I can't believe we fit all of the stuff in that we did in May but we did. It may explain why my truck smells like ChickfilA and old coffee....  But here it goes.  I am going to go in reverse order. 
The Spring garden is coming with with lots of peppers, potatoes, some cherry tomatoes, potatoes, basil, mint, oregano, parsley, and heirloom cukes from many countries.  I believe we have India, China, Japanese and some American pickling cukes!
I am still loving my bees and am soaking up all then information I can.  I have a local beekeeper mentor that I recently helped extract some honey.  He is 83 and has been beekeeping for over 30 years.  While I was in Florida I stopped at every local honey place I could find LOL.  I found one big commercial beekeeper who actually opened up a hive and gave me all kinds of advice.  I bought 3 kinds of honey from him.  Iris my friend in Miami was a little frightened when he pulled out a few thousand bees and started showed her the queen and some drones.  I also had the chance to go back to the place I purchased my bees and spend the day seeing all they do.  It was pretty cool seeing my first live swarm.


Here is the extracting

extracting honey

Here is the link to the Spring Garden

Spring Garden

Abby had her 11th Birthday at Paws Humane Society!  She is such an awesome, giving child.  I really was shocked at the turn out of people.  She asked that people bring the Humane Society shelter presents instead of herself for her Birthday.  It was a HUGE thing for a little (ok BIG) girl to do.    Not only did she get some really cool gifts she also got 170. in cash Donations.  Way to go Abby!


We met up with our favorite family the Dennisons for a little relaxing time at Vero Beach and in Orlando.  On the last night there it was a full moon and I had decided to let Abby stay up late and walk the beach in hopes we would find a sea turtle nesting.  I silently prayed walking in the darkness with Iris and her husband that we would see a turtle coming out of the surf to lay her eggs.  We walked down the beach and as we were coming back, what did we see but a large shape coming out of the waves!  It was a turtle.  She slowly climbed up the dune and started to position herself to make a nest I suppose.  We decided at this point it would be better to go back to the hotel as to not disturb her.  In the morning Iris took some pictures of where the Turtle Conservation people had found the nest and had already roped it off.  She also took a picture of the sea turtles tracks.  These tracks tell us it was a Green turtle that was the mom of that nest



While in Orlando we hit the Disney Water park Typhoon Lagoon and the kids and US had a blast in the wave pool and the slides.  My personal favorite is the lazy river.
John drove down in his own vehicle and we all went to Nasa Kennedy Space Center.  It was on my list of places I feel like my children should see before they are grown.  I am going to say this before I tell you about our experience with the KSC.  Maybe you have children that have more attention span then a fruit fly but I do not.  It was the biggest waste of time for our family.  We gleaned 4 important things from the whole experience (ok maybe 4). 
1.  Going to NASA is pretty much akin to going through the Atlanta AIrport when the color is RED.  The security is such that you can't really see much at the tour.  If you know my child Matthew you can imagine how excited he was to view the buildings from miles away because we could not get very close.  The glossy look came over his face and he started to think up ways to totally annoy me in a bus load of foreign people who I am sure were saying all kinds of things about us in German.
2.  After all the zillions of dollars we have spent at Nasa creating the most amazing Shuttles, suits, telescopes, rockets, VELCRO and dried ice cream for heavens sake YOU WOULD THINK that at THE LAUNCH SITE....
Can I SAY THAT AGAIN?
AT THE LAUNCH SITE this is what they have for a restroom.



Yes you do not have to rub your eyes as they are NOT playing tricks on you.  This folks is a porta potty that is at our Nasa Space center launch pad.  I have to tell you inside that green one at the end was a spider.  That spider was pretty much Abby's excitement for the whole tour until........................................................
yes wait for it.................................................................................................... until she spotted this..................
a Gopher Turtle.


I know please do not send me comments about how wonderful you think the space center is ok?  I am only speaking from my humble experience.
 

I have to tell you Matthew did like what they call the CRAWLER.  It is a large thingy ma bob that moves along a track and transports the shuttle to the Launch pad that as you already know has a porta potty. 



I really liked this picture and wondered how much a garden might run me up at the space station?  I already feel like my tomatoes at home easily run me more then a buck a piece......  




Mid May Abby and Matthew had Reader's Theater.  I promise you that we as homeschoolers are trying to shake off that image that we sit around in our pajamas all day.  It was really neat to see Matt and Abby together doing a play. 


Check out that cheesy grin.  Abby was the evil witch who tended a garden and Matthew was her EVIL RADISH/assistant.

So much more happened on our trip, campfires, smores, singing, honey, educational centers, good friends and lots of fun in the sun.  Here is a link to a few of the other things we did in May.

the rest of May



I wish I could say that June has come in like a lamb but I took up a new hobby last weekend and will update my blog with pics of that next time.
Hope everyone is having as great of summer as we are!
Rena