In the News...

Check out who made it on the front page of the St. Augustine Record this morning....


Mill Creek Elementary School third grade teacher Tierra Stecher gathers school supplies from her students on the first day of school on Monday. Photos by PETER WILLOTT, peter.willott@staugustine.com
 For today, the full article can be found at http://www.staugustine.com/.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school in our county.  Emory and Ellie each met their teachers on Friday morning at Orientation and loved them.  They were both  so excited that they kept telling us that they wished they could go to school on Saturday rather than waiting until today!    If they continue to feel this way we are going to have a great year!

Emory is now in 6th grade and off to his first year at Pacetti Bay Middle School.  That means that school starts earlier for him at 7:50 and the bus comes at 7:00.  It's an early start to the day for him, especially since he started to sleep in later and later as the summer progressed.  Fortunately he's pretty happy when I wake him and today was no different.  He was up and ready to go before he needed to be.

Ellie is now going into the third grade at Mill Creek Elementary.  Her teacher this year is Mrs. Strecher and she is adorable and bubbly.  Just exactly what Ellie needs!  To say that Ellie is excited about this year is an understatement.  We are so happy for her!  Ellie won the early bird award this morning getting up on her own at 5:45am!  I'm hoping that this won't become a habit for her and that she'll sleep in just a little bit later. 

Ellie and her friend Allie waiting for the bus and talking about what the new year would be like for them. 

Bye, Ellie Bean!  We'll be waiting to hear all about your day when you get home this afternoon. 

Ellie and Mrs. Strecher.

Emory and Ellie both said that had a great day when they got home this afternoon so it looks like we're going to have a great year for both of them!

Swim Team Party

This afternoon the Palencia Piranhas Swim Team had their end of season party.  It was held at one of our neighborhood pools and was a lot of fun for all of the kids to get together again at the end of the summer. 

The first part of the party was the team picture.  Fun with so many kids in 90+ degree weather!

After a little time swimming in the pool, going down the water slide and running through the bounce house obstacle course, it was time to get their trophies for participating in swim team.  Coach Maritza passed them out to each of the swimmers.  This year they each got a really nice swim team bag too! 

Photos at the Fort

Last night the kids asked for a picnic dinner at the Fort and we couldn't say no to such a great idea.  We picked up some seafood on the way down and had a great picnic.  While we were sitting there the sun started to set and made for some great photos.  Here are a few of my favorites...

A Short Trip to St. Pete

Our last trip of the summer was to St. Pete for a few days.  It was so beautiful when Dan and I were down in that area for our anniverary that we decided to take the kids down the following weekend.

 At the pier, we found a small bait shop where you could buy fish and feed the pelicans. Not something that you get to do everyday so both Emory and Ellie decided that they would give it a try.  The pelicans had definitely done this before and were ready to eat as soon as the kids climbed up on the platform.

 To our surprise, Emory actually picked up a fish with his bare hands!...and tossed it to the pelicans.  Ellie is much braver where icky fish are concerned and had no trouble at all.  She just wanted to wash her hands right way when she was finished.

 The pelicans were really amazing up so close.

Our next day we headed out to the beach for some fun in the Gulf.  Unfortunately the weather turned on us and a big storm with really hard rain came onshore while we were sitting on the beach.  It cut our day (and fun beach pictures) short.

 Later that evening after the storm, we headed out for a game of mini-golf at a really fun Congo themed course.  It was our first game of mini golf of the summer and a requirement of every summer vacation.  I'm glad that we were able to squeeze it in before the end of the summer.

At the end of our round of mini golf, we purchased hot dog pieces that you could feed to the alligators in a small pond out front using a tool similar to a fishing pole.  Feeding alligators hot dogs was a new one for all of us but the gators were ready when they saw us coming.

They were very quick to grab the hot dog off of the string...until Emory decided to have some fun with the gators and tease them by swinging it back and forth. 

It was a fun evening and fun visit to St. Pete!

Art Walk

The first Friday of each month, the art galleries in St. Augustine host an event called Art Walk.  It's a time when most of the art galleries remain open later into the evening and have music and sometimes wine and invite everyone in to view the art in their galleries.  We had never attended Art Walk until August 5th when Ellie had some of her art that she created during her summer art camps displayed.

Our little artist was very excited to show us what she had created at art camp! 

 The first piece displayed was the quilt square that she created during her first week of art camp.   All of the squares had been quilted together to make a beautiful quilt titled "For the Young at Art".

Ellie's quilt square showed a self portrait of her painting a garden.

The second item on display was a nest that she created out of different scraps, such as twine, yarn, fabric, vines, leaves and more.  Ellie loves art and hopefully this will only be the first of many Art Walks that she participates in!

A Visit From Ga

Mom came for her summer visit with us at the beginning of August which was perfect.  It gave her some time alone with the kids and Dan and I the opportunity to get away to Sarasota for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary.  When Dan and I returned, he had to go out of town for work but Mom, the kids and I had some fun around St. Augustine.  At the beginning of the week Emory was still in marine science camp so it was just the girls.  One of our first outings was to the Lightner Museum. 

We saw some beautiful antiques, had fun finding the answers to questions on a scavenger hunt in the museum and fed the koi fish in the ponds outside of the museum.

There were lots of koi and they were beautiful colors of orange, white and even black.

On our way home from the museum, we stopped for frozen hot chocolate (mmm!) at a local chocolatier.  When we went in they were just getting ready to start another tour of the chocolate factory so we decided to stay.  Before we could begin we all had to put on hair nets...and were immediately all transformed into lunch ladies!

It was neat to see inside the factory and learn how they make all of their chocolate specialties.

The chocolate sea shells are their signature piece of chocolate and well all enjoyed the samples too!

At the beginning of the tour we watched a short video clip of an I Love Lucy show where Lucy was working at a chocolate factory wrapping chocolates as they came down the conveyor belt.   In true Lucy fashion, it did not go well.   At they end of our tour, Whetstone had a wax Lucy on loan from the wax museum just down the street.  Lucy was all ready for a quick photo op.

Later in the week when Emory was finished with camp, the three of us drove up to Jekyll Island in hopes of finding some sand dollars on the sand bar this time.  Our first stop on Jekyll Island was at Driftwood Beach.  A  beach with huge, full size driftwood trees covering it.  It's the perfect spot to stop for a few pictures.

Emory loves climbing to the top of the trees but unfortunately forgot to bring good climbing shoes on this day.  The flip flops were definitely holding him back.

It got hot very quickly so we headed down to the beach where the sand bar should be.  The tide was almost all the way out and people were already walking out on it looking for sand dollars.  We headed out and before too long Emory had stepped on one and found the first sand dollar of the day.  We quickly realized that it was easiest to find them by just dragging your hand across the top of the sand.  

In less than an hour we had a whole bucket full! 

 Emory and Ellie played in the water for a while and were just silly and then we headed off for a great seafood dinner.  It was the perfect first visit to Jekyll Island for Ga.