Beginning of November

I got a notification on Facebook that Sea World was releasing a rescued pregnant manatee at the river park down the road from us. So Rett and I went to check it out! There were a lot of people there with cameras, Florida fish and wildlife commission employees, Sea World employees, and reporters.

The truck with the manatee:

The crew lifting the manatee out of the truck. They lifted her down to the ground so that they could get measurements and pictures. It was so fun to watch her lift her nose and move around a little bit.

Then it was finally time to place her in the water! They attached a buoy to her so we were able to see where she was in the water as she swam away. So cool! 

James showing me an extra long french fry he got in his happy meal.

James' school had an open house for their STEAM program (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) and they had different stations with different science activities. They had a make your own slingshot, static electricity balloons, and this cool vortex cannon station. They put fog into the boxes so that when you hit the box, you could see the air go across the room and knock down the cups. It was James' favorite station. Currently when he goes to STEAM lab (every 5 days) they are learning how to code so that they can program robots to sing and dance to jingle bells for the Christmas program. So cool!

Toysrus advertised that they were having a special event with giveaways and toy demonstrations for the holidays, so we decided to check it out. It was a total bust! There was one toy display with a girl toy and that was it. But it was super crowded, so we stood in line for at least 15 minutes to buy the little toys I let them pick out. Then at the end they got to ride the little coin operated train, so they deemed it a success :)

James found this witches broom prop in the clearance section of dollar general and got super attached to it. For at least a week he brought it with him everywhere and would walk around "riding" it. I love that he doesn't care what other people think, he just does exactly what he wants to do.

We made our annual trip to the county fair and spent a ridiculous amount of money on the carnival rides. Now that both boys like to ride everything they can it really adds up! But with all the crowds, the noise, the smells, and the waiting in line part of me looks at it like occupational therapy for James. He did so great with all of that, it made it worth it to overpay for all the rides. 

Petting the calves. So cute!

Rett was really upset that he wasn't big enough to ride the bumper cars, he just barely missed the height cut off. Next year!

This is the only ride they went on together in the same car. I thought for sure that they would have to stop the ride in the middle of it because of their fighting. There was a horn button and Rett would NOT STOP PUSHING IT. James even said, "I can't handle it!", so during the ride James kept trying to push Rett's hand off of the button and Rett kept putting it back. Thankfully they didn't start punching each other and made it through the ride without an all out brawl. After that we made sure they had their own car :)

Rett loved this nascar ride soooooo much! He was laughing and giggling the entire time.

James wanted me to take a picture of him pretending to hold this bottle.

It finally started to cool down a little bit, so we got our fire pit out of the shed and roasted some marshmallows. James loves to roast them, but doesn't like to eat cooked marshmallows so he has the job of roasting mine. Rett doesn't like cooked marshmallows either, so he just eats them out of the bag.

Mimi and Papa came to visit and brought the boys a crazy straw building kit. James had so much fun trying out different combinations. 

I saw them on the floor like this and I started telling them to stop fighting and then I heard them laughing. They were actually playing instead of fighting!! So rare these days.

The Stake Primary hosted an 11 year old scout day camp and only 1 boy from the entire stake came! Anthony had to work, so I had to bring the boys with me. James loved the different classes they had and we actually had a good time (I was sort of dreading taking them with me for a 6+ hour event).

They had a nature scavenger hunt and we had such a great time collecting our treasures. We were able to find everything on our list, even a feather at the last minute.

They had an obstacle course that we played on for awhile.

This ramp was James' favorite part of the obstacle course. He would run and jump off it and then go back and do it again.

You were supposed to army crawl underneath these ropes, but there were a lot of sandspurs, so I didn't mind that they cheated a bit :)

The last part of the course was running back to the beginning. James kept yelling, "Run is fun!"