It's Like Camping in a Jungle

We went camping here, Myakka State Park.   It was pretty much a forest of palm trees surrounding an alligator infested lake.  Did I mention how different camping in Florida is?

 We saw lots of animals!  Seen, but not pictured were racoons, squirrels, and an eagle.  Plus many other unidentified creatures we heard throughout the night. 

Vultures

Alligators!

Deer

Wild hogs

The smores were excellent and the tinfoil dinners were good.

What's a boy without his fire and stick?

The scenery was beautiful!

A tent can be a very exciting place!

There were enough bridges and sticks for the boy's delight!

And of course, a camping trip is no good without a hike nature walk.

We enjoyed our little adventure!

Day of Service

Delivered food to 30 families

 For months and months our ward has been planning a day of service and last Saturday was the big day.  There was a lot of work and planning that went into it and I would say that it was a success!  Basically we served a little community here called Rainbow Village.  Here's what we did:
 

Mulched the playground and flower beds

Painted three laundry rooms

Mulched some more!

We ended with a block party for all the residents

I think some people had fun too!

Cannon pretty much stayed with Ryan the whole time and helped him mulch.  I think it was neat that we could get the children involved and I know that Cannon had a positive experience. 

Halloween

Our Halloween festivities actually started the Friday before Halloween for our ward fall festival and trunk-or-treat.  Cannon loves any big gathering at church because that means he gets to run around with all of his friends.  And that's exactly what he did!  I think there was a point where I hadn't seen him for about 20 minutes, but I always know he's safe.  After the dinner and games we went outside for the trunk-or-treating.  All Cannon wanted was to get some Yummy-Yums (M&M's) and he finally got some at the last car we visited.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures.

On the actual Halloween we picked up Ryan from work and headed out to feed the bears!  There is an exotic animal rescue nearby that is home to tons of tigers, bears, monkeys, turtles, deer, panthers, jaguars, and other animals.  It's pretty close to church, so sometimes we go there on Sundays to see the animals.  They don't allow tours, but one night a year (Halloween) they open their gates to the public to feed the bears candy!  Cannon brought marshmallows and was excited about sharing them with the bears.  We also got to see the tigers more close up.  Two of our friends, the Welches and the James, were there with their kids too.

The ramp for sending candy

 After that we headed up to our other friends, Brian and Keia, to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood.  This was Cannon's first time to trick-or-treat and he had been looking forward to it for awhile!  He had his wolf mask, but decided that he didn't want to wear it anymore.  He loved getting candy, of course, but I think his favorite part was going in a little fun house that a family had set up in their garage.  We brought Blue with us too, dressed as a hot dog, and she even got a dog treat at one house.

Broker dressed as his dad

I think he went through this about 20 times!

Blue kept chasing the lights

New Bike

The other day Cannon became interested in this cheap bike I had bought at the Goodwill.  He got out the tools and wanted to "fix" it, which meant learning what a washer was and playing with the nuts and bolts.  He said it was fixed and he was ready to take it outside to ride it.  So we did.  We went to a little hill and I let go and he stayed balanced!  We did that for awhile and then he showed me where he wanted to take it next.  We ended up going into the parking lot and he started to ride for real!  I couldn't believe it!  The next day we tried again and he had improved even more.

His Goodwill bike is old and rusted so we went out and bought him a new bike today (I couldn't wait until Christmas!).  He was happy to get the new bike, but didn't want to ride it when we got home.  He and Ryan went bike riding, but he wanted to ride his balance bike.  It wasn't until right before dinner that decided to try his new bike.  Each time he rides he improves more and more!  He went farther and did really well up the hill.  He actually rides better barefoot, which is his preference, but it makes me a little nervous that he is going to scrape his feet.  He is pretty excited about his new skill!  He still really likes his balance bike and prefers it right now, probably because it gives him more independence.  But that's fine, we're in no rush.  He also needs help to start, he hasn't quite figured that part out yet. 

3 1/2

 How come my baby looks so big now?!

Earlier this week we went shoe shopping for some church shoes.  We got some, but we also came home with "feet shoes," as Cannon calls them.  He is in LOVE with these funny shoes!

 He has really grown-up these past few months.  Since his birthday six months ago he has:

1.  Greatly improved his speech and communication!  He has big ideas and lots of stories to talk about.  He has lots of questions too.  He recently invented a game called "Story Game" where we switch off telling parts of a make believe story.  He also likes to talk about dinosaurs, which is a new interest of his.  I love to see his imagination blossoming!

2.  Learned to swim!  That has been so awesome!  It's nice that he can have his independence in the water.  He is definitely a fish out of water and it's nice that we can swim here most months of the year.

3.  Learned to ride a two-wheeler!  This is a very recent accomplishment and he is still mastering the bike.  I couldn't believe he did it!  One of the best gifts as a parent is to watch your child succeed and see their hard work pay off.  It's the best feeling to watch your child feel proud of himself.

4.  Learned to pour his own milk and water.  I bought two small glass pitchers, one for water and one for milk.  They are the perfect size for Cannon and now he can get out his own cup and pour his own water when he's thirsty.  He craves independence and having that autonomy has really made him feel good about himself.  I am trying to revamp some things around the house in order to make things more functional and user-friendly for him. 

5.  Become a good friend.  It makes my heart happy to see him share his toys and take care of his friends, by his own choice.  He definitely still has times where he is dead set on a toys or idea or tramples over the little kids to get something he really wants, but I see improvement.  He is the more dominant child in his group of friends (future leader I am hoping) and it's usually his way or the highway, but we are working on using words to solve our problems and to talk about things that bother us instead of pushing or hitting.  I think he is really going to like preschool next year!

Love this guy!

Carving Pumpkins and Going to the Beach

After picking out our pumpkins, we decided that last Friday was going to be the day we carved them. I wanted to wait longer, but Cannon kept asking me everyday when we were going to carve them and eat the seeds.  So we carved them after our night swim.  Cannon likes ooey gooey stuff, so he got his hands right in there!  Ryan is not a fan of having his hands dirty, so he gladly took pictures.

Cannon drew his face on his pumpkin and told me where to carve and how he wanted me to carve it.  We ended up not carving Ryan's pumpkin and Blue's is too small to carve.  Looking back on it, I'm glad we didn't carve Ryan's yet because the other two are already molded!  And now I remember that from last year, just how fast they will mold!  We'll have to throw them out before Halloween. We also baked the seeds with some cinnamon and sugar.  It's Cannon's new favorite treat!  Even Ryan liked them!

On Saturday Ryan's company had a family party at a trampoline arena called Airheads.  We ate junk food, jumped for a long time, and played in the arcade with our 20 free tokens.  Cannon wasn't really into the arcade stuff as much.  He and Ryan played ski ball and rode a jet ski video game, but he really just wanted to jump!  It was fun to do something as a family.

After Airheads we headed home and took naps and then went to the beach.  The beach was Ryan's idea and it was kind of last minute, but I'm glad we went!  The weather here has been gorgeous!  It's warm enough to still swim, but it's not a thousand degrees so you can play outside too.  We went to North Beach so we could bring the dogs with us.  The water was not as cold as I expected it to be, but I still didn't swim.  However, Cannon and Ryan enjoyed a good swim and Broker LOVED to be in the water!  Blue hates the water, but she was so upset that everyone was swimming away from her that she actually swam all the way to Ryan!  She's never done that! 

So upset they left her

Broker couldn't get enough!

Ryan said the water was fairly warm

She likes to dig in the sand

Still can't believe she swam all the way out there!

We had the best time at the beach. It's always such a good stress reliever and it was nice to spend quality time with Ryan before he left for his trip.  Now I remember why I like living here.  The next six months are the best!