My Thanksgiving in Florida!

Hi Kids!

Guess where I am?  I am in Florida with Mrs. North and Dr. Appelgren and their family.  They invited me to spend Thanksgiving with them.  Isn't that nice?  I am having so much fun!    When you get this letter, you will be back in school after Thanksgiving vacation, so I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving with your families.  Did everyone eat lots of turkey?  I did!

Here is a picture of me at Thanksgiving dinner

 Yum yum!  Does my dinner look like yours did?  I bet that we had a lot of the same foods!  A lot of you asked me about if the foods and traditions are the same in Florida as in Rock Hill.  As you can see, the food is the same.  They also have the same cars, buildings, schools, stop signs, and trucks.  Have any of you been to Florida before?  Can you find it on the map?  When you find it, you can see that it is another state in our country.  There is only one state between South Carolina and Florida.  Do you know what it is?

Martavious wanted to know if I had fun in Kyrgyzstan.  Yes, I sure did!  But I had to fly on many planes to get there; it is a different country, far-away from us.  Florida is so close that you can drive there!  Since Florida is in the United States and it is close to South Carolina, many things here are the same as back home.  But, some things are different.

Cierra asks "Do they have a beach?"- When you look at the map, you can see that Florida must have a lot of beaches.  Some are on the Atlantic Ocean like the beaches in South Carolina, but some are on the Gulf of Mexico.  Can you find the Gulf of Mexico on the map?  I am in the middle of Florida so there is no beach here but there is a pretty lake!  Here, I will show you a picture:

 Maybe next time I come here we will go to the beach!

Anna asked "Do they have different animals than us?" - well, some animals are different.  Since there is so much water, they have a lot of animals and birds that like the water.  For example, sometimes in the lake they see alligators!!!  I didn't see one though- it would have scared me!  I did get a picture of a heron.  It is a kind of bird that gets its food from the marshes and lakes.

When I saw it, it was in a marsh and it caught a snake to eat!!!  They had a big fight- here is another picture:

Can you see that the snake wrapped itself around the bird's head???  The bird won, and eventually he ate the snake.

Logan asked about fake animals!  He asked "Do people put plastic flamingos in their yards?"  Not everyone, but I saw one and took a picture to show you!!

Amari and Sean want to know what Florida looks like and if the sights are different.  It is much warmer in Florida than in South Carolina.  It never even snows at all here!  So, the sorts of plants that they can grow are different.  There are a lot of palm trees and other tropical plants.  This morning, you might have had a kind of juice that came from fruit trees in Florida.  Can you guess what kind of fruit trees they have here?









That's right!  They have a lot of orange trees!!  I took a picture with one of them so you could see

Here is another one so you can see the whole thing:

Well that is about it!!  I hope that you enjoyed this letter.  I can hardly wait for my next trip!!

Your friend,
Flat Stanley