Salty Planet

We just returned from a trip to Sea World in Orlando. We had a great time and spent 3 days down there. The kids had no idea that we were going. They had a half day of school on wednesday so we picked them up at noon and started driving. We had a book on tape going for them so it took a while for them to get ansty. After about two hundred miles the kids started to get testy and we let them in on the secret that we had been keeping since January. I put together this video of some of the things that we did. It is not complete but does give you some idea of what we did. The video is kind of long so it might take a few minutes to load.

Homework Help

Okay all of you who think you are smarter than a fourth grader, Katie has a brain teaser and needs help! If you can figure it out, feel free to give her a clue, not the answer but a little nudge in the right direction would be great. Due tomorrow and we are out of ideas! Here it goes:

What do these words have in common?

banana
dresser
grammar
potato
revive
uneven
assess

Hint: It's not because of the double letters!

Emma's basketball game

I took this video a while back at one of Emma's basket ball games. It shows her taking on the big guys for a rebound and taking a shot at the basket.

Enjoy!

Valentines Day Snow

Days after I moved here I went to the car wash in 70 degree weather and vacuumed out my car. I came to my ice scrapper and I lamented "I probably won't be using this for a while". Well ... I certainly haven't used it like I would have in Utah or Maine but we got a pretty big North Carolina snow on Valentines Day. The snow was actually still on my car after work and around town in areas where there was shade a day or two after the storm!

Happy Birthday!

It is David's birthday today! Happy birthday to the #1 Pig. Hopefully it was a good birthday in Spokane Washington. Knowing David I'm sure he was hard at work selling insurance!

Cactus Hugger

If I were in the West this is totally a race that I would want to do!!! I thought that I would post it in case any of you in the West want to do it. One of my favorite rides ever was riding up into and back down out of Zion's canyon (except for that really scary part where I passed the wild turkeys! ... really!, it was scary than it sounds, they are HUGE ugly mean looking birds) and being anywhere in that red rock country is a spectacular experience!
http://www.cactushugger.org/ride.html

Winter in Spokane

It has been a snowy winter in Spokane. The kids have missed a week of school already, and we live in the city limits. Some of the outlying areas have misted 2 weeks. They have even closed our church. It does not seem to want to stop.

This is on the trails behind our house if you weigh more than liberty it takes snowshoes or cross country Skis to go on the trails.

This should be the entrance to the trail the is at the end of our street.

Lana in our Driveway.

MaKayla's address

MaKayla is out experiencing the word, going to school in Mexico. If you would like to mail her anything, her address is

For: MaKayla Ward

university of utah

San Jeronimo 304 col. San Jeronimo

Cuernavaca, Morelos, mexico C.P. 62179

If you would like to talk to her, she can be seen on MS messenger at
wardmakayla@hotmail.com

If you would like to email her, she can be reached at makward@gmail.com

I am not going to leave the email addresses up too long as I am sure there is software scanning this blogger service for emails.

Fear the Rodent

As is a tradition for us we went to see our local groundhog on Feb 2nd. The Yellow River Game Ranch is home to General Beauxregard Lee. You can find more about Beau here: http://www.yellowrivergameranch.com/bio.htm. We have seen him several years ina row now. This year it was COLD for Georgia. When we left the house it was 25 degrees. Since it was saturday there was quite a crowd waiting for the furry weatherman. And wait we did! They rang the bell for Beaux to come out and get his breakfast and he waited 30 minutes to come out while we were freezing. In the end there was no shadow to see so winter will be over early here in GA.

While we out celebrating our anniversiary the kids made some brownies for us with a special note in the Pan.

A Day Late

Congratulations to Dan and Crystal, yesterday, on their 13th anniversary. Whatever you did to celebrate, Dan and Crystal, I'm sure it was a lot warmer than your wedding day! Nonetheless, your wedding was a wonderful day and I'm glad you're married and grateful for your three beautiful and wonderful kids.

Huntington Beach State Park

I went birding today with the Carolina Bird Club. We went to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. When I met up with the group they had just spotted a bird which I cannot remember the name of. It was standing behind some tall grasses in a fresh water marsh. It was fun to stand there and watch it; hoping, with the rest of the group, that it would come out into full view. It finally did and flew across and to the other side of the causeway we were standing on. From there we followed its movements and tried to get pictures of it. Below is a video and some of the pictures I got of the bird.

Emerging from the grass

Here are some video and pictures of some of the shore birds I saw.

Sandpipers

Super cute birds

I learned some other things that had nothing to do with birds. I saw quite a few shells of horseshoe crabs which are huge and incredibly menacing looking. It is apparently a primitive creature and more related to spiders than other crabs and comes from a big family (or phylum or something like that) but all the rest of its family members are extinct.

I also learned about another primitive creature that looks like slimy brains. It is called a sea squirt and it is a primitive nodo cord creature and is apparently related to us. If I remember right, when humans are developing in the womb our neurological system begins development as a nodo cord ... but I would have to go back and check on that. When we first came upon these sea squirts I bent over to pick one up thinking that it was a rock but I stopped short because it looked a bit too squishy for a rock. I pressed into them instead with my boot because I still thought that it was a rock but feared that it might be something related to a jellyfish. They were actually pretty firm but not to the extent of a rock. There was a naturalist with us and he told us their name and their relation to us. I felt kind of bad that I had stepped on them when I realized that they were relations =). I took quite a few pictures of them because I thought that they were fascinating sea creatures.

Sea squirt with flexible coral

This is one of the sea squirts that really looked like a rock at first