Fisheating Creek, Florida

Last year at this time, I never would have dreamed we'd be living in a fifth wheel right now.  This is strange because I've always liked to have a plan for my life, knowing exactly what's coming next.  Then October came, and we had a pretty good idea that we'd be taking this nationwide trip.   I began looking for campgrounds, trying to plan where we'd be when.  However, God has had other plans, and so far in our trip, the most I've successfully planned is two weeks out.  Right now, I have no idea where we'll be in two weeks.  I'm learning to trust God differently than ever before.  So, since October, I'd been looking into Florida campgrounds and it seemed every campground in southern Florida was pretty much booked for January through March - prime snowbird months.  I searched the internet for a long time, and two weeks ago, I finally found this:

I was a little bit concerned about our stay here.  As I'd written earlier, we'd stayed in places with alligators before, but this place is overflowing with them!  Also, this campground is definitely the most remote location we've been in so far.  I normally get some feeling of security, knowing my diabetic son is close to a hospital, and also close to grocery stores with his necessary carbohydrates.  Neither are true of this place.  Yet, when we drove into the campground, it became my favorite place we've stayed thus far.  Look at this "creek," and know that my camera and ability as a photographer just don't do it justice.  It's so beautiful!

This campground is full of cypress trees, and the roots grow up out of the ground so the tree can "breathe" more easily in swampy areas.  It looks really neat to see these cypress "knees!"

In this picture, you can see that my parents were visiting us earlier this week.  Hope you're warm enough now in Ohio, Mom and Dad!  Char had to work, but the kids and I had a great time with my parents, visiting Myakka State Park and scootering some of the trail that surrounds Lake Okeechobee.  

This week, we're not going as many different places as we did in St. Augustine, but we're generally enjoying 5th wheel life.  The weather here is fantastic for January.  We're sleeping with the windows open and playing with water balloons, since it was 84 degrees.  I thought about not typing that, given the weather that I know has been hitting the rest of the country, so if this weather sentence makes you jealous, then come visit us!!  :)

I'm settling into homeschooling all four kids a little more than when we'd been in the Dominican Republic, and defining more of what I believe and want to accomplish with homeschooling, which has been nice.  Also in settling into this routine, I feel like God's teaching me more about the individuality of each of my kids, particularly my oldest, who had been in public school for a few years.  It's an interesting perk of homeschooling that I hadn't expected.  If anyone ever thought about homeschooling, but wasn't sure about it, I'd love to chat with you!

As the week continues, the workers in the campground office have reassured me that it's perfectly safe to take our inflatable canoe out in the alligator waters of Fisheating Creek.  They also told me that there's a nice spring-fed lake in the campground that's great for swimming.  The only alligators there are baby alligators, and the kind lady told me that swimming with baby alligators is always considered safe.  So, if this is the last blog you read from our family, you'll have an idea what happened in the rest of this week, but hopefully I'll instead be sharing pictures of some of these adventures soon!

Hope you all have a good rest of your week and that your snow melts!