “is that a real iguana?” and sure enough it was a real iguana on a warm brick on the keeper’s house.
Mom note:
Lily has been listing things she finds exciting, boring, educational and otherwise note-worthy in the afternoons to help prompt her writing the following morning. She has a choice between writing a journal entry (we’re keeping a family travelogue/journal that we’re all contributing to in our own way), a blog post, or she can work on her opinion writing to follow along with her classmates. I don’t really care how, I just want her to put pencil to paper as often as possible. The list was the game-changer: the details pour out much easier (when Violet isn’t trying to crack her up and distract her!), and she is anxious to record her favorite experiences. Plus, less drama each day for ‘school’- definite bonus for all involved.
****Side note to teachers: You are all gods and goddesses of a patience that I do not, nor will ever have. I feel like a true champion after two solid hours (hour and a half-who am I kidding?) of schooling productivity. All day with ten times as many kids?! Nope. Couldn’t do it. (THANK YOU!!)****
Because she filled a page + without getting to list item no.s 2 through 8, she asked me to summarize so you all would know the things she loved about yesterday.
We were still in No Name Harbor, which they came to adore for its perfect protection for swimming (#2) and kayaking (#3). Number 4 is ‘making elevators for cars’, which I’m honestly at a loss to describe, except that my best guess is that it had something to do with the plastic storage basket she rigged up with thin bungee cord and knitting yarn which was swinging annoyingly in the middle of the companionway all day.
For a real live-action note to the day’s constantly shifting activities, number 5 is ‘more swimming’ and 6 is ‘more kayaking’. This was a combo rig they came up with:
Number 7 was a treat for all of us when a small pod of dolphins came into the harbor and swam around nearby (and close to Lily’s kayak (see no.s 3 & 6)). The picture certainly doesn’t do the experience justice, but they never do, do they?
Last but not least, #8 was fetching a soccer ball from the harbor cut when the three little boys who had been doggedly playing for hours accidentally kicked it in. Their parents didn’t pay attention to the one the group sent to send the message, but since Lily had been watching, and our dinghy was closest and easiest to save the day, she and Andy played fetch.
Eight great things! Today was even busier, hard to believe, and we’re settled into the perfectly picturesque harbor on Boca Chita Key. One of us will fill you in soon!
We are progressively becoming more jealous. I may have to stop reading! Thankfully we have rollerskating and our own trip to look forward too. When are you coming home again?
Um, never?
Or, more likely, around the first of April.