Good Morning Sunshine!

I get a ridiculous amount of joy out of these flowers.

Don't they look like crowns as they are blooming but not yet open?

Hello Baby Sunflower

My little garden helper.

Gator Land Adventure

Saturday was our 180th and final day of school.

We made it through 1st Grade! Whoohoo!

One great thing about homeschooling is that even a Saturday can count as a school day! 

We celebrated our last day of 1st grade with a field trip to Gatorland.

We got to see four rare white gators. They are not the pink eyed albino gators. These are called Leucistic alligators. 

Learn more about these very rare gators and how they got to Gator Land through this short video.

Then it was off the aviary to hold and feed some birds.

Pet some goats.

Watch some gator wrestling.

And take a nice walk through the swamp.

This tree is estimated to be 500 years old. 

That means it sprouted the same time Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

And these poor trees were victims of Hurricane Charley. 

See how Charley snapped their trunks off?

Charley hit Florida six days after our wedding and was the first of four hurricanes to hit our state in a six week period.. My new husband and I were safe and sound in the Smokey Mountains watching the news of category 4 Hurricane Charley barrel towards our family and friends back in FL. It made landfall on our family on the west coast then traveled across the state and over our family on the east coast. 

Thankfully everyone was ok.

Finally it was time to cool off at the splash pad before heading home.

Happy Friday!

Last night we were sitting down to eat dinner and Ethan yells, "There's a chicken!" Well, there wasn't a chicken but there was a turkey right outside the window. 

It reminded me of the time we went to the County Fair last Fall and as we were walking down the rows of birds on display for judging Ethan calls out "Look Mom! There's a bald eagle!" I look in little cage he was pointing in and there's this tiny fluffy chicken. We laughed so hard along with several other fair goes who heard him. I like to imagine the little chicken puffed up in pride when compared to a mighty baled eagle! 

Anyway, back to the chicken turkey out side our window last night. She wasn't alone.

She had her babies with her.

The trees around our house block out much of the sunset but the little we can see from our house in the woods has been beautiful the last couple of evenings.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hand Milled Soap Giveaway at Creekside Cottage!

Good morning Friends! I wanted to make sure you all heard about a giveaway going on at my Aunt's blog this weekend. 

Four bars of all natural handmade soap to one lucky winner.

You can enter to win by leaving a comment at Creekside Cottage.