James' Field trip to Wonderworks

The 1st grade and kindergarten classes at James' school had their very first field trip to Wonderworks in Orlando. I thought it was pretty ambitious of a trip for a first field trip, but it went great! There were 8 parents just from James' class who signed up to chaperone so you could tell that the parents were a little nervous about their little ones going on such a big trip :) Since there were so many chaperones each group only had 2 or 3 kids in it. This was my group: James and boy named Michael from his class.

The kids were sooooo excited to ride a charter bus to Orlando and back. They watched a movie and had the best time playing with the seats, pretending to be in a space shuttle.

The exterior of Wonderworks is built to look upside down. I'm not exactly sure why...we had a list of science questions to answer as we went around the exhibits but the kids were too excited to stop focus at each thing.

Look at these cute kiddos!! 

Included in their admission was lunch, one game of laser tag, and one time in the 4D ride experience. Of course, James made a beeline for the laser tag, they wanted to do that first thing!

Then we went over to the 4D ride that made it feel like you were falling down the great wall of china. It was really fun!

There were two more floors of science based exhibits with optical illusions, weather related experiences, a bed of nails, etc... This bubble station area was by far the favorite. We went back there a few times once we had seen everything.

James tried so hard to put himself in a person sized bubble.

The space area had a space suit you could lean inside, a command module you could lay down in and flip the buttons, and a cool zero gravity ride, but the boys were too small for the ride.

James loooooved this virtual air hockey game. Every time he would hit the puck on the screen and it would bounce away he would laugh and laugh and laugh.

After having lunch, seeing the exhibits, and going to the gift shop we still had some time left over before we had to get back on the bus. That last hour was the worst!! Trying to find how to entertain them and find things they wanted to do without getting too wild was hard. I was soooo happy to get back on the charter bus. We left the school around 8:30am and got back to the school around 3:30pm. It was a long day, but so much fun!

Doing some catching up

I'm trying to catch up on everything we have been doing! On top of being busy, we've had a round of sickness make its way through everyone again. This time I avoided catching it, but Anthony actually caught and took antibiotics for the second time in his entire life! James had the runniest nose I have ever seen and he ended up with a rash on the sides of his mouth from constantly wiping. Poor guy! I took a picture to send to Anthony to show him the rash, so of course it had to be silly.

Then Rett wanted a turn to get his picture take. Look at that hair! It is out of control, but I can't bear to cut it.

One night James' homework assignment was to draw the president and write a fact about him. So he did and wrote that he is 70 years old (I googled it). I didn't want him to think that I was laughing at his picture so kept my smiles to myself and furiously texted this picture to my family. Awesome!

Rett's turn with the sickness:

Playing with the chickens is our new fun activity. They love to roost on things, so they get much calmer if you take them out and let them sit on your arm or your shoulder. It is so fun to watch them play and push each other off the roost.

James loved having Bellatrix stay on his shoulder for a long time. Thankfully she pooped on the carpet and not down the back of his shirt!

Now with two, one on each shoulder.

Anthony took the boys to Bealls Outlet to buy me some presents for my birthday. This was one of my favorites. We put it up on the outside of the house right by the front door.

We bought a 1/4 pig from a local farm that we have been getting milk from, so we have been experimenting with more pork dishes. I pulled some of the pork chops from the freezer to cook, look at these things! They are huge!

This is the very beginning of our chicken coop. We are doing a "hoop house" style that will be totally enclosed so that the chickens won't be out free ranging without supervision. We have just heard too many stories about the predators around here getting to them. It doesn't look like much yet, but I will post once it gets closer to being completed. Aside from the wire mesh, we are using mostly materials from the habitat for humanity thrift store and dumpster materials from a neighborhood that is building new houses. 

James is still very attached to his fairy house door. Every morning when Anthony gets up to get ready for work, he moves it around so when James wakes up he is sure the fairies did it. He will get close to the door and talk to the fairies behind the door :)

We took an after school trip to the beach. James wanted to play with his toy lawn mower in the water and Rett reeeeeally wanted to chase the birds. He is making a face at me because I won't let him.

We discovered that a large gopher tortoise lives on the edge of our front yard. We've seen him around the compost pile a few times.

I got to talking to one of the mom's in James' kindergarten class and she mentioned that she is ordering a large number of silkie and frizzle chicks to be delivered in June and that she needs to find a home for them. I told her we would love to take some! These chickens are so funny looking, but they are supposed to be the friendliest and most pet-like of chickens so it will be interesting to add them to our flock.

Anthony fed the little snake in a 5 gallon bucket right before going to bed and he didn't want to move her back into her cage right away because moving them right after is bad for their digestion. So he decided to let her stay the night in the bucket, thinking that it was secure enough that she couldn't get out. Nope! The next morning she was gone! I looked everywhere I could think of for her, under couches, behind appliances, but I couldn't find her. We figured that she would turn up once she started getting hungry, but it was disconcerting not knowing where she could pop up. Thankfully a few days later Anthony was putting a book back on the kids bookshelf and spotted a nose sticking out.

We've started letting the chicks get some fresh air and bugs in the the half finished coop. It isn't totally secure, so we just sit out there with them to supervise. They love stretching their wings and pecking around!

Rett is playing his first season of soccer this year. He is so excited! We tried on his soccer cleats and shin guards and kicked the soccer ball around outside. He is a natural!