Shuttle journals

"When they loncht, there were 6 people on the shuttle. First the were powerd by them then they hand over to Houstin. When they come back they will bring home Nicole Fickler. The lonch was at the Kennedy Space Center. They will land after thanksgiving if there is knot any problems. After one minute we could here it. They are bringing some butter flys up there. Surprisingly, the lonch was different on what I thought. It was like thunder hole. We had fun!" -Jo

"A few days ago we went to a shuttle launch. The 6 people in the shuttle were bringing replacement pieces to the world's space station, and bringing back Nicole. Nicole has been living in the space station since December of '08. It took us an hour and a half to get there. I started to see smoke come out, then a rocket flying in the air. It took off at 500 miles per hour and when up the sky at 6,000 mph. It was a minute later when we started feeling and hearing the shuttle liftoff. After that we headed home and watched Appollo 13 and ate oreo's." -JJ

"So this, people, is my shuttle space blog. We drove for like 3 hours after we dropped mom off at her work to get to a good place to see the shuttle launch. We were off some road across the Indian river with a bunch of other people. We waited awhile, and listened to the radio, looked longingly at the oreo's, and waited some more. Then finally the radio said it was gonna lift off in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Mom called us from where she was watching it on TV and let us know what was going on up close. The rocket came up from the second platform, but it didn't really look much like a rocket or a space shuttle. It looked like a big burning bullet shooting up in the sky!" -Shayna

"The shuttle launch was truly a beautiful sight!!"

"It was OUSEM!"

"OK. We're done blogging! Good bye!!"

News flash!

We interupt the Disney Adventure Blog Series with an important announcement. The Kalers will be viewing the shuttle Atlantis lift off scheduled for Monday November 16 at 2:28 from the Kennedy Space Center. For more information check the NASA website at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/index.html or for an interesting article on the mission, and especially how they get their drinking water, check out http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/national/BO129595/

Cheryl will return with all her Mickey Mouse stuff soon.

Kalers meet the Mouse

Well we are trying to learn ALL about Florida while we are here, so how could we pass up this one?

They even have an RV park you know....

where you can take a boat to the magic Kingdom.

we found it all dressed up for fall....

and full of its usual flare!
We actually did learn a lot this week...

really....

More Suwannee!

Look at this!! we went up river a little bit and found shores of white sand.... we thought the white sand was only at the beaches, but we are starting to think the whole state is made up of it. We are hoping to get really familiar with the white sand over the next few months.

Meanwhile, we are still checking out this Suwannee River. Not only is the Florida state song titled after it, it apparently was a big tourist draw before Walt came to town.

It is lined with Cypress trees, which are easy to distinguish by their root system that has "knees." Cypress are really common all over the south, we learned about them up in Virginia Beach at the "Dragon Run." Myths up there say that those knobby knees actually turn into little hobbit people when no one is around.

So why was the Suwannee so famous? At this point in the river, there are mineral springs that supposedly could "cure any ailment." Approaching the springs you can smell the sulfur, and the water sure feels clean and refreshing. I (Cheryl) decided to stick my chronically ingrown toenail in there and see if it would be healed.

(I'll keep you posted.) The springs were walled off, there used to be a hotel, and it was a big deal!! The hotel has since burned down and the springs are now part of a deserted park.

We decided to float our boat back down to camp.... and Jo again was the brave one. He wanted to tow behind and practice his snorkling. He is working on the breathing part.

Which he has apparently gotten down, but not quite to the point where he can hold the fishing net at the same time. We lost that in the depths of the Sweet Tea river, oh well!! We love the Jo!!

Daddy got over his grief by showing the kids how to scope out the river and see if its safe to jump off the side.

Home schooling is going well.

Way down upon the Swanee river....

Hello!! We are back to some sense of normalcy after a week with the Mouse so we're gonna catch you up!! One of the first things we noticed about Florida is we have lots of opportunity to see Spanish moss.. (nice and up close).. (the stuff is everywhere, on the fences, electric poles... and it is actually not moss at all. Its an arial plant with seeds, we learned!)

Then we found this nice little spot along the Suwannee river... some inviting little ropes were just innocently hanging there. When we first saw the river we thought it looked rather UNinviting, kinda black, actaully it looked like Sweet Tea. We weren't sure if we should go in it, so we just swung for awhile...

Until Jo decided he didn't care!

Later we found out it actually is like Sweet Tea... the water gets that color from the Cypress roots and leaves. Its a spring fed river that is totally clean....At that point it was all over!

(yes, even the parents got in on the fun.....)

Welcome to Florida!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! Our first camp in Florida is the Suwannee Music Camp....we are in the northern part of Florida right on the Suwanee River, it has been sunshiney and warm, and we are having a great time. JJ has been inspired in the atmosphere and practicing his guitar. He even wrote a song for you all, coming soon if I can get the video to upload! so here we are, JJ the cowboy, Josiah and Shayna snorklers, mommy was Bahama-mama and Daddy was a Mariner fan (huh). We started off the night with visiting the bat house...
(enter cool video here)

We dressed up Winnie with lights and paper pumpkins... went trick or treating (to two RV's: the first one had no candy, so we gave them some of ours. The second one gave us three big handfuls and we called it good.) Then we went off to the park Halloween party, it was a local country singer/band that started off with "you know I love my chicken fry...." and we were off to a jolly good time!! After much dancing, we ended the night with the Gator Chomp and the kids said it "was the best Halloween ever!"

It would be the best blog ever if I could get our videos to upload. Chomp chomp.

Savannah, GA

Heading south... right when we were getting used to being in the "south", we came into Georgia... it was hot, and humid. We had been loving the cool fall breezes, especially at night... when we crossed the bridge into Savannah, I think we had already started to swell and had icecream on our mind!!

Savannah is the largest and oldest city in Georgia, it is on the coastline right across the Savannah river. We stopped at Forsyth park, where the live oaks are covered with Spanish moss and the police ride on horseback. We had never seen Spanish moss before, it was amazing... it draped across all the trees throughout the whole city and I surely looked like a tourist taking pictures of it.
Savannah was designed in squares, with wells at the center of each square. They have kept the original design and put fountains where the wells used to be. This fountain in Forsyth park is one of the more popular ones (its on a lot of postcards.)

We were also quite amused by the Spanish moss, until a nice passerby told us the moss usually carries mites...

(oops)

During the Revolutionary war, Savannah was held by the Brittish. During the Civil war it was under the confederacy. The above monument is a memorial for confederate soldiers.

We were surprised by all the butterflies roaming the park!! Evidence of the tropical climate, for sure. We were also intrigued by the wealthy display of architecture, below is one of the many houses you can find along the historical district.

Adios, Savannah!!

some facts about Georgia:

named after King George II of England

Nickname: Empire state of the South

State tree: live oak

Capital: Atlanta (also home of Martin Luther King Jr.)
4th state admitted to the Union