Pop-goes-the-Turkey!

Upon returning home from our most recent "wild beach" trip, we discovered that one of the 5 turkey eggs in the incubator was just minutes away from hatching. We could hear the baby in there peeping frantically, and could see it's wet body struggling to push and kick the egg cap off it's back. Ami held the struggling chick in her hand and patiently waited until POP! went the egg and out came the turkey. :o)

The camera flashed just in time to catch the look of amazement on her face. The turkey baby is happily following it's mother around now, along with the other 10 of it's siblings (including the other 4 that were in the incubator). Ami says she will never forget the day the turkey hatched right in her hand...

The Wild Beach

Amelie calls the ocean, "the Wild Beach." Compared to our secluded Sound beach, the ocean has "wild" waves crashing on shore and it's easy to get knocked over, so one of us always has to take the kids out slowly, holding hands or carrying them.

Wave-jumping is always fun, and Chris likes going there because the big waves are great for body-surfing.

Favorite activities while at the wild beach: sand-castle construction, digging and running in trenches, spying crabs, and flying kites.

The Woodpecker Beach

Our Private Beach

Well, not really, but no one ever goes there. We call it the woodpecker beach because there are endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers living there. Its about 15 minutes from our house. The kids love it because the water is so shallow so they can go far from shore and still be standing just waist deep. Ami says she loves the beach there because it's so fun to look for things that wash up on shore: smooth peices of driftwood, clamshells, feathers, fishscales, beetles, all that good stuff. We even went on a long walk down the deserted shore to find a dolphin that had stranded nearby....

It's quiet and peaceful, we hardly see a boat go by, and the shoreline is wild and studded with submerged cypress stumps and trees. Eagles and osprey fly by with talons full of fish. We took some friends recently and had a great time swimming, chasing crabs, collecting freshwater clams, and we threw a line or two in attempting (unsuccessfully) to catch some perch for dinner.

Fourth Of July

We went camping at Green Acres Campground (about an hour away) on the Fourth of July. The kids had a great time playing with friends, swimming in the pool, playing games and taking a very patriotic hay-ride. Here they are dressed up and ready to go.