One reason my house isn't amazingly clean

I love both of our dogs dearly, BUT.... Maggie has a very annoying habit. Every time she wants to be fed she'll stand in her dish until I or one of the kids dumps in the food - that isn't the bothersome part. She isn't content to just eat the food from the dish. She has to slide it around the floor until it tips over. She halfway learned this when my mom's boxer stayed with us and he drags his bowl around until you fill it. Maggie just took the practice a bit further.

Then she'll lie on the floor to eat. I gave up keeping her bowl by Tate's bowl, because Maggie ALWAYS drags it over to the edge of the kitchen. Her ultimate goal is to flip the bowl over onto the living room carpet. Once on the carpet she'll eat more, but I'm always finding the leftovers after she has enough.

I love this dog (she's a boxer/Am. bulldog mix and both have BIG personalities), she is absolutely wonderful, but I really wish she would finish cleaning up after herself.

Yellow bellied slider

Maggie, the wonder dog, was barking like crazy out the front window. She generally spends time guarding from the stairs, and today she went nuts. Big Al looked out the window and saw a BIG turtle in the front yard. When we all went out to take a look it was hiding under the car. He hid out there for a bit, and then took off for the pond in the backyard.

Big Al tried to gather the courage to pick it up, but promptly dropped him and danced around like a girl who touched something ookey. Puh-lease...... She did get the idea that he was pretty heavy.

T-Rex then stepped up to grab him, and then took him to the pond. This is generally her "job" during heavy rains because a lot of turtles tend to come up then and end up in the road. This one was by far the biggest we've seen so far in the pond.

The closer she got to the pond the more he started waving his feet around trying to get in as fast as he could. When she let him go he charged straight in, although we could watch the water lillies move as he swam farther out. He was taking no chances on hanging around with us.

June's paddle - ACE Basin Wildlife Refuge

On Sunday my buddy Karen and I went down to the Edisto River and met up with the paddle group. It was a one way paddle, so we left our car one place and rode with new friends Chris and Casey (mother and daughter).

Karen has this "thing" about alligators. I've paddled with them enough to know that they leave us alone, but she would rather not think about them in the water.... BOTH of us are just super careful. I've heard about scary encounters where an alligator felt threatened and reacted, so I'm always on the lookout. Thankfully we didn't see any on this paddle.

Above is the land belonging to the gorgeous house right by the boat landing. We were paddling around the water waiting for everyone to get in and trying not to block other boaters. Below is the Edisto River that we started on, which is very wide and NOT shaded at all. It was an easy paddle as we went with the current. I started off at the front paddling with a couple ladies I met who are also involved with scouts, and Karen was WAAAAYYY back there with Chris and Casey somewhere- oops, guess I wasn't a very good buddy. ;-)







My favorite thing about the paddles, besides the new friends, is all of the wildlife you get to experience. Above are spider lillies which are becoming endangered in a few places in our state. Here in the midlands they are starting to map where they are so folks can watch what they are doing around them. Below is pickeral weed which has a lovely purple spire and grows ALL OVER the lowcountry banks.



About 4 miles in we turned on to Penny Creek and the water became narrower and a little more shaded- I actually prefer these types of side places because there is so much more to see.... if you look. One thing I'm beginning to notice is how people really don't see what is around them, so I'm constantly on the lookout. In this oak (above) for instance, the first thing you notice is more spanish moss, but if you look closer you can see a couple nests. These nests (below) held a momma night heron and her babies. You could hear her chirping at them to be quiet. There were several nests in the same tree. Sadly, these pics look a lot clearer on facebook instead of blogger.










Dragonflies and grasshoppers of various colors were everywhere. This one kept landing on my pfd once I was out of my kayak so I managed a pretty good shot.






I LOVE all of the colors of the kayaks -next time I'll make sure the paddles and bags are out of the way.





About 10 minutes behind me was Karen. After loading all of the kayaks we drove back to the first landing for our car and then stopped by this plantation (Prospect Hill) to take pictures of the gorgeous Oak Allee. These old places are such a staple of the old south, and an absolute reminder of that time period. They are in secluded places and generally WAY off the beaten path. I don't know anything about this house except that it was built in 1848.







A lovely little paddle, fairly easy, and not too hot. 6 miles or so total from the Edisto (Willtown landing) to Penny Creek landing.

Bridging

When a girl scout moves from one level to another we have a bridging ceremony. Three of my Brownies, Blondie included, were moving up to Juniors. Two of them made it to the ceremony this past Saturday. There were girls all the way up through bridging to adult (Big Al is bridging too, but her group wants to have a dinner instead of participate in the ceremony).

We started with music and a poem and then had the Brownies cross over.

After we went through all of the girls we had a big friendship circle and then cake and lemonade.

Blondie and "A" are the two I've had since first grade and I'll continue on up with them as long as they want to participate. Super good kids, and next year they'll be doing the bigger projects. I'm very proud of both of them.

8th Grade Graduation

Tonight Big Al had her graduation ceremony for her magnet program. A magnet is a "school within a school" for a specific purpose. Our district has many programs for the arts, science based, health, etc. Big Al and T-Rex go to the one for high achieving students. Only 80 kids are in her 4 classes and they have been together for 3 years. For the most part we have been exceptionally pleased with everything, and it has definitely been a positive experience.

In this ceremony the students performed individually and in pairs for about ten total pieces. Then the faculty from 6th - 8th all did their presentation. The 6th grade science teacher did a wonderful poem full of references to their activities and jokes about what the teachers "really" are. 7th grade did Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" with all of the kids names listed throughout the song. Part way through the other teachers brought out their lighters. It concluded with the 8th grade history teacher giving a speech about perseverance and profiling Howard Carter's persistance through his life.

After the certificates were handed out the families gathered downstairs to have some food and watch the slideshow of their three years together. It was fun to see everyone, and reminisce about all of the things the kids have accomplished. Afterwards there was a lot of picture taking...

Big Al will cheer with the two on the right next year.

"B" has been one of Big Al's best friends from the beginning. She is a lot of fun and a bundle of energy. We love her dearly and hope they keep in touch as they go to different high schools next year.

"J" has been a soccer buddy for quite a few years.
"A" was also one of Big Al's favorite people.... just like a brother.

These are all super kids who are going in many different directions, but I know these kids will definitely achieve their goals.

Virtuosos

Today I decided to have a lazy day, although I did get the little girls' winter clothes put away. As I'm sitting in the chair watching tv and reading a book I hear Blondie endlessly playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on the keyboard in our library. Her music teacher at school taught the kids to play it and I hear it often, in different tones, and rhythms, so I sent Big Al in there to teach her another song. Big Al picked Jingle Bells. As I listen to her hit wrong notes, T-Rex runs upstairs and gets her violin. Suddenly just a big bunch of NOISE is coming into my lazy day space. I grabbed the camera to share with all of you who wish you were in my library, but are kept apart by distance.

I KNOW you're wishing you were HERE right now..... right?

T-Rex on a field study

Guest blogger: T-Rex

On Thursday, my school took a trip to Savannah. We visited a marine science lab by an estuary. One of the activities was a touch tank where we could hold crabs, horseshoe crabs, starfish, hermit crabs, and snails.

One of the first things I held were the starfish. I figured out that if you keep them flat on your hand they would start to crawl off. One of my classmates thought it would be a nice idea to hold one too, but another friend came behind him and accidently bumped into him. Unfortunately the boy was holding the starfish by the leg and it popped off. Above, is me holding the arm (still moving) with the starfish in the background. Here I am holding a crab.

One of the tanks held seahorses which my friends loved.

Our last activity was a trawler. It was a boat whereyou throw nets into the water and you pull them up and then study the animals. We caught two stingrays, a dozen squid, a jellyfish, a ton of fish, a few crabs, a couple shrimp, and a hermit crab.

This is one of the few shrimp that were caught being held by our guide.

This was one of the bigger squid that was caught.

It was a fun field study, and I had a great time.