Review of our life

This week Merry got contacts for the first time.

After seeing her squint through her glasses for so long, her eyes look so wide.

She is an expert at poking herself in the eye.

 There has been a lot of relaxing going on at our house.

Too bad no one bothered to vacuum the floor.

The shelf got moved out of the girl's closet during the latest rearrangement.

Since it has been sitting in the middle of the living room the kids have been using it as an indoor jungle gym. 

 Everyone has been arguing who gets to be on the top.

 Only to jump off.

Incredibly unsafe, but fun.

 We also had 2 head injuries this week, neither from the indoor jungle gym.

Eliza split the back of her head open in the tree house.  She was not concerned about the cut but screamed when I had to cut her hair to super glue her head shut.

Grace cut her forehead open when the pull-up bar fell on her head.  Good thing we stock pile super glue.  We had to disguise it with a heart band-aid.

Side note: Grace is the pull-up master of the house.  She can even out pull-up Jacob.

I guess the teenaginess has hit because I have to talk to him through earbuds.

He has spent the summer sleeping, growing, gaming and working on his eyebrow mobility.

Fortunately he will take a break to cook some dessert once in a while.

He is a fan of all things lemon and he made this delicious lemon pudding cake.

4th of July

 Happy 4th of July.

We stayed at home this year and spent the day on the lake

playing on the water mat

and kayaking.

Adam walking on the water.

Adam falling in the water.

Jacob trying to make the biggest splash.

Running of the edge of the mat.

Jacob trying to throw Grace.

Merry making a little shade.

Merry leaving all the chaos behind.

 Grace careful not to get water in her nose.

 Nice tan.

 Showing off her mad skills and her dimples.

More of Eliza kayaking.

We made a brisket and some pie and watched the fireworks over the lake.

It was a fabulous 4th of July.

Caspersen Beach

 

After a couple of days on the east coast we decided to head to the warmer west coast.

Caspersen Beach was the beach of choice for a couple of days.

For snorkeling,

 more snorkeling,

and more snorkeling.

 I'll give you 5 dollars.

The sand dollar bones are pretty abundant.

 Merry much richer.

Money, money, money.

We also searched the shells for

fossilized shark's teeth.

 Eliza digging for shark's teeth.

 Adam collecting shells.

 Beachy hair.

We were also stalked by a gopher tortoise who was sure we had something delicious.

Myakka State Park

While staying in Venice we stopped to see the canopy walk at the Myakka State Park.

This is at the top of the observation tower.

Adam on the canopy walk.

 Grace looking very concerned about more than 4 people being on the the canopy walk at one time.

 Merry admiring the air plants.

This is what Florida really looks like.

It is sort of hard to impress Jacob.

He is not a fan of heights so he didn't go up on the tower.

 Other than the wildlife (children) we brought we saw lots of other animals.

A  nanny deer supervising 3 spotted hoodlums.

 Ole black water with an accessory.

 A limpkin looking for snails.

 An irate rabbit eating grass.

 A tricolored heron supervising the marsh.

 Squirrel girl scaling the trunk of a moss covered sabal palm to admire the needle-leaf air plant.

A yellow-crown night heron who is not nocturnal.

Black-bellied whistling ducks. 

We saw lots of other unphotographed wildlife, it was super cool.