Exploring Local Parks

We are just starting to find our way around our new town. Tallahassee has several parks and we went to two of them today.

Optimist Park is a neighborhood park with a playground, baseball field, volleyball courts, a basketball court with baskets mounted low enough for children, and a field which may be for soccer (there are bleachers, but no goals). There seems to be a hiking trail across the road, but we decided to look at that another day, when we remembered to bring water along.





After an early dinner, we went for a walk around Lake Ella. A sidewalk runs all the way around the lake and there are lots of different birds to look at. A couple different families shared the bread they had brought to feel the ducks with Blaze.













A goose egg next to the white geese.






Besides the bird watching opportunities, there are several shops, housed in what used to be little tourist cabins, on one side of Lake Ella, a coffee shop, bike shop, snow cone stand, and cupcake bakery.

Open Face Smoke Salmon Sandwich

This is the recipe for the little salmon sandwiches that we had at our beach picnic on Saturday.



8-ounces cream cheese

2 Tablespoons finely chopped red onion

1 Tablespoon finely chopped, fresh dill

1 teaspoon lemon juice

smoked salmon/lox

cocktail rye bread (found near the pita bread in most grocery store deli areas)

extra sprigs of fresh dill for garnish


Bring cream cheese to room temperature, so that it is easy to stir. Add onions, dill, and lemon juice to the cream cheese and stir well. refrigerate until ready to use. This can be made a day in advance.

Spread each slice of rye bread with the cheese mixture. Add a piece of lox and garnish with a tiny sprig of dill leaves. Serve immediately.

For our picnic, I kept the ingredients separate in the cooler and assembled the finished product just before we ate.

Shell Point Beach

It has rained 19 out of the last 25 days, but today was one of the 6 dry days. It was actually a really beautiful day! I had looked up the closest beach to Tallahassee, along with direction for driving there (Thank goodness for the internet!), and Blaze and I drove down to Shell Point Beach.

It's a small beach and, even on a sunny Saturday, it wasn't crowded.



There are picnic shelters and a couple pieces of playground equipment.



There is also a place for beach volleyball.



There were many of these little orange butterflies fluttering around in the grass, along with a few of these butterfly-eating birds.



Having grass so close to the beach made this a great spot for a beach picnic, without getting sand in the food.



There were a few flies around, but they were easily kept away from the food with the little mesh food tent (I have no idea what these things are actually called, but they are handy). This one came from World Market and was less than $5.



I know many people will disagree with me, but I like swimming in the Atlantic better than the Golf of Mexico. The Golf waters are very clear and warm, but I've noticed this same rusty color at other Northern Golf beaches and it just bothers me.



That being said, I also admit that the golf is a much safer place to take children swimming. Blaze gave up trying to use his "boogie board" because there were no waves, but he had a great time doing real swimming, which is something he's never been able to do in the ocean.



Another thing Blaze had fun with was creeping through the water, trying to sneak-up on these birds.





I thought we had a bottle of sunscreen in the trunk of the car, but when we got to the beach, I discovered that bottle was actually bug repellant. I spent most of the time we were there, hiding from the sun, under my umbrella. Blaze took this picture of me.



I still managed to burn, proving once again that DH's theory is correct, all someone has to do is show me a picture of the sun and I will burn.

First Day of School

Since we spent yesterday loading up the car with the last of belongings in Gainesville and moving them to Tallahassee, we did not begin our school year yesterday, along with the rest of the city. Our first day of "classroom" work was today.

We started our day at 9 a.m. with a timed math drill, just like the ones that Blaze did at Trilogy School last year, except that I added an extra minute to the time, so his drill is "5 minute math". We are starting over with the 2s times tables, because he has forgotten most of this over the summer.



During reading, Blaze read a simple phonics book aloud to me and then I finished reading Chasing Vermeer, the book we've been reading as a bedtime story, aloud to him.



The book is a mystery about the disappearance of a Johannes Vermeer painting, "A Lady Writing".



Scholastic has a page of games to go with Chasing Vermeer.



Blaze also started translating the letters in the book that are written in secret code.

After lunch, we started a science unit about the weather. Thanks to the kind of weather we been having lately, we began this unit by reading Wild Weather: Floods!.

Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, FL.

After almost three weeks in Tallahassee, it was time to get out of the house and do something fun. Today was a free admission day at Mission San Luis, a local living history museum and archaeological park.



There is a nice little museum with some of the artifacts that have been found on the site, as well as reproductions of the types of buildings used by the Spanish and the Apalachee people, staffed by reenactors in period clothing.











The goal for an Apalachee ball game:





A Spanish home:







Cooking demonstration, making apple cider pork:







Never before has chicken come to the table so fresh:


Yes, they are alive.

Blacksmith demonstration:







The Spanish fort:







What happens to tallow candles in the Florida heat:



The church:





The church is a massive barn-like building with bats in the rafters.