Camping Florida Style

Back at the end of January/beginning of February we went camping up in Orlando.  We went to the same KOA campground where we stayed last year during spring break.  Last year when we got there, they showed us to a strip of grass basically and that was our "campsite" such as it was.  By this time, they had completed two nice actual tent sites complete with water and fire pits.  Last time we weren't able to have a campfire because of county fire restrictions but the KOA was able to get an exception for the new tent sites somehow based off the nice fire pits they put in.  We had a wonderful time!  Obviously with Florida's landscape being so different, camping down here is quite different than in most places but it was still nice and relaxing and relatively quiet.

The campsite

We borrowed a ball from the office for Kay to play with while we started to set up camp.

It rained and sprinkled off and on all that evening and into the night.  It wasn't a soaking rain though, thankfully.  You can see some water droplets on the camera lens though.

Staking down the tarp that we put under the tent.

Possibly the best part of camping - the campfire.

Kevin grilled burgers for supper for us so Kay and I played our version of soccer.

The water droplets look like snow in several of the pictures but I assure you there was no snow in Florida.

Hee hee hee  :-)

The KOA sits on Lake Whippoorwill.  The lake is quite beautiful and Kevin got some nice misty morning pictures of it while Kaelyn and I finished getting around one morning.

cool spiderweb

We enjoyed canoeing on the lake again this year - probably this time even more than last year.

Don't these pictures make you want to just "sit a spell"?

playground fun

We did a perfect mixture of activity around the campground and sitting around relaxing.

"Canoe" guess whose bare feet those are?  :-)

The day was so still and the lake was so calm that we seemed to literally glide through the water.  I've never paddled a canoe and had such an easy time rowing where we just cut through the water with no wind at all.

We all really enjoyed ourselves and can't wait till we can go again.

Lookin' Back

January pictures?  Why not?

These pictures start out from New Year's time in Massena and end with spirit week at Kay's school.

Gigantic plush snake we found down in one of the rooms of the church basement (we hid it in Rachel and John's bed in their room).  :-)

Great pose Kaelyn!  :-)

This is just too cute not to share!

Kaelyn was so proud of her "Rudolph look".  

I even have a video of Kaelyn crawling over my mom as my mom laid on the floor so that Kaelyn could pretend to be acting out "Grandma got run over by a reindeer".  It's hysterical but you will have to take my word for it if you weren't there.  :-D

Sibling pictures

You can tell which of us are the three oldest, most mature siblings.

:-)

My Little Pony wedding castle set that Kaelyn got for Christmas.  This was something that she DESPERATELY wanted for Christmas.

During one week in January, they had spirit week at Kaelyn's school.  She really, really wanted to participate and dress up every day but it was such a struggle because of her sensory issues.  Any clothing she's not used to or any fabric that feels different, etc. is hard for her to handle.  But she was a good sport and did her best to tolerate it all because she wanted so badly to be a part of the fun.

Monday was Western/Outdoors day. 

 We kept it simple with a Jessie t-shirt and cowgirl hat complete with Jessie's red braid attached to the back.

Monday afternoon when I picked her up from school, Kaelyn informed me that she wanted to dress up like she was from the 50's for Decades Day the next day.  Well that nearly put me into a panic and due to such short notice, we had to just kind of make do.

With Kevin's help, I found a clip art poodle and was able to "color" it on an online coloring program.  After printing it and cutting it out, I pinned it to the "skirt".  We found the scarf at Wal-mart to complete the look.

Wednesday was Animal Day.

We about didn't handle the face paint - her because of the feeling of it on her face and me because, well, she wasn't handling it well which didn't make my job of applying it any easier, especially since I had never used anything like that before.  We survived the morning though and she had a pretty good day the rest of the day.

Thursday was Superhero Day and this was the extent of it - we needed a simple "costume" after the previous days.

Friday was school spirit day.

The face painting this day went much more smoothly.  When we went to spray the blue coloring in her hair she was a little bugged but she was so thrilled with the look once I finished.  She loves her school and is so proud of it!

And one more random photo from January - doing homework on our dock on a beautiful South Florida January day.

Easter Family Pictures

Huh?  Wait... what?  I have a blog?  :-)  

Seriously though, I thought maybe now would be a good time to start posting some new stuff since we have a lot of fun Easter pictures.  We had a really nice Easter even if it was just the three of us.  The following are pictures of our "photo shoot" in our Easter "duds".  We set our camera up on the tripod out on our dock out back.  I was actually very happy with the pictures we got - so now you all get the privilege of seeing many/most of them.

Don't ask about the strange looking purple critter.  It was a pal Kaelyn desperately wanted that she got in her Easter basket.

Somehow she (the purple thing) got in about every shot.  (The compromises we parents make to get cooperation for a few pictures...)

We moved further down on to the dock for the next few so that we could get better "scenery" in the background.

These two photos aren't necessarily great in the sense of being perfect photos but there is something about them that I still love.

Love this one too.

We had to change "backgrounds" once again because the sun popped out from behind the clouds and we started struggling to keep our eyes opened.

Every time I look at these pictures, I'm almost shocked at how grown up or how much older Kaelyn looks - kinda' scary actually.

Kay informed me that the purple "thing" is a dog - so there you go.

I like these a lot as well.

So maybe a few more pictures coming up soon  ???