Is anyone out there?

I was just wondering who has been looking at my blog and if the pictures were interesting to anyone. Just drop me a comment if you are reading what i am posting. Thanks!

Cypress Gardens, Charleston, and Flowertown Photos365 Week 12-13

Last weekend we went to downtown Charleston. We went to the historical part and Rachel loved seeing the horse drawn carriages. Aunt Judy went with her to pet one of the horses.Rachel loves animals.

While downtown we saw this pole. All the different colors are different pieces of gum. They looked like some one had put a glaze over them . We kept saying they were the buttons to push to get the street light to change.

This is one of the many churches in Charleston. I thought this was just a neat picture. I will have to research the history behind this church someday.

Saturday my Dad and his wife came to SC on a bus tour and so we drove to Santee to see them. They  were to eat at Clark's so we met them at their hotel and then went to dinner. It was a short visit but it was good to see family.

Here we are with Dad and Carletta eating dinner. Rachel loved being the only child with the group. She got to ride the bus from the hotel to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma. She also was the only one who got ice cream with her meal.

Last week my class went on a field trip to Cypress Gardens. I loved it. I was very afraid someone was going to fall out of the boat or that I would see a snake but all went well. Here we are in the boat going out into the swamp.Our guide was excellent! I love the lily pads in this picture. Everything is late blooming this year due to the late snow we got.

Here is one of the alligators we saw. She was trying to get warm.  It was chilly at this time of day. Later we went back by and there was another gator on the other end facing her, warming  herself.

Here are some of my students and parents going out in a boat. The boys loved this , some of my girls were not to sure about this part.

Summerville has a festival called the Flowertown Festival, being new to the area we decided to check it out. Besides lots of crafts for sale and lots of plants there is a lot of food to pick from. Rachel loved this mini donut maker.It dropped the donuts into the oil and would flip them over all by themselves. She watched long enough that the vendor gave her a free sample.

Here is a view down the street of just a few of the booths from Flowertown.

This year I wanted to try dyeing a few easter eggs the way my grandmother use to. I remember getting the prettiest dark brown, yellow and light brown colored eggs. She boiled them with onion skins. I didn't get them dark or the many shades of brown she did but I think they are still pretty. I am told I need to put some bees wax on them to make better colors. Anyone know anything else I can do?

Green Eggs - Garden - Fort Moultrie (Project 365 week 10-11)

I have put two weeks into one. I didn't have many last week. We  had a day when we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday. I had a cute picture of the kids  wearing Cat in The Hat , hats. I am not real sure I can put those on without permission from each parent. We also had a treat of a hat made out of vanilla wafers, vanilla icing and gunny life savers.  This is our green eggs and ham. We then read the book. Many of my children would not taste green eggs and ham. We read Dr. Seuss books and watched some of his movies too. It was a fun day.

We are seeing signs of spring and so we started working on the outside. Here my hubby is putting border around the sidewalk to keep the rain from washing mulch and sand onto the sidewalk. He worked so hard he could hardly walk the next day.( I told him he was getting old). Rachel said a sign of spring was bird poop on the car door. When I asked how she came up with that she said because birds fly more in the spring and so they poop more. I thought that was cute.

Here is the finished project. It really works well we have had rain since then . Thanks for your hard work, Honey.

This week we gave the SAT test to our students. Each morning but  Friday. I don't know who it is harder on, the teachers or the students. I am so stiff from doing so much extra walking around the room ,  I would see where the children make mistakes and I can't say anything. Not to mention  most of our testing is read to the children. Lots of extra talking. Thankfully we got out of school at 1:30 each day.

After a long week we went with Mom, Dad and Micheal to Fort Moultrie here in Charleston. Rachel was very interested. This is a hat she had to try on in the gift shop. We enjoyed walking around the fort and seeing the sights. Rachel really wanted to go on the ferry to Fort Sumter (which we can see from Moultrie) the day wasn't long enough.

While we were at the visitor center there was a talk about the different dresses women wore during history. This lady saw that Rachel was interested and told her about all the layers she wore under her dress. She told us it was about 13 in all. Can you  imagine how long it took them to dress. She was dressed as if she was mourning her husband. She would dress in black for two years after he pasted away and would not go to any parties or social events This is where Gone With the Wind is incorrect. Of course Scarlet didn't follow rules anyway.. 

I thought this was a neat picture. This was taken at the fort. I love the clouds behind the flag. This is the first national flag.

These were some of the cannons at Fort Moultrie. In the background is the ferry to go to Fort Sumter. Rachel really liked this but kept saying that things needed to be cleaned. There was mold on some of the buildings.

This is one of the smaller cannons we saw.

This is the bridge that is at the top of my page. We got to drive over it twice today. This was really cool. The bridge is about 4 miles long.I love how the sky looks on here.

28 Day Organizing Challenge Update

I don't have any pictures today but I did want to give an update on the garage and the challenge. I did not get everything done. Some of the big items we put on Craigs list did not sell and I hate to give them away. Things like a dishwasher, TV center, student desk and a computer desk.  I did get a lot of things done. All school board boxes gone through and many things thrown out, all school files refiled and organized, my craft table set up better and some things dumped, Philip's work benches set up, and my school classroom spring cleaned. So my big project did not get all the way finished but it really put me in the mood to clean. Next I would like to paint Rachel's room and maybe the laundry room.