Granny, Aunt Nancy, and Michael came to visit us in Sarasota, Florida!  The morning after they got there, Jay started calling Michael “that man that’s Mike”.  Aunt Nancy and Michael only stayed a couple of days, but those days were very fun.

We spent one day exploring Myakka River State Park, where we were camping.  We saw a lot of alligators on an airboat ride.  Another day, we went to the Mote Aquarium, and got to see a shark feeding, which was cool.

After Nancy and  Mike left, we still had the rest of the week with Granny!  I decided to stay with Granny in the hotel room. It was great to be together all the time!  It was really fun to have baths, since I hadn’t had a bath in a very long time.  I also really liked the breakfast at the hotel.

One of the things we did together was going to a beach with ancient shark teeth.  We didn’t find many ourselves, but someone gave us a few.  Another thing we did with Granny  was go to a cool museum at the Ringling brothers house.  The Ringling brothers owned the Ringling Brothers and Barnum-Bailey Circus.  My favorite part was the circus museum, but dad’s favorite part was the art museum.  With Granny, we also did some walking around downtown.  Finally, Granny had to return to Connecticut.  We said goodbye and spent the rest of the day at the shark tooth beach.  We found a lot of shark teeth that time. I am excited to see where Granny will meet us next!

We went to Blue Springs State Park to see manatees, and manatees we saw! Most of the manatees we saw were on one cold day when lots of manatees came to the warm head springs.  We took tons of pictures, and here are a few of the best.

We had some delightful days at Ochlockonee (it took us six days to learn how to say it correctly) River State Park.  On our first day there, we saw something new and cool: white squirrels! We learned that white squirrels are not albino, but simply a white species of squirrels.  Barney also liked the squirrels, which made walking him… difficult.

White squirrels were not the only new thing for us, we also encountered ticks. I was the first one to get a tick, probably from playing in the bushes.   Pa and Ma tried twisting the tick out, which left behind the head.  The next time I got a tick, they got the head out too.  After that, we started evening tick checks.

One day, we took a day trip to Wakulla Springs State Park.  The first thing we did there was take a fantastic boat ride down the river.  We saw several huge alligators, but fortunately they where sunning themselves, not hunting.  We also saw some cool birds, including the anhinga, a swimming bird with a super cool tail.  The ones we saw were all drying off their feathers, wings open and backs to the sun.  When we got back to shore, had a picnic, went on a short hike, and headed back to the RV.

Another thing we did there was canoe.  On the first day of canoeing, the whole family went down a small creek with u-turns every thirty feet.  The next morning, Ma and I decided to do some girl canoeing.  At first it was very beautiful, floating down a small creek with a gentle current.  Then, we were dumped onto a side river with a very strong current.  When the wind was on our butt, it was all right, but then the wind started blowing against us, and we were basically on a tread mill.  Finally, there happened to be a motor boat going by.  They rescued us and gave us a ride back to the dock that we were very thankful for.  We realized that we had gone a very long way.

Next stop: Blue Springs, where we hear there are hundreds of manatees.

On the first day at Saint George Island, we were under a tornado watch.  We got a tornado app that started an alarm if there was a tornado.  Right after we tested the alarm, Ma said, “ohmygod! this could really happen! we need a plan!”.  We also put together a ditch bag with the gadgets and wallets.  Our plan was to hunker down in the campground bathroom shower if there was a tornado.   The next day the tornado watch was lifted.

The rest of the days were sunny and beautiful.  We spent most of our time there walking and playing on the beach.  We spent one day with some people we met there.  With them, we threw at least a hundred starfish that were stranded on the beach back into the ocean.  It was a great day.

My other favorite day there was when we walked five miles to the end of the island.  There were thousands of dead starfish and huge, beautiful shells.  While Ma, Pa, and Little Kid played and picnicked high up on the beach, I piled my favorite shells down by the water.  After awhile, I packed up a few great shells and a giant dead starfish, and we walked the five miles back down the beach to the campground.

Our first day at Grayton Beach in Florida, was our very best day.  We started the day with a long beach walk.  I found many shells, including four delicate sand dollars (three survived the journey back to the RV), and three crab molt shells.  Two were red and orange, and one was shades of purple.  We decided to walk back via road/town.  Since my shoes were filled with shells, I walked home bare foot.  My feet got very sore.

The rest of our days there were not very exciting, as it was rainy and gray all day every day.  During our week there,  it seemed like we got more rain than Tucson gets in a year! On the last day, there was a break in the rain, and we decided to go to the beach.  Pa stayed  home to play his world-conquering video game.  At the beach, I went half wading, half swimming, and Little kid had an accidental swim. We were very cold, so we had a long hot shower back at the campground.