I have a brand new niece! She was born yesterday afternoon, her name is Umbriel Xia Buist and she was 6 lbs., 14 oz.!

Congratulations Rosie and Eric!

The church barbecue yesterday was fun. It was at a vineyard on one of the neighboring islands. The barbecue was sooooo good. It was pork and there was a mustard-based barbecue sauce to go with it. It was the best barbecue I've ever had. It ended up raining pretty hard for a while so we moved in under the tent till the rain cleared up.

Today at church I talked to the guy in charge of sunday school about helping with a little kids sunday school class and he said they really need help in the nursery during sunday school and I can come and help next week! I'm excited to get involved in something and to play with the kids in the nursery! He asked if I would also be interested in helping with childcare during a marriage Bible study during the week that's starting up again after being off for the summer. So I might end up doing that sometimes too.

Here's a few pictures of what's around here:

 
Resurrection ferns grow all over branches of the trees, especially live oaks with their spreading branches.               Between rains the ferns dry up and look totally dead like this (above) but after every rain they perk up, turn bright green again and look like this (below). They're one of my favorite things here. It's so amazing every time I see them bright green again!


Ghost crabs are very common on the beach. They're most active at night but you can find them in the day too. They're very aware of being watched and scurry away really fast (they can actually run up to 10 mph) They're about the size of your hand, including their legs.



This is the type of jellyfish I've seen so far. It's a moon jellyfish and it's pretty simple looking. The first time I saw one I wasn't sure it was a jellyfish till I turned it over and looked really carefully and saw the little rim around the dome.



Here's another pic. showing the other side of a moon jelly


Anoles are everywhere. They change colors to blend in with their surroundings like chameleons and tree frogs so they can be brown or green, most of the time they're green though. I saw one on the outside of the kitchen window last weekend even though it's on the second floor of the house. They're goood climbers!



We see shrimp boats like this off our beach a lot. They go out mostly at night so you can see them starting out in the evening. A couple times I've been out on the beach at night and seen them out with bright spotlights so they can work in the dark.



Live oaks are very common and the most noticable and unique trees to the area. They have multiple trunks and many branches that grow out instead of up. There are some really beautiful old ones around and they're always have spanish moss and resurrection ferns on their branches.


Here's a peak at what the salt marshes look lilke around here. They're between all the islands and between the islands and the mainland so almost anywhere you drive around here the road will end up crossing a marsh like this. They're salt marshes because they're connected to the ocean and go up and down with the tides. A lot of the marshes have tidal creeks in the middle that can be up to 15 feet deep at high tide (we have a tidal creek and salt marsh on the property. We put a crab pot out in Privateer creek for the crab class we teach there on the dock)


Below is a tidal creek with a salt marsh on the other side.



Fiddler crabs in the salt marsh are in the thousands and at low tide they come out of their burrows and look for food. If you walk into the marsh they run away in huge herds in every direction from under your feet as you take each step. It's the coolest thing to see!







Fiddler crabs are really little....they're only about 2 or 3 inches across and if you can catch them their claws aren't big enough to hurt.