Is Winter Over Yet!?!?!

Wow! It has been cold here. This time of year we usually have low temps in the 50s and highs in the 70s, and if it gets colder, it only last a day or so. For the last ten days we have been freezing down here. We had one day with highs in the 30s. Stranger still was the the sleet and snow that cam with it. That is just unheard of. We are finally getting back up into the 60s today, for the first time this year. I don't think I will complain of the warm temps for a while....well, not until at least October, anyway.

It turns out a lot of my landscaping is not tolerant of freezing temps. Hopefully most of it will recover. Animals here are not freeze resistant either. Manatee are gathering around the power plants for warmth, green sea turtles are having to be pulled out of the lagoon in a comatose state, and fish are going belly up. Saturday, during the sleet and snow our house became a haven to a lizard, a frog, and a bird. The bird flew into the garage and wouldn't go back out. I guess he preferred the 50 degrees in the garage versus the 30 degrees outside-and it was not sleeting in the garage! The lizard was found motionless on the cold garage floor and the frog was found in the pool. I let the bird out the next morning. It was still cold out, but the sun was shining. The lizard is still in the tank with Leah's tortoise. He seems to be doing great, but the tortoise does not like having crickets in the cage with him-yes, crickets.....that is what the lizard eats and yes we went to the pet store and bought them! It just has not warmed up enough yet to let him out. Unfortunately, the frog did not survive the ordeal.

I have never seen the grass turn brown here!

Trying to save the plants from the cold.

The cute little frog we found in the pool.

We are already midway through another week of school. Allison has several projects she needs to get done by the end of this month, but she has no desire to get started yet. She keeps telling me that she does not have all the info she needs to get started, so I am pressing her to find out so that she can get going on them.

Rachel had her speech therapy in Orlando yesterday. I asked the therapist what she thought about augmentative technology for speech, and she said she is proponent of it. She stated that there would be a conference in Orlando soon, with lots of vendors showing their wears. I think I will try to go to that and see what is out there. If I decide we want to go that route, I will have to start digging to see how we can make that work! I am also doing some research on Apraxia, trying to get informed about what I need to do and what I need to get the school to do for Rachel to help her speak.

Leah is the epitome of the middle child. She is cruising along under the radar, not causing any commotion. She had a field trip today to see a group of acrobats(she called them Afrobats) from China. I went along as a chaperon. They were absolutely amazing!