Arboretum

We went for a walk and geocache in Constitution Park in Deerfield Beach. This park has a tree zoo aka arboretum, tennis courts, playground, basketball courts, a building, and picnic tables. It made for a very interesting and educational walk. This would also be a good spot to rollerblade or play tennis. They have signs telling you what the trees are and where they are from.

This was a neat looking tree that reminded me of a fairy tale:
The Ponytail Palm:

Cool looking playground:

Note in the above photo, tennis courts to the left- kids can play on the playground while we play tennis.

Skyler climbing:

I like the playgrounds with this surface, made from recycled tires:

Sadly, we could not find the one geocache in this park, but we got exercise and enjoyed the educational aspect and playground.

Math Class

Shayna started math this week. They change classes for math, and the entire gifted 5th grade (5 classes of kids) are put into classes based on how they did on the assessment test.

Shayna was put into 6th grade math, in Mrs. Roots class. Mrs. Root said that it was a high acheivement that they were in this class. Shayna thinks there may be another 6th grade math class. Her math text says middle school on it. Shayna really likes Mrs. Root, she is a very creative teacher. She has a reward system to motivate the students. They earn raffle tickets. The top reward is getting to take one of the pet turtles home for the weekend, and it can swim in the swimming pool. Shayna really wants to earn this! Mrs. Root also does yoga with the kids.

Also, every night besides the normal homework assignment, she will give them a thought provoking question to figure out or look up. One time it was to find the sanskrit word for the tree position in yoga, and another one was to find out what a number to the power of zero is, is it the number or 1, and why is it 1. I am not a math person, so if she gets any really tough ones she may be contacting her Uncle Mike!

Breath Holding

Skyler started to hold his breath underwater today, ie not just put his face in but go under to hold his breath. This was all his idea. He had been jumping in and swimming back to the wall, and also was starting to keep his face in the water longer and more, so starting to swim underwater. Then he was by the steps and all of a sudden he said "1,2,3 hold breath" and went underwater. Then Manny came over and the three of them all went underwater at the same time. Skyler's longest underwater time was 7 seconds.

Swimming

Swimming has beome a part of daily life for us. We swim every day unless it rains very hard. Most days it rains and then "passes over." Manny likes to say "uh-oh looks like rain" and then I say "oh, it'll pass over." manny says that its a jew cloud because it "passes over."

Every day after school we go in the pool and I have a "pool chat" with Shayna to hear about her day at school.

Skyler is now starting to swim without any swim aids! He jumps in, goes underwater, and swims to the wall. He is starting to keep his face in the water more. I will get some good photos and video of him swimming once I get the new camera, as ours died after getting deluged with water on our snorkeling trip in Pompano a few weeks ago when the underwater case malfunctioned.

Sleeping Turtle

Here is Skyler doing the "sleeping turtle" in the pool:
Note, this photo was taken on July 19th. Since then, one arm band was lost (we bought new ones), and he only wears arm bands when swimming in the deep ocean (not alone of course). He then graduated to swimming in the pool with just the swim vest, and now he is able to swim without the vest. He can't swim the entire length of the pool yet, but can swim almost the whole way going across the short way - see above swimming update.

Deerfield Beach Parks

We did some geocaching in Deerfield Beach today.

First we went to a small park on the Hillsboro canal. This is the very south of Boca and North of Deerfield. This is a very nice fishing spot. We saw the guy on the right catch a fish:
Next we went to Quiet Waters Park where we found 2 caches. This was the second one:

This is part of the walking/biking path that we walked on for exercise. We had been to this park twice before, once for splash adventure (the water park which is also located here) and once to walk. They have a set up behind Shayna for wakeboarding. We will go biking here as its one of the bike trails we know of that is close and NOT close to a road. Skyler is in the new (ie bought after we moved) stroller: BOB. I did a lot of research to find this rugged all terrain stroller. Its great for hiking/geocaching and can go anywhere, although it doesn't work so well on the beach.

Skylers first day of school

Skyler had his first day of school today at Discovery Preschool:


Skyler is in the Elmo room. Here he is walking to his room. There is a big courtyard in the middle of all the rooms with a few playgrounds and bikes. They also have a gym and media room.


Here he is looking for his name on one of the apples. those triangle shaped holes in the window are "peek-a-boo" holes for the parents to peek into the room and see what they are doing without the kids knowing they are looking in.



Skyler pointing to his name:

The door to the Elmo room:

Inside the classroom. The little Elmo's on the table are for the kids to pick out thier name, and then place it on the attendance board by the door.

Skyler goes 3 days a week from 9am-1:20pm. It works out since I can drop off Shayna at 7:45am, and go back and get Skyler ready and drop him off around 8:45 or 8:50am. In the afternoon I pick up Skyler first and 1:20pm, and then go right to Del Prado and get in the car line (depending on traffic maybe 1:30 or 1:40pm). Del Prado gets out around 2 or 2:05.

Skyler had his open house on Tuesday Aug. 21st at 6:30pm so we could meet his teachers, see the classroom, and meet the other kids.

Shayna's first day of school

Shayna had her first day of school today at Del Prado Elementary. Here she is about to walk into school:

The school is set up with a huge courtyard in the middle, which you walk through to get to the classrooms and wings. Some have doors directly to the outside, and one wing has indoor hallways. Shayna's classroom, 301, has the door leading to the outside, and its the first room in the outdoor corridor so almost in the big courtyard.

They had an open house on Monday the 20th, where you could go see the school, see the room, meet the teacher, etc. The PTA had a giant booth set up in the courtyard with tables: sign up for various volunteer committees, a table with used uniforms, and info. about the after school clubs. You can also volunteer in the classroom/s. Shayna's teacher is Mr. Mandel.

One good thing about Florida schools is the classes can not be bigger than 20 students, so Shayna's class has maybe 18-19 kids. At the open house I met 2 other moms with daughters in her class, and we arranged to meet for lunch the next day so the girls could get aquainted. One of the girls, Carissa, is new to the school too, she switched into the full time gifted program from the regular classroom at her old school. The other girl, Hannah, has been at the school since kindergarten, and her mother grew up here. Carissa and her mom are from California and have been in Boca for 5 years.

So far in the first week of school they have started science- hurricanes, reading- reading a novel and learning vocabulary, and took the math assessment test. They assess the entire gifted 5th grade (5 classes) and then place them into math classes/groups.

As you can see in the above photo, they have to wear a uniform. Blue, white or green collared shirt (or dress), with blue or khaki pants, shorts, or skirt/skort.

Recent Events

I am a bit behind on blogging, so here are some things that have been happening- will post photos and more details later:

1. Skyler's 3rd birthday
2. Skyler's 3yo check up and first visit to pediatrician in Florida
3. Skyler snorkels in ocean for first time (not counting the 30 seconds in the keys)
4. We saw a puffer fish on the beach- hence begins skyler's obsession with puffer fish. also, he can ID fish such as mahi mahi, grunt, and hammerhead.
5. Schoolhouse Children's Museum in Boynton Beach
6. Open house at Shayna's new school: Del Prado Elementary
7. Open house at Skyler's new preschool: Discovery Preschool
8. First Day of school for both Shayna and Skyler on Wed. August 22nd

Schoolhouse Childrens Museum

We went to the schoolhouse children's museum in Boynton Beach today. It is designed to teach about old Florida and its history. They had an event where you got to make ice cream. Everyone got thier own bag filled with milk, flavor, salt, and ice to shake until it formed ice cream.

Skyler really enjoyed his ice cream that he made:

Recreating the canal/river transportation:

Play kitchen/food area:

Puppet show by Shayna:

Homage to the barefoot mailman:

Room #1 on 2nd floor, cool play boat:

Mangrove play area:

Cute baby birds puppet:

The museum was an old schoolhouse, this was one of the classrooms:

Railing on 2nd floor, staircase. I thought this was really pretty artwork:

Room #2 on 2nd floor, medical part:

Coolest part of the museum and our favorite...Skyler thought this was soooo funny. when you knock on the lighthouse door, this guy peeks out of the window above and talks:

there is also a really nice outdoor playground that is in a castle theme, which we may go to in the cooler months.

3 year old check up

I took Skyler for the first time to the new pediatrician practice in Boca, the Boca Pediatric Group. The neat thing about this, maybe its a typical Florida/tropical location thing, but the building is designed where you go up a see through elevator and when you get out you are in an outside hallway, with a stone walkway, leading to all the medical office doors.

Skyler saw Dr. Levy today, he was very friendly and tried to tease Skyler by calling him cookie, after skyler wouldn't tell him his name (he does not do this so well yet, that is, respond when asked his name). After finishing the exam, he said that his pediatrician in Pennsylvania must have been very good and gentle, because skyler was not afraid and let the Dr. pick him up, examine him, without any fuss.

He got his 2nd hepatitis B shot, he needs 3 total and apparently the PA ped. administers them later. He will need to have 3 before entering kindergarten.

Shayna told him right before we left that he would get a lollipop, and the entire time we were there, including time in the waiting room, he kept asking for a lollipop. Unfortunately, this practice does not have any lollipops, they have stickers.

Here are his stats:

Height= 37" (50%)

Weight= 35.8 lbs. (80%)

Happy 3rd Birthday Skyler!

We had a little celebration for Skyler's 3rd birthday, with a Nemo/fish/coral reef motif.

This is the Finding Nemo birthday cake:

It had Nemo and Dorrie on it, they are pool squirt toys:

Skyler pointing to the number 3 candle:

Skyler is 3:

Time to sing Happy Birthday:

Skyler about to blow out the candles:

Playmobil Funpark

We took Skyler (and Shayna too, but this is more for his age level) to the Playmobil Funpark on his birthday. This was the rainy day plan, as it started to rain just as the time came to go to Splash Adventure. Its an inside play place basically, and the outside looks like a giant castle, just like a typical Playmobil toy version. Inside it is set up to look like different parts of a castle:
The knights section:

King Arthur's sword:

Uh-oh...Daddy's in the castle dungeon!

Snake

We found this snake right on the front porch the night we got back from the Keys:
I did a bit of research online, and I am pretty sure its a ribbon snake, similar to a garter snake.

I also recently saw a spotted frog on the front porch.

World Wide Sportsman Store

Before driving back home to Boca after checking out of the hotel and having breakfast, we went to check out the World Wide Sportsman Store in Islamorada. It turned out to be quite the attraction and we wound up spending about 3-4 hours there!

Where else can you pose in front of a giant marlin....

and climb inside the real boat that Ernest Hemingway owned...including lots of vintage photos including the REAL old man and the sea:
There was a cool giant fish tank:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQwRQEzAm7U

We had lunch in the Zane Grey lounge/cafe on the 2nd floor - very cool lounge filled with amazing memoralbia and it reminded me of the very manly Presidential lounge at Cheeca Lounge (no photos of the ZG lounge). Then enjoying the gorgeous scenery overlooking the bay at the outside part of the Zane Grey cafe. see all the little islands- there are many hundreds like that all over the keys- this is what makes the boating exploration possibilities endless:

Looking left over the Islamorada Fish Company Restaurant:

Harriette's

This is my favorite breakfast spot in the Upper Keys. Its cute, good food, cheap, and very old Florida/Keys style. How cute are those gingerbread men?

Swinging through Dinner

We found a restaurant across the street from our hotel to eat dinner at the end of our day trip to Bahia Honda and back. We got to sit on one of the "swing" tables. We had seen this back in November when we were in Fort Lauderdale, there are a few places there with similar swing style seating, but we never got to eat at any- even though we intended to when we were with Jami and Chris looking for the swing restaurant-hence this reminded me of Jami. anyway, this was perfect because Skyler slept through the entire dinner in GREAT comfort:

Bahia Honda

We went to Bahia Honda State Park on Friday, which is known as one of the top beaches in the country for its natural beauty. I didn't get any actual beach shots because we were in the water the whole time...but this is what it looks like, the Atlantic Ocean side, which is where we went. The water there was very pretty and clear, and it was also very shallow and had no waves. Skyler loved it. It was very pleasant swimming around, and we did some snorkeling (Skyler too!) and saw some fish. The highlight was watching a pelican dive for fish right in front of us.

we just swam and didn't even sit on the beach to dry off, since it was so hot and there is so much seaweed, we decided to head right for the outdoor showers (besides drying off on the beach is pointless as you just get all wet in the shower anyway). shayna and I stayed in our swim suits since its a typical park and not conducive to changing. since we were at mile marker 37 and the hotel is at mile marker 82, we did a little exploring. we wound up on no name key (nearby bahia honda) and somehow wound up on a desolate dead end road, which was kind of neat and very old Florida. Its like one of those overgrown rustic roads in Peekskill (where my grandpa Leon's bungalow was) that goes no where. this gave us the opportunity to do a quick behind the car door change. it was here we spotted some key deer.

afterwards we meandered our way North, I was driving while Manny napped, so we made a few shopping stops. shayna had to go to the bathroom so we stopped at this really cute old Florida style coffee house, which turned out to be closed. I thought thier checker board table set up was cute, so snapped this pic:


Cutesy mermaid gift shop: