Florida Vacation - From the Keys to Fort Lauderdale

We at all of our meals outdoors today beginning with this breakfast next to the beach in Key West. Kai had chocolate chip pancakes while my wife and I had two different types of eggs benedict (shrimp and asparagus for my wife, Cuban-style for me). Very delicious, irrespective of the fact that the ambiance would have made anything taste great!

We then had our picture taken at the spot where everyone goes to - the southernmost

After that, we headed out of Key West to drive back toward the mainland. Key West was wonderful, but the drive to and from is pretty painful. There's nothing more frustrating than being stuck behind someone going 35 in a 55 zone for miles and miles with no room to pass. The scenery helped to keep me calm.

Before we left the Keys, we stopped at Theater of the Sea where they have a variety of shows including a nice dolphin show.

Though I thought that Wilbur the sea lion had the most personality. (Hard to capture in a photograph).

Kai said he enjoyed all of it.

Though I think his favorite part was misting himself to get some relief from the heat.

From there, we went on with our drive. After enduring Miami rush hour traffic, we made it to Fort Lauderdale.

After our usual break at the pool, we had dinner outdoors overlooking to intercoatal waterway.

My wife had fish tacos, Kai had skirt steak, and I had swordfish, all very delicious.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Florida. Can't believe our vacation is almost over.

Florida Vacation - Everglades to Key West

We left Miami Beach and headed south. Our first stop was Everglades National Park where we took the short hike along the Anhinga Trail.

There, we saw many more alligators, including this old guy resting on the shore.

We also saw numerous birds including this blue heron. There is also an alligator in the water in front of the bird in the following photo.

And this friendly bird.

It was a hot day... not that we were complaining about it being about 50 degrees warmer than when we left home. But we cooled off with some great fruit shakes. I had guanabana, Kai had strawberry passionfruit, and my wife had papaya key lime which I actually liked the best.

And then we made the long drive out to Key West, which is the southernmost spot in the continental United States. Parts of the long drive seemed to take forever with the slow-moving traffic, but Kai slept for much of that time so we avoided his complaints. Let's see if he can sleep tonight after sleeping so much during the day.

It was all worth it, though, once we reached our destination. First, we went to the southernmost beach in the (continental) U.S.

And then we relaxed in the hotel swimming pool.

Later we took a walk down Duval Street, finding a fondue restaurant for dinner. The shrimp and fish fondue was just okay, but the chocolate fondue for dessert may it worthwhile.

Walking back to the hotel, we passed a few drag bars and gentlemen's clubs. Kai didn't seem to notice, other than to ask why the music was so loud.

It was a long day, but definitely a good one.

Tomorrow we make the same long drive in the opposite direction.

Florida Vacation - Alligators!

We had breakfast with Mama Dell and Papa Earl and then went on our way.

We made our way down to the Everglades where we took a ride on an airboat.

These crafts are able to glide over grasses and go where other boats cannot.

When the boat was speeding along, the ride was fun, but the main thing I wanted to see was alligators. We didn't have to wait long.

We saw a mama gator and several of her young.

Our guide lured the mama gator close to the boat.

And enabled us to see her really close up.

My wife and I especially enjoyed seeing the big gator. I think Kai did, too, but it's hard to tell with him sometimes. When we got off the boat, he asked the guide why he drove over the plants. The guide seemed a bit perturbed as if he was disappointed that Kai didn't seem thrilled.

Later, we drove to Miami Beach and went to beach.

The water was calm, and perfect for a swim race.

And for dinner, we went to a hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant. My wife's grilled fish was super delicious. Kai had shredded beef and onions that were also very good. And the plantains and beans and rice that came with the dinners were great as well.

So it was another good day. Though if you ask Kai, he probably won't talk about the gator or the airboat. He'll probably just talk about the games he played on his iPad.

Well, hopefully he will remember some of this other stuff, too.

On to more adventures tomorrow.

Florida Vacation - A Day on the Water

We had another great day with Mama Dell and Papa Earl.

First order of business was to clean up the shells we collected yesterday so that we could pack them up to take home. I estimate that we had over three hundred shells.

And then we got a ride on Papa Earl's boat. A few years ago, when we went for a ride on Papa Earl's boat on Lake Erie, Kai was scared when it went over the choppy waves. But he enjoyed this rid.

We saw many birds including this osprey who was feeding her young.

We rode over to a seafood restaurant over at the next town. Kai enjoyed oysters on the half shell, clam chowder, and here with fried shrimp.

The meal and breeze got everyone very relaxed, Kai and Mom especially.

On the way back, we had a big thrill when we saw a dolphin swim right toward us before diving under our boat. Though it happened so fast that I couldn't snap a picture.

Later in the afternoon, we returned to the beach. This time Kai wanted to go in the water. It was a bit breezy so it was actually warmer in the water than out. Kai has become so comfortable in the water that the bigger waves of the Gulf of Mexico did not faze him at all.

It was another good day and Kai is having a great time.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Mama Dell and Papa Earl an move on to the next part of our adventure - the Everglades.

Spring Break - We're in Florida!

It's spring break, and this year we have gone to Florida. Our first stop is to see Mama Dell and Papa Earl, who we are staying with for a couple days.

Today Mama Dell took us to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens.

There, we saw many colorful tropical birds.

And flamingos...

The other big attraction there are the reptiles. During the reptile encounter show, the zoologist asked Kai if he would watch over the orange box that she said contained a very dangerous animal. She is holding a snake, which Kai reached out to touch.

We found out that the box contained a baby alligator, and the zoologist thanked Kai for making sure that it didn't escape from the box.

After the show, he helped her carry the box back to the area where kids could hold the animals.

And as a reward, he got to be the first one to hold the baby alligator and a couple snakes:

Later in the afternoon, we went to the beach. Kai loved looking for shells, and there were tons to choose from washed ashore.

The day before we left home, it snowed. Now we are enjoying sunshine and good times.

Gotta love it!

My Son’s Reaction to Sex Ed

Kai brought home a letter from school a few weeks ago informing parents that they would be starting a health education class. Among the topics to be covered would be sex education.

Kai wrote all over the envelope the letter came in.

Among his comments are “The 5th grade apocalypse!” and “It’s my worst nightmare!” (Spelling errors have been corrected.)

His attitude toward the class has not changed over time.

Twice a week, he has had his health class. And every time he loudly complains about how awful it is.

The class started out with more benign topics such as hygiene. But recently they progressed toward more sensitive topics.

When they covered puberty, Kai said, “There’s pregnancies breaking out all over 5th grade!”

This week they finally got to learning about how babies are conceived. I asked Kai how it all happened.

He said, “You put your private parts together. It’s really gross!!!!!”

I gave my wife a glance but she wasn’t even paying attention as she was caught up in watching a video on the iPad.

Which was probably just as well as she had the perfect excuse for not being able to answer Kai’s follow-up question.

“Mom, how was it when you made me?”

I tried to get him to repeat the question so that my wife could address this very important question, but, alas, his mind wandered off to something else so that question went unanswered.

The last class on the topic is tomorrow.

I’ll be relieved.

Why can’t kids learn about these things from other kids like when I was a child?

Video: Kai's 2015 Piano Recital

We often wonder if we should continue with the piano lessons, but Kai performed nicely at his piano recital earlier this week.

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Hope you enjoyed the once-in-a-century Pi Day: 3.14.15 9:26:53 AM

Shared Art Project with Grandfather

Kai loves to draw, and he loves apps that feature monsters or dragons. Recently, he has combined those interests.

He has tried to draw some of his favorite monsters. But when some of the monsters became too hard for him to draw on his own, he enlisted the help of another artist – his grandfather in Japan.

Kai took screen shots of the monsters and emailed them to Jiji. His grandfather then sketched them on paper and mailed them to Kai.

When Kai receives the sketches, he colors them in.

Here’s one of his recent ones:

And of course, he shares it with his grandfather via Skype.

Today, Jiji surprised Kai by telling him that he has been coloring the sketches as well, and showing his most recent creation:

Grandfather and grandson bonding over their shared love of art. Gotta love it.

A Fresh Start in a New Classroom

Kai attends a small, public therapeutic day school. For as long as he’s been attending, the school has had only one fifth-grade classroom with the same person teaching it, Miss S.

When Kai was in second grade, he went to Miss S’s class for math. Ever since then, he has been assuming that he would return to her class when he became a fifth grader himself.

This school year, the school had to open up a second fifth-grade classroom due to an unusually high number of students at that grade this year. Because this is a therapeutic school, the composition of students fluctuates as new kids get sent there while others return to their home school. This year there happened to be more fifth graders than they’ve ever had before.

Kai was placed in the “other” second grade classroom.

From the very beginning, he was not happy about it.

He complained about the teacher and other staff. He was unhappy that most of the kids he liked were not in his classroom.

I thought that this was a disappointment that he would just have to learn to deal with. In time, I figured, he would get used to the situation and everything would be fine.

His teacher certainly did everything she could to teach him. She was very dedicated and communicated well with us so that we felt a partnership.

Months passed, but Kai never did seem to get over his initial bad feelings. Every time he had a major incident, he lashed out about the staff, or moaned about how he had no friends and that no one liked him. We spoke to him constantly about how he had to accept responsibility for his own actions, that the staff wasn’t to blame, rather they were there to support and teach him. But no matter how much we said, he couldn’t seem to adjust his thinking.

As his incidents piled up, I was wondering if we would just write off the rest of the school year and hope to re-set when he went to middle school.

But with four months still left in his fifth grade year, it seemed too long of a time to just write off.

I wrote to the school principal and asked if she would consider moving Kai to the other fifth grade classroom. We had absolutely no issues with his teacher, but since Kai’s mindset seemed irrevocably negative, perhaps a new environment would give him a fresh start. Of course, I understood that there would be concerns about sending the wrong message that students could switch teachers whenever they wanted, so we would support her to make sure the right message was sent to Kai.

I was very happy when the principal and her staff gave the matter serious consideration. They came back with a plan – Kai could switch classrooms if he could write an essay explaining why he should move.

It wouldn’t be easy for Kai. Writing is his most hated subject.

But he was happy to have an opportunity to state his case.

Over the next day, he outlined his thoughts and then put his ideas down in a letter to the principal. I was pleased that he came up with the thoughts on his own. The crux of his position was that he would stay safer and be more focused on schoolwork because he would have his friends in the new classroom to help support him.

The principal agreed to the classroom switch. Kai was very happy. I think just knowing he would be moving helped him to have four really good days in his last week in his old classroom.

This was Kai’s first week in his new room. Even though the change was something he wanted, we were nervous about how things would go as Kai generally takes time to adjust to new things. In his new classroom, Kai would not only have to get used to a new teacher and new classmates, but different routines, different order of subjects, and other changes.

On his first day, this past Tuesday, he scored a 100% on his school point sheet. He followed that up with a 96% on Wednesday, another 100% on Thursday, and an 89% and Student of the Week honors on Friday.

We have no illusions that this change of classrooms has suddenly eliminated all the issues with anger and frustration. We know that there will be difficult times.

But I do think that a positive mindset makes all the difference. It is great to see that Kai has gotten off to a good start in his new classroom. Hopefully, he will maintain his new positive outlook and continue to stay safe and perform well.

School Assignment

Kai began working on a school assignment. Each student in his class picked an explorer to write about. Kai chose Hernando DeSoto.

The first part of the assignment was to write a timeline of key events in the explorer's life. Kai is still not much for writing, but with the help of Wikipedia, he did his research and created a basic timeline.

The next part of the assignment was to draw a map to show the places that the explorer went to and the direction of his voyage. This part Kai eagerly worked on, as he loves to draw.

The other parts of the assignment are to create a treasure chest, fill it with artifacts that the explorer may have found, and to write a one paragraph journal entry that the explorer may have written about his adventure. That last one will be the most challenging of all. I think we'll have him work on with his tutor.

Snowy Super Bowl Sunday

We got our first blizzard of the season yesterday, which meant it was a happy day for Kai.

He was up early to work on his origami. He has been reading the Origami Yoda books, the funny yet authentic series by Tom Angleberger about a group of middle school kids, and what happens when the loser of the group creates an origami finger puppet of Yoda. In addition to the stories themselves, Kai likes that the books give instructions on creating your own origami Star Wars figures.

Here he is with Origami Yoda and Darth Paper:

And here with Han Foldo and the Fortune Wookie:

I like the books as they are at a reading level that is more appropriate and challenging for him.

After doing some math homework, we went outside.

This was the scene outside our house.

The picture was taken in the morning before the blizzard had officially started.

Of course, Kai wanted to go sledding, so we went out before the storm was supposed to get worse.

Later, he did more math, some step aerobics, and a lot of Pokemon.

And then it was time for the Super Bowl.

It is the one sporting event I have a reasonably good chance of being able to watch as we make our own little party out of it.

My wife prepared our Super Bowl platter which included Buffalo Wings, nachos with ground beef and wieners, peanuts, tortilla chips, and celery.

I enjoyed the game. Kai enjoyed getting to party. His favorite part, of course, was getting to dance to Katy Perry’s halftime entertainment.

Today, he is home from school due to the weather. I have a feeling my wife will be origami-ed and Pokemon-ed out by the time I get home from work.