Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

Castillo de San Marcos: I love this place. It's so old, compared to the rest of Florida. This trip included another family, and the menfolk went to Daytona for a car show, so we took the kids to St. Augustine. I managed to get Cowgirl to finish her Junior Ranger book, but the two boys thought it was too much like school and kind of quit. Although once they saw the cool little badge she got, they wanted to do the program, but we only just finished by closing time so they were out of luck. It also happened to be Girl Scout day, there were local Girl Scouts that were in period costumes doing period things. I thought it sounded like a very cool program.

Loud noises coming up next!

Meditating in the chapel

Daisies Hike at Okeeheelee Park

Our Daisy troup went on a hike at Okeeheelee Park in West Palm. We did the trails around the nature center. The girls brought snacks, water and a nature journal. We saw mostly plants, most animals were probably scared off by the pack of noisy little girls, but we did see some gopher tortoises.

Biscayne National Park Family Fun Day

Biscayne National Park has a series of Family Fun days with different themes. Today's theme was invasive exotic animals. They had different activities such as iguana catching, a Lionfish dissection table to see what they're eating, and a plant identification table. Plus there was a cute little show with the Swedish Chef cooking Lionfish. And a big dead python. Do you think Lionfish is a big deal here? The majority of the park is underwater, so an invasive fish like the Lionfish that eats everything is a big deal!

Iguana Catching

Caught one!

Swearing in as a Junior Ranger

Ren-Fest Deerfield Beach

There's a renaissance festival every year in Deerfield Beach. I found out there is a Scout patch program which include discounted admission, so we had to go do it. And since we had some costumes, we dressed up. The dress is from Russia, from one of my parents trips. It worked really well.

Found her Knight!

With the Season Fairies

With the Royal Court

Ice Castle Day

Every year there is a ice castle built for the seedlings/Sunflower families to enjoy. Actually, the Sunflower families help to build it too, with people freezing their own decorated blocks to add to the top. It's a lot of work and fun.

Adding our frozen block

The Ice Castle is almost done!

Daisy Girl Scout fun weekend

This weekend we had two Daisy events. One was a opera called Cosi fan Tutti. It's a shortened version, friendly for child attendance, although once you get into, the story is fairly adult. It's about two couples. the men of the couples are told that women are fickle, and that if they go away, the women will stray. So they have to put it to the test. But half the kids did not understand it, and were amused by all the shenanigans.

Actor from the show

 Early the next morning we did a beach cleanup. And 7AM is Early for this child, who normally wakes up around 9-10 AM. But doing something with friends will always motivate her. And she loves the beach.

Done cleaning up!

Bilingual, Bicultural, Dual Citizen?

I recently found out that Vietnam is offering Dual Citizenship to a certain set of people. I found out that I would qualify, but not my daughter. So I have been pondering the question. What would be the advantage of dual nationality? What are the disadvantages? Vietnam is still a communist country, so there are a lot of restrictions on its citizens which have been easing up. There's a lot of distrust about the motives of the government. I have until 2014 to decide, after which the program expires and you would have to apply as any other foreign citizen.