Our Beach Trip to Matagorda Bay with Memaw & Papa!

Back in May we traveled to Matagorda Bay to spend a few days with Memaw and Papa.

It was a wonderful time.

The boys had a great time feeding the gulls. I am always amazed when we throw a piece of bread to one and then all of sudden three dozen we upon us! It was quite amazing.

Dad and I enjoyed walking on the beach in the mornings. It was so nice out! We found a really cool man-o-war and he was still alive. We tried to "save" him, but the darn thing kept coming back with the tide. The discovery turned up a very interesting conversation about man-o-war's and how they might "work". Thank goodness for technology when we got back to the house we were able to learn all about the man-o-war! :)

Here is one of the gulls wading in a tide pool.

Here was another cool discovery Dad and I found. A coconut covered in alga and little tiny crabs. They were alive too - it was really neat. Again we tried to get it back out to sea, but it kept rolling back in. It was cool to ponder where that coconut might have come from.

The ocean was very rough the whole time we were down there. The wind was crazy and the waves were big! It was cool to watch them roll in though!

Here is a shot of the brown pelicans that are native to the gulf coast. They are so cool to watch.

It didn't take long for Bug to convince his Papa to take him off into the water. They would "ride the waves" as they came in. It was hilarious to watch. Up and down up and down! Bug loved it! Papa finally had to drag him out there because they were both shivering and turning blue! LOL

Oh I just love this picture. The way that the sand dune flowers would open and close each day was so pretty. I just love it.

Here I am moving on through the month of May! :)

I wanted to share a little about the reading program I found for Red. He is a very auditory learner and didn't really respond well to the traditional Saxon Phonics program like Bug uses, so I did some hunting, tried lots of different stuff and finally found something that seems to be working well for him. We also use the Explode the Code books (Thanks Angela P!) but this goes very well with Red's auditory learning style. We have been using it for about a month now and it is going very well.

It's laid out very simply - each lesson includes any materials needed (like making a few index card pieces - see below), and includes what to say, etc.

The lessons are quick and simple - we've gotten into a few sight words now as well as reading a simple sentence. The book includes copy work ideas. I have done a of few of these with Red as well.

I am so happy to have found something that he seems to be taking so well too!

Here is a sample of the cards that I mad to practice the words ending in the "ap" sound. It makes it something like a game and Red does really well with it!

Here you can see Red's depiction of "The Beach". The boys were so excited about the beach trip we took with Memaw and Papa to Matagorda Bay. During school, Red was drawing on the board and came up with this. The blue is the ocean, the brown is the beach and the black is the beach house, we are the various circles you see are us on the beach.

More from before the beach trip.

Here is one of our opossums - we call this guy Great Uncle Bob.

Unlike Fred who just dumps the bucket and eats from the side Uncle Bob climbed up and hung himself over the edge. It gave me quite a start to open the backdoor and find him hanging there eating. But the funnier part was that he didn't seem to hear me, I got the camera and came back and he was still there. LOL

After several minutes he seemed to get his fill so he waddled off under the porch. What a cutie!