Creek And Fort Fun

Hello from the farm! :) We got back from Florida last Sunday and are still working on getting back into the swing of things.

Today, the Smith family came to visit. Benaiah was in our room looking out the window, waiting for them to pull in, and I got this shot. I was trying to get his reflection in the window, but you can't really see it...

 Once they got here, we had blueberry and cherry scones and apples and peanut butter for a brunch/snack. It was an amazing snack. :)

We finished eating and headed to the creek. It had just rained, and we knew it would be wet, so everyone (except me) wore their barn boots.

After crossing the little stream that connects to the creek, the boys found a tree that had fallen over. They thought it would make a great fort, so they started collecting sticks to lean up against it. Lane, of course, was the first one to climb the huge tree and kind of just appeared up in the branches. :)

I tried to take Evie's pictures, but she just hid from me, so I took some without her face in them.

Finally, she let me take some of her up in the tree.

One of the branches...

The moss was super green today. It was bright and beautiful. :)

While the Josiah and Lane got branches for the fort, Diella sharpened some sticks to add to her collection.

Benaiah's shirt hanging on the clothes line that he made. :) He almost left it down at the creek too.

Here is the fort. Under the tree is where they made the fort. It was really big, but you couldn't move very easily because of all the branches that were hanging low to the ground.

Benaiah of course got his boot stuck. When he tried to take another step, his foot came out and got covered with mud. He was going to put his foot back in his boot and Diella and I were both yelling at him to STOP! He said," Well what do you want me to do!?" I told him since he was standing right by some water, he should clean off his foot before putting it back into his clean boot. He decided that my idea was a good one and rinsed off his foot before putting it back into the boot.

After we had been down at the creek for a while, it started to sprinkle. Everyone ran for the fort (though it wasn't a very good cover) and squeezed in. Diella saw me taking a picture of her, and she pointed at the camera with her sharp stick.

There was "hole" where the tree had split in two, and Evie somehow fit in it.

(I'm pretty sure her hair is in her face in every picture except one:)

We made our way back to the tepee that Dad helped us build, and everyone sat on a tree that went over the creek.

Here is the only picture I got that had everybody in it! :) Evie, Diella, Josiah, and Prairie sat on the log, and Benaiah and Lane were racing to get a stick that someone had thrown in the water. Lane is on the other side of the bank, and Benaiah is hiding behind the tree on this side of the bank. The fort in the background is the one that Dad helped us make.

We went down to the creek at around 10:00 am, and came back up probably about 12:30. While we were working on the fort, I spotted three does run out from the woods and go across the field. I told everyone before we got to the woods that if they were quiet, we might see some. They didn't think that being quiet sounded like fun, and I'm guessing the deer got spooked because everyone was being loud. :)

Hope everyone had a blessed week!

Alegra

Day 13- Last Trip to Venice

Today was supposed to be a relaxing, stay-in-the-pool-all-day kinda day, but we decided to go to Venice for the last time so Grandpa could use the rest of his frozen bait to fish. It was a beautiful day at the beach! It wasn't windy, which made the pier more enjoyable. :)

Dad, Diella, and I were walking along the beach when we saw a boat sailing right across from the shore. Diella called it a pirate ship. :) I had never seen a boat look like that before, so it was cool to get some pictures of it.

Grains of sand.... I just love getting close ups of sand! It's so cool!

Diella and Dad. :) She was being a goofball about getting her picture taken.

A close up of my feet buried in the sand.

This was taken from under the pier. I wanted to take this picture also, but I thought we weren't going to come back to Venice. Once we were walking on the beach, I was quick to walk under and get a shot of the pier from this angle. Isn't it kinda neat under there? :)

The side of the pier with the end of it in the background.

Another shot of the boat- I like how it was in the spot where the sun glared off of the ocean.

The boys played football for a long time, so I took a lot of pictures of them playing.

The boys playing football, with "Sharky's" behind them.

Here are some airplane streaks, going into the sun.

A beautiful palm tree.

Josiah brought a book with him in case he would get bored on the pier. When Dad said he was done playing football, Josiah grabbed his book and sat behind one of the beach chairs to read.

Saphi was in her own little world the whole time we were on the beach. I'm not sure what she was doing in this picture, but nevertheless, she's really cute. :)

 Every day, Dad read a portion out of "The Garden of Gratitude" for a devotion time. After every reading, we would think of a word (or words) that went along with what he had read. Then, we would put them on the windows that were surrounding the dining room (that's where we had devotions). Here are all four of the windows with all of the words we used. 

The words on the first window were:

Teshuva (it is the Hebrew word for repent), pray, pause and think/thank, and decisive.

Words on the second window were:

Joy, free donuts (cause everyone wants free donuts. :), thankfulness, and beautiful.

The third window had:

Patience, precious people, and believe.

And the fourth window had the words:

Faith, perspective, honor, and miracles.

Sadly, today was our last day in the sunshine State. We had such a fun time exploring the unexplored (in our eyes), fishing, shark teeth hunting, swimming, and just hangin' around the house. :) I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip, and I hope I did a good job writing about everything we did!

Blessings!

Alegra

Day 12- Last Beach Visit

Hello! Today, we went to Manasota Beach, making it our last visit to the beach. I had made a list of pictures I wanted to take at the beach while we were here, so I took that to finish it off.

Here is a picture of most of our shark teeth we have found this trip.

This picture didn't turn out like I wanted it to. I couldn't see how to set my shutter speed because of the sun, so the picture turned out really bright. I tried to darken it with my editing app, but it just made Benaiah get darker.

Here is a picture to show you how big the waves were (sorta).

Grandma hid some "treasure" and set Saphira to find it. She un-buried it and found chocolate coins in a bag. She was very excited about finding it and I was happy because I got to eat some of it! :)

This was one of the things on my list: shells on someone's arm.

Hadassah sat in Grandma's lounge chair pretty much the whole time. She was really cute, just sitting there grinning. :)

You know me.... I had to get a close up of her hands covered in sand.

This was another one that was on the list: someone carving 2017 in the sand.

It looked so good.....

..and then a wave came, and it was there no more! :)

On the list as well was: holding sand in a heart shape... 

Mom shaped the heart with wet sand before she held it. I like that the background is the water. <3

I also wanted to get Saphi running through the water, but it took longer to convince her to cooperate.

These also came out a little bright... /: Oh well.

We visited the turtle again and found out it was actually a tortoise! Mom thought it was a sea turtle because it had flipper like feet, but it was too far away from the ocean to be a sea turtle, and they don't start nesting until May (through October).

We also drove around looking for lizards. We found lots of them! However, I couldn't get close enough to them, I didn't have my 55-200 mm lens, and I was so far away, it didn't focus on the lizards. 

This is my favorite lizard picture. :)

For supper, we had grilled chicken, sheep-head fish, and salad. It was delicious!!! After supper, everyone had key lime pie (except me cause I don't care for it).I had ice cream with fudge and Hershey hard shell topping. While I ate my ice cream, everyone gathered in the living room and sang some songs. Grandma and I got in the pool after we sang, and now I'm in my room, writing this and watching Flip or Flop. Hope you enjoyed the highlights of my day! :)

Blessings!

Alegra