Feeding the Tarpon

Today was the first day of our trip to the Florida Keys. We drove from Boca down to Islamorada stopping at the Divers Outlet store on the way (this will now be a tradition). Its a nice stopping point because its right at the end of the turnpike and at the busier section of rt. 1 before you pass the sign with the giant marlin that to me marks the beginning of the keys. after that you still meander over more highway and eventually cross the bridge (no idea what its called) which gets you officially onto the islands and at mile marker 106 (love that system - its so impossible to get lost in the keys).

After we checked into our hotel, The Islander, in Islamorada, we headed over to Robbie's on the bayside. Robbie's is a very keys type place, with a small marina, and a few shacks selling stuff outside. They are known for the giant tarpon that are near the dock, and you can buy pails of fish to feed them. Here is Shayna feeding the tarpon:

Link to video of me feeding the tarpon. they were huge, and jump up out of the water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBhhVVs3bjI


LInk to Robbie's website:
http://www.robbies.com/

Skyler snorkeling

A few days ago, Skyler tried snorkeling for the first time.

Today, he tried it again, this time he advanced to putting his face and mouth in the water:
Skyler was breathing through the snorkel:

skyler now is swimming with just the level 3 swim aid and no arm floats, he has mastered kicking his legs and is getting better at doing his doggie paddle arms.

Life in the canal

Some wild life we have spotted in/near the canal recently:

1. Limpkin( Aramus guarauna)

2. Common Moorhen aka (Gallinula chloropus)

3. Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

4.

Thanks to Rick Newman, Biologist, Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, for help in identifying the birds.

Gumbo Limbo Nature Center
1801 N Ocean Blvd.
Boca Raton, FL 33486
561-414-5388

http://www.gumbolimbo.org/

Harry Potter Book Release Party

We had sooo much fun Friday night at the book release party at the Barnes & Noble here in Boca Raton, Florida. The party started at 8pm. We signed in at tables outside and they gave you a color coded ticket for midnight when the book would go on sale- we were in group 2, orange. It was a costume party, so Shayna went as Hermione and Skyler went as Harry. We had the HP glasses from the event at the South FL science museum 2 weeks ago, and it was Manny's idea (thankfully!) to do the white oxford shirt for him (luckily we had it from the dressy outfit I got for holiday pics), and added one of his ties. we used one of manny's ties for shayna's too, and the dress shirt is from choir (although she can use it this year for school). then manny made a cape by cutting off some of the black fabric I use every Halloween. skyler's tie/shirt/cape combo was literally thrown together about 5 minutes before we left the house! they also have the Harry/Hermione wands, although skyler tends to use hermiones, and the official HP broom. the lightning scar was added at the event at face painting but we should have just done that ourselves...oh well.

here are shayna and skyler posing in the parking lot (we took pics here so we didn't have to schlep the broom around all night):

When we first got there, the photographers from the sun sentinel newspaper took a liking to skyler, and followed him around taking 100s of pics. it felt a bit like paparazzi! the palm beach post also took pics, and a store employee took pics too, he was like a little celeb. :-) Here is one of the photographers taking pics near the photo taking area (ironically):

This is the other photographer taking more pics:

The party was a lot of fun and had a schedule. the first hour was face painting, photos, a guess how many bernie botts game, and they had areas divided into hufflepuff, ravenclaw, and griffyndor, and slytherin. Then there was a magic show at 9:15pm, then a fashion show, and a trivia contest at 10pm(very hard one too- shayna's Qs were how old was Nicholas Flamel and in the movie sorcerers stone, at the end when harry was in the hospital, what flavor bernie botts bean did dumbledore want to eat?)

Here is Skyler after having the scar added, playing with the trains:

Below, Shayna and Skyler in the fashion show/costume contest. There were a lot of great costumes!! 2 Hagrids (one an employee), 2 sorting hats (one with table), one Umbridge, one mad eye moody, one Fleur, one luna lovegood, one madame maxine, 2 girls as girl versions of fred & george, a few Tonks, and lots of versions of harry and hermione. also, the employees: one mcGonagall, a moaning myrtle, and even a nargal. later I spotted someone brave enough to come as voldemort (saw him going the escalator and that's it- maybe he apparated to another event LOL).

After the hoopla of the activities died down, maybe about 11pm or so, we camped out for a bit in the childrens section upstairs with yummy frozen frappacinos, cookies, etc. ...read some, browsed some, until time for the big event. shayna even read a good deal of a summer reading book I picked out for her (the tale of emily windsap, about a girl who finds out she is a mermaid). they did the countdown at midnight, everyone clapped and cheered. I didn't realize it, but someone told me that they had a very dramatic unveiling of all the boxes. we weren't looking down at midnight. (duh I didn't know ...oh well). they were so fast at getting the books sold that even though we were in group 2/orange we were out by 12:15am!! not bad. overall, the crowd wasn't bad at all and it was extremely well organized.

I went out today, and Skyler made it into the paper!!! he was on the front page of section B:

I love how it says "Harry Potter Comes to Boca Raton" since we did just come-- MOVE to Boca Raton. The rest says: "LITTLE ACTOR, BIG INTENTIONS: Skyler, 2, of Boca Raton, is dressed as Harry Potter as he explores the bookstore during the release party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Barnes & Noble at University Commons in Boca Raton. The book is the seventh and final volume of the young wizard's adventures."

Wizard School

Tonight Shayna and Skyler had the opportunity to attend Wizard School at the Boca Library. When they arrived, they were given a bag and divided into 6 groups to rotate between classes. Each class was 10 minutes. At the end of each time period a bell rang.

First class was CHARMS. Here they got to make a magical charm and could choose what power it would have:


Second class was CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES. They learned about dragons and made a dragon egg withg a gold coin inside.

Skyler holding his egg and carrier. when we got home he played with the eggs/carriers:

Skyler's finished egg:

Third class was DIVINATION. They made fortune tellers, the kind where its a folded piece of paper and you choose a color, then number, then reveal the fortune underneath.

Fourth class was HERBOLOGY. They combined the 2 magical seeds:

and planted them in these cups:

Fifth class was ARITHMANCY. There was a worksheet here to calculate what the letters in your name told about your personality, kind of like a horoscope. The scroll you got after getting the final number was attached to a pencil.

The sixth and last class was POTIONS:

Afterwards, we picked up some summer reading titles: The Bridge to Terabithia and another Carl Hiaassen book, Nature Girl (we have another one to read called Flushed- all his books take place in Florida and are nature related). This will be after the 7th Harry Potter book is finished, which won't take very long.

Little Friend

Skyler made a new friend, a little baby gecko:

Skyler really is showing a love for nature and animals. He also loves "Bindi the jungle girl."

Coconut Cove

We went to Coconut Cove today, a local small waterpark in West Boca. It had these 2 waterslides, lazy river...... an area where you cross the pool holding onto a net above and stepping on foam animals (turtles, etc.), and a big water playground:

Skyler was too short for the 2 big waterslides and they don't allow them to go with a parent (he was not happy about this), so maybe next year he will be tall enough.

Some things I am working on:

1. Finding a preschool for Skyler

2. Getting an agent/agency for Shayna in Miami

3. Planning trip to Keys July 31st-Aug. 3rd

4. Almost finished unpacking

5. USLC work

Playground at Sugar Sand Park- Part One

The playground at Sugar Sand Park is so big, that after 2 visits we still have not been to the entire playground. I will post a few photos after each playground visit. Today I took Skyler here while Shayna and Manny played the Harry Potter video games.

Here he is on the top/3rd level. He thought this artwork was scary:


another 3rd level shot, notice it is wired in to make it extra safe. I will try and get a photo of the "scary walkway" next time, as I couldn't get a good shot of skyler on it but he is heading towards it here:

Since there is so much walking here, and lots of steps, I considered it exercise...afterwards we went to the beach for more walking. I met a nice local mom from Romania (Julia) with a 5yo son (Luca) going to kindergarten at Del Prado- same school as Shayna.

Bike Trailer

Skyler rode in the new bike trailer for the first time today. He really liked it:

Biking is one of the outdoor activities we are doing to keep in shape. There is a biking/walking/running/all purpose exercise trail near our house.

Manatee

We didn't bring any of the pails today, so Shayna and Skyler dug holes:
of course, that was during the brief time spent out of the water. the ocean was 84 degrees today but choppy, so we got a lot of exercise jumping the waves, and riding the boogie boards. when the kids were playing on the sand above, Manny was snorkeling, and he saw a huge manatee and a sting ray. Then we all went out for a swim and after a while skyler looked sleepy, so we placed him onto the beach chair while shayna and manny swam. not for long, as he decided he wanted to join in, and he rode the boogie board out in the deep water with Manny.

Puppet Show

We went to a puppet show at the Boca Library this afternoon. Every one was sitting on the floor, and Manny was sitting in the very back on a chair. At the very end, the lady doing the show went around and randomly picked people to come up front, and she chose Manny as one of them. It turned out they had to act like a monkey and at the end she brought out a monkey puppet. Manny did a great job, here he is in the act:

After the show ended, we went to apply for library cards, but it turned out we were in the wrong library. Our street was just below the city library zoning line. Our home library was actually part of the much bigger Palm Beach County Library System. So we went to see the library, and we all got library cards there. Our home library is the Southwest County Regional branch of the County system, and is located in Boca just a little North and West of our house. The other library, where the puppet show was, is East of our house, and in what is considered more of the "downtown" part of Boca.
Its a really nice and modern library, and it has a lot of great events, including 2 upcoming Harry Potter ones. It has many more events than our old library in Bucks County, and much better hours- its open 7 days a week. I took out a few books for Skyler, reserved the Bridge to Terabithia for Shayna, and Shayna signed up for the summer reading program.

Splash Adventure

We went to Splash Adventure today, a water playground in Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, only about 3-4 miles from our house. It operates in 4 daily sessions for one hour and 50 minutes. Its right on the "beach" of a lake, and its a very pretty park, with coconut palms:
There is a snack bar in the blue building, featuring a healthy menu, apparently this is where parks are going now. It has a zero entry and is no deeper than 18 inches.

Shayna and Skyler on the playground:

as you can see, this is what skyler thought about the park. he had a BLAST!

The playground had 4 slide areas. Here you can see the curvy red slide and the big blue tube slide, the red one was very fast (I went down it):

Slide area 3, twin small blue slides:

The BIG slide:

after the session ended at 3:20pm, we had lunch on the other side of the fence under one of the huge umbrellas. They had really good pizza!! I think Skyler is ready for one of the bigger water parks.

Opening Day - Harry Potter Movie

We went to see the movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" today on the opening day for the movie, the 5th in the series. We went to see it on the IMAX screen at the Museum of Discovery & Science in Fort Lauderdale. The last 20 minutes was in 3-D. The movie was really good! Since we had movie tickets, we got complimentary admission to the museum, and spent a few hours in the museum before camping out in line to get a good seat.

Like the other science museum, this one had an aquarium section, only this one was bigger and included more animals. It too had a tiny homage to the Egyptians, and it also had a neat animated robotic dinosaur walk through exhibit. There was a very fun and creative play area, located not far from the IMAX theater, which had a big "hardwood hammock" tree climbing area:


This was Harry Potter event #2 for us. Harry Potter event #3 will be Thursday the 19th at the library, and event #4 will be the big book #7 release party at Barnes and Noble on the 20th: at midnight the book will be for sale, but from 8pm until then it will be an activity and fun filled event.

We also just found out that a Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios is planned- to be opened end of 2009 or early 2010! It will be in the Islands of Adventure section.

Haircut

Skyler had his first haircut in Boca today. I took him to a kids haircut place. Here he is after the cut:

There was a big play house and slide there. The helicopter and motorcycle are 50 cent rides.

Floridians

We got our Florida license plates today, so now feel like real Floridians. No more Pennsylvania marks on us as we drive around...it felt like a flag waving "hey tourist." Like everything in Florida, even getting the registration, title, and plates, was quite the experience. They didn't tell me they needed to see the actual cars when I had called to ask what we needed to bring, so we got the plate for the Acura and then Manny drove back with the Acura to get the jeep while I filled out the paperwork for the jeep and got a queue number, arriving back just as the number was being called. Thye have about 40 different plates to choose from, and you get the plate the same day.

I chose the protect our reefs plate. It seemed like fate when she brought out this plate, which almost spells my first name:

Manny chose the fish Florida plate. He also added the dive shark Shayna picked out at a Boca dive shop:

Note: Reason they need to see the cars, also when you apply for car insurance, is there is no car inspection in Florida.

Surfer Boy

Skyler in his surfer shirt:


The boardwalk path to go on and off the beach:

Heading back off the beach, towards the outdoor shower and car:

what a great day I had, now off to wash the sand off:

The above photos are at South Beach, Boca, at one of the middle beach access points, not the main one, which you can see on the online webcam.

Magic for Muggles at South Florida Science Museum

We went to the South Florida Science Museum in West Palm today for a Harry Potter event. Since thundershowers were forecasted, and came, we planned an indoor activity. We bought the kids Fun Passes through the south florida parenting paper, and this was our first use of it. Since the movie and book are releasing in July, it has produced a mass of Harry Potter events. This is the 1st we went to, and have at least 2 more planned: the movie (July 11th) and the book release party.

Here is Shayna playing the Trivia wheel:



There was a Robotics exhibit, and we got to see R2D2. Shayna has been rewatching the Star Wars movies lately.

Shayna and Skyler getting sorted into thier house, with the sorting hat. They both got Gryffindor.

Once sorted, you got a house badge to color in, and then it was made into a pin. here are Shayna and Skyler coloring thier badges, Skyler is wearing Harry Potter glasses:

There were 2 really impressive shows. one was the "school of magic" and the other was "O.W.L.S. Review." The 1st was like you were in a class at Hogwarts, the second was kind of a magic/spells show. Here is Shayna on stage at the second "OWLS" show:

For a small science museum, it sure had a lot of variety. There was an Egypt section with a REAL child mummy, lots of hands on things, an aquarium section, and a neat colorful motion screen room.

South Florida Science Museum website:

www.sfsm.org