A bearded dragon and karate

Here’s Elise with her new bearded dragon. We went to Bass Pro Shop last night, where she found a vest with lots of pockets for our hikes and nature walks. She also found a kit with a head lamp, binoculars, a magnifying glass, compass, whistle, and thermometer where everything fit in the vest.

We were watching Dora and the Lost City of Gold last night – an adorable movie, I highly recommend it for children. The movie is not animated, but it does have a lot of jokes that play off the animated series for kids who grew up watching it. Dora’s parents put her in a high school in Los Angeles while they go on a quest, so most of the jokes are about a kid who has been homeschooled by two professors out in the jungle going to a traditional school. It’s hysterically funny, especially if you are a homeschooler.

Elise started karate late in the summer and tested for her yellow belt this past week. It was cute watching her count in Japanese and perform her kata. She has very kind senseis who moved to Florida from Peru. I’m honestly a little shocked sometimes at how much of a melting pot Florida is. I grew up in Los Angeles and always considered it a very diverse place. But here, she’s playing with kids on the playground that moved her from Haiti and are speaking a combination of English and French, then going into a class taught by folks from Peru. One of her classmates is Russian. We have huge Cuban, Portuguese, Italian, and Thai populations here too. For a small beach town, she’s really getting the best of the entire globe. I love Florida so much.