Merry Christmas to everyone

Merry Christmas to everyone.
I hope this holiday season is a peaceful and pleasant for you and your loved ones.
Enjoy this video clip.

Testing for 3rd degree black belt

Finally, I've tested for my 3rd Dan (degree) this past week end.
In our Taekwondo school, a student needs to test two times for his or her 1st degree through 5th degree black belt. This was my 2nd testing. I'm glad it's over with.

If you ever wanted to learn a great martial art like Taekwondo with some of the devastating techniques they don't even teach in traditional TKD school, then check out this site:

Taekwondo lessons and self defense.

It all went well. As usual, the packed room at the beginning looks almost empty by the time I do the more interesting parts of my testing i.e. self-defense demonstration, my form (Kae Baek), and free sparring with other black belts. People can leave after their test and, except for the board breaking, the higher belt goes last.

It's fun to practice martial arts. It keeps you in shape and help keep a little competitive spirit. By sparring with people 10 years younger than yourself, you feel younger too.
It's nice to see a lot of people start kaekwondo at our school. Most people never reach the black belt level, and more people quit after getting their first degree black belt. I was pleased to stay with it this long (almost 8 years) to get my 3rd degree. I practiced Judo for 10 years so I feel well rounded now.

Sure, I've practiced in Dojos, and TKD schools, but today, a person can learn how to defend himself (or herself) with step by step techniques.  If you're interested you can find out some of the techniques in this tutorial program:

taekwondo techniques and self defense. Click on the link.

Camping at St. Andrews SP

Camping on Thanksgiving??? Why not?  Isn't Thanksgiving a family time? Well, it could be ... a time to give thanks...while spending time with family. (Kelly and Leah were in Pittsburgh visiting with their Grandmother). What if you could go camping (something you like to do very much), with some family members, give thanks while you're there, and (yes!) play some games of Rook at the same time?...and do some birdwatching. I know, you'll pack up and go too. All you need is gas money. You already have the rest.

That sounds like a perfect idea to me. And that's what we did this past Thanksgiving holiday. Oh, the place was full of campers. They all brought their families too. Except for our next door camper from Canada. We invited him over one night to join us at the camp fire. Nice fellow. He was travelling back from the Florida Keys all the the way back to Canada after been in Cuba. Sounds like fun.
If you didn't know where St. Andrews State Park is, I'll tell you. In the Florida Panhandle. Why go all the way there? Because that's where it's warm. And it's cold in Georgia. Except for one windy and rainy night, the weather has been nice. We even went to the beach where people were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

You can read about the windy night and other detail on the camping at www.outdoorstentcamping.com.

St. Andrews is a State Park so we had water and electricity at our site. Nice. This park is big with a Lagoon (looks like a lake to me), a nature trail, a the beach area, a fishing pier, and other things too.

The nature trail was great. It runs right by the lake; so you could see waterfowl birds, wading and diving birds, and Passerines. Out of 45 different birds we've identified, we've seen 7 new birds. We're birders, remember? We've seen fewer new birds this time because we've been at Grayton Beach not too long ago. Both parks are in the same general area.

Having Connie and Duane during this camping trip was just great. They're family (Thanksgiving!) and they're great people to spend time with. They're sweet and if you meet them, you'll just love them. They're good Rook players too.

Our camp site was just by the lake. We got a great view with all the birds' activities and big fishes jumping out of the water.
I'm always surprised when we come back from camping about how we can have so much fun and spend so little money. I guess it's a state of mind. The "happy state of mind". Life is short, don't sweat the small stuff. Enjoy it.

We've seen some very unique things on this camping trip.  For the first time in my life I saw 3 big bucks (male deer) together.  One was a 12 pointer, the next was a 12, and the 3rd one has 8 points. (Maybe they were on their family Thanksgiving get-together too). How did I count the points on their horns?  They just stood there starring at me. I used my binoculars to make sure I counted right. Then I saw them again, a little later.  This time Duane, Debbie and Connie were there too.  Boy, Duane got excited. He wished James and Carey were there.  

We went to the pier by the beach.  A handful of people were fishing. It was like fishing in a barrel.  They cast their line, pull it right back up, a fish. Then another one, and another one.  I stood beside a teenager and when he casted his line, he pulled it right back up, a fish was hooked by his dorsal fin!!! just run into the line I guess. All these people were just throwing the fish back in the water.  And there comes one of the raccoons hanging around for easy meal. Some of the fishes were getting stranded in the rocks.  That's what the raccoons were going for.

One of the raccoons wanted to try Debbie's shoes on while Debbie was dipping her feet in the water at the beach.  (The pier separated the beach from the lagoon.) We saw him on time and chased him away.  But then...sorry I can't tell you all.  You just have to go camp and taste the fun by yourself.      

A walk in the woods

There are rewards that come with birdwatching. You get to walk in the woods to see the birds. So, you get to see the wild flowers too, and the pretty mushrooms.

I don't know what kind of mushrooms these are, but they are colorful and beautiful. Debbie took some pictures of them.

How do you like this painting of the grass with the flowers, the brushes, and the trees? Isn't it just beautiful? Nature painted it and we took a picture of it...as we were looking at the real version in nature. It still came out as a beautiful canvas but we walked right through it.
We saw several Wood Ducks that day. There is a pond nearby. Maybe one of the best close up views of these beautiful birds. Wood Ducks are one of my favorites ducks because they're so colorful. There were six of them.

After the walk, it was nice to rest a bit and just listen to the birds and the pleasant silence of nature. Yes, nature is quiet and serene but you can still hear it. Very pleasant indeed.



.

On our way back, we saw this area off the road and checked it out. Very nice with terraces of rocks and descending levels of water basins. I just sat in that natural seat. This is a perfect place to have a picnic. The sound of the water below is just soothing.

If you ever want to relax, just take a nice walk in the woods. You'll be smiling after

A couple of self defense techniques

Check out this "simple" self-defense moves. The 3 minutes free sparring (fighting) at the end were taking forever to upload so I trimmed the video clip.

Enjoy!

Monarch Butterflies

They are in migration...going south of the border.  Monarch butterflies.  They stopped by the pretty beaches and the beautiful lakes and wild flowers.  Some were tired of the trip and fell on the way.  Most will make it.  If they see a nice person, they'll land on him or her.

Watch the video. 

Videos of camping at Grayton Beach SP

This 1st video shows how we set up camp.  It may be a bit boring but I just want you to see how simple and fun it is to camp. And cheap too!

This 2nd video shows you the area around the camping site. This includes the Dune Lake, the Nature Trail, and the beach area.  Very nice. Believe me, we enjoyed it.
So sorry about the sounds on the video.  I first recorded comments while recording. The sound came way too low, so I recorded a new narration but I couldn't get rid of the old one.  Don't know how. lol