Michael's Baptism!

We were so happy that we were able to attend Michael's baptism!

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A highlight was the special music in which Amelia played the piano, Kathryn played the violin, Daniel played the cello and Nathaniel signed one verse.

(During a rehearsal they videoed it)

We took lots of pictures afterwards!

 Fun pictures of Michael growing up:

Congratulations, Michael!

Reptile World!

On Saturday the girls had a Youth activity that lasted most of the day.

So we had the three boys and Michael wanted to go here:

It was the perfect place!

We saw lots of turtles and got to feed them.

Then they had a large building with all the snakes!

They had many different kinds and what was surprising to me was that many of them were on the move!

They have about 50 snakes on display including a King Cobra and a Black Mamba.  We stayed to watch the Venom Extraction Show.

"This is a working venom factory. Behind the scenes are hundreds of venomous snakes just waiting to be "milked" for their valuable venom. Reptile World Serpentarium ships this precious commodity worldwide for use in medical and herpetological research. The regular "milking" of these dangerous snakes is done in public and makes Reptile World Serpentarium more than just another snake house."

At the end of the show they brought out two snakes to touch and hold.

Who would do it?

Daniel:

Darryl:

Dan:

Nathaniel:

And me!

I was so happy to see a 14 foot alligator named Pete.

It wouldn't be Florida without seeing an alligator!

He was in an enclosure and you can see how close we were to him in the second photo.

What an intersting place!

Ranch Rodeo!

We felt so lucky that we were able to make it to the Ranch in Florida just in time to see Kathryn!

The Ranch couldn't hold the normal rodeo this year so they had a Ranch Rodeo Fun night and Kathryn was competing in Barrel Racing.

She did a great job!

After some of the competitions we were treated to a yummy dinner.

Amelia had fun eating hers in a tree with her friend, Abby.

Michael had fun playing football with his friends...

...and we got to talk to Nathaniel and Daniel.

After dinner Kathryn was in a team competition of Roping and Branding.  Here she is with her teammate, Tia, ready to go when the calf gets roped.  Kathryn will do the branding.

She did it! 

And then she had to run back as fast as she could to stop the clock.

Later Amelia, Michael and Daniel were in the pig catching competition.

These were baby wild pigs caught on the ranch.  Here are the kids ready to go!

And they are off!

Those little black pigs were really fast and slippery!

To end the night, the cowboys from the Ranch showed off their skills doing several events as teams of four.

Lots of good family fun!