Friday, June 29, 2007

Well, we spent 9 hours at the hospital yesterday, but David is now gallbladder-free. He is resting comfortably.

On another note, I have fully recovered from my spider bite of last Monday. I was sick as a dog Monday night, so-so on Tuesday, and better on Wednesday.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Meet The Education Animals Part 2

It has been a while since I did Meet The Education Animals Part 1. I finally remembered my camera today while I was doing DOD (Docent of the Day - me feeding, watering, cleaning the education animals every Sunday for those of you who are new or just forgot).
This is Electra. She is an 11-year-old Eclectus Parrot. The whole cocking her head sideways like this is her "I'm curious" look or maybe a more accurate translation would be "What the hell is that?" She is finicky about who she will go to and can be a little temperamental. She acted like she wanted me to take her today, but I am still leery since she was attacking the inside of her cage trying to get to me a few weeks ago.
These are Bonnie and Clyde, hedgehogs. They're still pretty new to the education department, but are already favorite animals with which to do presentations. Bonnie is more laid back than Clyde.
This is the African Fat-tailed Gecko. He almost always gets taken on Zoo Mobiles. He's small and easily portable and the kids love him. His tail resembles a head so they tend to call him the two headed gecko. He is very soft, almost velvety, and still has his original tail. It's hard to tell from the pic but he is only about 6 inches long.
This is Sonnie, a 10-year-old Madagascar Tenrec. He has been around a long time and is nearing the end of his life span. He is so little (I can hold him in the palm of my hand) and sweet. He is not as prickly as the hedgehogs and sure can put away the mealworms.
This is Abigal, a 3-year-old Sun Conure. They are beautiful, but loud birds. I can hold Sunny the male, but not Abigal.
This is one of my favorites, Pablo, an 8-year-old Burmese Python. He is about 5 and a half feet long and is almost a 2-person snake. We can still handle him alone for now though. The kids love him, because he is huge and active. I always feel like I'm dancing with him, because he keeps you moving. One of these days I'll get someone to take a pic of me with him.
I hope you've enjoyed another glimpse into the zoo's education animals.

I forgot to finish out Cooper and Cason's week.

I added a brief blurb about Thursday and Friday after the videos below.
Pray for mercy for I'm KJ.................. in boots!


I spent 3 hours Friday night and another 6 on Saturday making that shirt.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Our week in pictures

As I mentioned earlier, I had a houseful this week. Staci (my sister), Emily (her youngest), Cooper, and Cason (my brother's kids) were all down to visit. Cooper and Cason went to Zoo Camp every morning and we spent the afternoons and evenings hanging out and having fun.


Monday evening was KJ's birthday cook-out.

We stuffed our faces and visited with friends and family.
The lady in red is KJ's G'ma, the lady in stripes is KJ's step-mom, and the guy on the far right is KJ's dad.

Pa (next door neighbor) and She-to-fat


Elora and Rodney (She'll kill me if she sees this pic.)

The little ones blew bubbles.

Cason

The older ones hunted for frogs.


And all the kids had a water balloon fight.

Samuel, KJ, Elora


And even some of the adults accidentally got wet.



Staci, Emily and I walked the zoo while Cooper and Cason were at camp Tuesday morning. Emily had never been to a zoo that she remembered. This is her "Yay, I'm at the zoo" pose.


She enjoyed the birds.
She really got a kick out of the swimming bear.
We waved hello to Cooper as his camp group passed by.
I couldn't convince Emily to join me in the beaver dam.

She liked the playground though.

This is my favorite part of the playground.

Emily didn't want to get tooooooo wet.

Here she is daydreaming...wonder what she's thinking about.




On Wednesday, we met our Aunt Olene at Peter Piper Pizza.

Everybody was hungry!

Olene made sure everyone had plenty of tokens for games and rides.








Emily wanted to do everything the big kids did.




Oh, I forgot something! On Tuesday evening, cool older cousin KJ, said, "Hey, Cooper and Cason, want to have a water fight?"

Emily wanted to play too. She was a little reserved at first so David gave her a small bowl and had her dump it on Cooper.

OK, who's my next victim?
It's Cason!

Water balloon time again.






OK, back to Wednesday. David led a disco dance party.







Staci and Emily went home Thursday morning. That afternoon, Cooper, Cason, and KJ went next door to hang out since my neighbor's grandson had just arived in town. They played outside near the tank (with neighbor there too), watched Eragon (except for Cason who fell asleep on neighbor's couch for an hour and a half), and spent the evening playing with the BB gun and watching KJ shoot his new paintball gun. Cooper and Cason returned home after camp on Friday. This house is quiet, but I miss them all.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. KJ is still going to finish about SeaWorld and I will have LOTS of pictures of this week. My nephews-Cooper and Cason, my sister-Staci, and one niece-Emily are all down for the week. We're having a blast, but I haven't had time to blog.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Part 3 of SeaWorld is ready now. It's below the diversity post.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

How we don't CELEBRATE diversity, but just live a diverse life

I am interrupting KJ's SeaWorld saga for a brief submission to the Country Fair.


First off, I'm not exactly sure that we celebrate diversity. For me, celebrating means making a big hairy deal about something. In our family, we don't make a big deal about diversity; it's just a part of life. David does have a couple of favorite sayings that he repeats many, many, MANY times to KJ. One is, "Wouldn't life be boring if everyone was the same?" Another is, "You don't have to agree with someone, but you do have to try and understand them." His last one is, "It's hard enough to find someone you love; it shouldn't matter what sex they are." KJ hears all these at least every other week.

I have friends who deliberately look for situations where they're in the minority (and make a big deal about it). I have other friends who shelter their children from anyone who looks, acts, or believes differently. I guess I have a diverse (giggle) group of friends. We rarely seek out situations solely to expose ourselves to different beliefs or nationalities. We just live life matter of factly with the belief that everyone is different, and that we can learn lots from people who look different, have different beliefs or come from different cultures. We do however, seek out opportunities to learn. Sometimes those opportunities also happen to celebrate diversity.

Some examples:

We went to a December seasonal service at the Jewish temple that included Christian, BaiHai, and Muslim parts too. It was called A Celebration of Light.

KJ and I attended a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march one time. I went once for the opportunity to learn about MLK. If I attend again, it will be because I want to celebrate MLK's birthday, NOT so I can announce to my friends in a snooty tone that, "Oh yes, KJ and I participated in the MLK Day march. It was so wonderful to be in such a diverse group."

Renaissance festivals......totally diverse subculture...really, really different

Anywaaay, we don't celebrate diversity. Diversity is just a part of life.

Monday, June 11, 2007

SeaWorld Career Camp 2007 Part 3

Wednesday - Aquarium

We got to the aquarium and were waiting for our guide. During that time, we looked at the shark exhibit. We also looked at the stingray exhibit. Our guide, who's name was Frank, was going to show us the behind the scene aquarium. He told us that he had a meeting to go to, but it would only last about 30 minutes. We went through his meeting room into another room, and as we were going through I noticed that there were two cakes, but I thought nothing of it. We were standing around a big metal table when Frank brought out a big plastic bag about a foot and a half high. He opened it up and dumped a HUGE pile of clams onto the table. He said, "I want ya'll to clean all these clams out and make a new pile. Ya'll want gloves?" Our counselor said that we didn't need gloves, we could just use our hands. I would later regret not having gloves. Frank went to his meeting room and shut the door. For those who do not know, these clams were icky, nasty, and smelly. I got to work pulling the clams open and pulling out the icky brown stuff. After a while the smell started to make me nauseous. Later Frank came out and helped us for about 30 more minutes, and then we were through. As we went back into the meeting room to wash our hands, I noticed that the cakes had been completely demolished. And then Frank showed us behind the exhibits. Frank was interesting...we were looking down upon one of the coral reef tanks and Frank said, "Ya'll see that coral over there?" We were like, "Yeah." And he said, "Ya'll see that coral over there," and we were like, "Yeah." Then he said, "Do you think they look like the same type?" We were like, "Yeah." He said, "It's because they are."

Frank repeated that same scenario several times with various fish. We did learn a lot from Frank, but it was really difficult to stay awake when he was talking, even when standing up.


Frank took us outside behind the scenes where we got to see some more sharks and touch the bamboo shark.





After we petted the bamboo shark, we got to pet and feed the stingrays from our hands.

That evening we had dinner after watching the reef talk at the aquarium. Then we had our evening activities where we went to the park and we played volleyball, soccer, and catch the flag.

SeaWorld Career Camp 2007 Part 2

Tuesday - Animal Care

At Animal Care we got to see, touch, and learn about a variety of animals. The pictures below are just a few of them.












This is me and a 7 foot Burmese Python. It is not full grown.



After Animal Care, we had lunch as usual. I think it was chicken tenders and a piece of chocolate cake that was extremely rich. After lunch we had our review, which I learned to hate. After that we went to see 4D Pirates which is not as cool as it sounds. After that, went to see the Clydesdales which were awesome! For those of you who do not know, a Clydesdale is a very large horse that originated from Scotland in the mid 18th century. The harness the Clydesdales use to pull the Anheuser Busch wagon costs about $80,000. It was a very expensive harness. To qualify for one of the traveling hitches, an Anheuser Busch Clydesdale must be a gelding, at least 4 years of age, 18 hands (6 ft.), weigh 1800-2000 lbs., bay in color, 4 white stocking feet, a blaze of white on its face, and a black mane and tail.


This is the stable.


This is me with one of the smaller Clydesdales, but I still look like a dwarf. I'm 5'6".




After the Clydesdales, we got to go shopping and I got some ice cream with my buddy. After that, we went to see the ski show, the coolest show ever. The ski show consists of lots of old and new music while watching professional water skiers, jet skiers, wake boarders, barefoot skiers, and boat drivers do awesome tricks and stunts on the water.




After that, we went to dinner followed by our evening activities. (I don't remember what they were.)