Gone Fishing

I just took three of my children and my dog fishing. We roasted coconut marshmallows. We had a hard time catching any fish this time. We went to a new beach named Packery Channel. Pretty cool! As always, it was the BEST time ever!

Intrigued by N.G. article

On Weds., I took my children to the local library for a story time. We had such a fun time learning and reading about bunnies. They even had an Easter Egg hunt for the little ones. While we were there I noticed the National Geographic magazine on the shelf and I was intrigued with this article. If you have time to read it - go for it.
When I was young, my dad really enjoyed learning about the world around us and he had a subscription to National Geographic. I still remember reading about some of my favorite birds and science facts. I've never traveled outside of the U.S. except in the pages of this exceptional magazine. I'm always fascinated by what I may learn next and now they're online! It will be one of my favorite sites from now on.
This time I learned, in reading this article, that there is a reason to give animals our respect because they are exciting creatures. We are complex beings and so are they. I think you'll find that most amazing as well.

Dog fact of the day

In honor of Candy - Here's a dog fact:

"Domestic dogs use a complex set of communication modes to navigate

their social environment.

Chemical cues, such as pheromones, communicate information on

reproductive status, social status, and mood.

Body language is heavily used and various vocalizations are used as well.

Social bonding and communication also occurs through touch."

~http://www.dogfacts.org/communication-and-perception.htm

Dog Park and Candy's B-day

Two years ago, our family adopted a puppy on St. Patty's Day. So, now it is known as Candy's b-day. Our kids always want to celebrate it and have a b-day party for our dog and so today that is exactly what we did. It's our new tradition.
First, we took our family to the new dog park. It turned out to be a fairly pleasant experience and wore out the kids and the dog. Candy loved it, I'm sure as it was evident in her actions with the other dogs at the dog park. We also found out that the dog park is a great place to meet people. They want to talk to you about their dog so it's easy conversation.After that we went home and had a BBQ with some of our friends.For her Birthday present she got a gigantic bone and she loved it.

Instant Messaging

Our little Zayah guy can be a handful of energy most of the time but he has one of neatest personalities that makes life fun. Here's a picture of him doing one of his most favorite things in the world and that is fishing. He also loved this shirt and when Mom would sing him "Fire Chief Dog." A silly song she made up.
Today, at dinner he made us all laugh really hard - one of the spit your drink out kind of laughs. Earlier, Nessa and Brigi were having fun instant messaging Uncle Sam. They were laughing and having a great time. When they came to the table for dinner, they were talking about how great it was to IM Uncle Sam. Zayah spoke right up and said: "You know I would really like to instant message a rabbit!" Of course, we couldn't contain our laughter and when that happens Zayah really starts to go to town and went on to talk about how great life would be if he could only IM a tiger or even an apple. It was one of those moments that you may not "get it" but we sure enjoyed it!
Another thing about Zayah that I was thinking about was one day Brigi announced that Zayah knew everything there was to know about penguins. We were wondering about that, after all he is only a little guy in Pre-K. One of Nessa's friends was here and didn't believe it either so she decided she would question him about penguins. She started asking questions about where penguins live, which one is the biggest, what do they eat and if they had feathers. The amazing thing is he knew the answers! We couldn't believe our ears and Zayah sure had fun making sure we knew all he knew about penguins.
In honor of this our fun fact today will be about penguins:
"Penguins don't live near freshwater -- at least none that isn't frozen. Instead they drink salt water. They have a special gland in their bodies that takes the salt out of the water they drink and pushes it out of grooves in their bill. A handy in-house filtration system!"

~from http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/penguins/facts4.htm

Penguins Rock!

Educational Fun Fact of the Day:

"The total weight of all the termites in the world is greater than the weight of all humans in the world."

"A flea can jump up to eight inches high or 150 times its own height, if humans could do this they would jump over skyscrapers."
~Home Team Pest Defense letter sent to us.

Candy's B-day is soon

Bad news and Good news.Will start with bad news we were going to have Candy's birthday at the beach during Spring Break but dad did some research and figured out that every school district in Texas had the same spring break which means everybody else is going to the beach.The good news is that we still will have her B-day party we just don't know what were going do.Any suggestions ?
Hopie
P.S.-Her b-day is Saint Pattys Day.

Hopie's Trip to NASA

NASA NASA NASA
It's so awesome.The long trip was so worth it.The first thing we did was the tour"TRAM is what they call it".It was cool. I saw the control room and the place where they train the astronauts.I also saw a model of a space ship"Big".Then we got lunch. We went to a couple movies and saw some exhibits .Then our trip was over with.
Hopie
P.S.-I went with the History Club. Finally, I got the photos to work.

Our Wednesday

We're going to start blogging. Julie and Hopie will be writing different ideas and events that happen in our family. We'll see how it goes.
Jared hung a big Texas star on our house today. It was a beautiful day and we went to the park - even our dog Candy came too. Jared BBQ'd drumsticks and they were delicious.
We watched American Idol and we love Brooke White! Our guy favorites from last night include, David Archuletta, David Cook and Jason.

Educational Fact of the day:

"Home is where the mud is ~

A flamingo nest is not fancy, just a mound of mud, maybe 12 inches (30 centimeters) high. The nest needs to be high enough to protect the egg from flooding and from the occasional intense heat at ground level. Both the male and female build the nest by drawing mud toward their feet with their bills. Flamingos lay a single large egg, which is incubated by both parents. At hatching, a flamingo chick has gray down feathers. It also has a straight, pink bill and swollen pink legs, both of which turn black within a week." -San Diego Zoo, Animal Bytes on the Flamingo