Oh I wish I were a big ugly bird...

The kids did not have school on Columbus day. I don't know why it isn't one of those days that everyone gets off. I mean really, If it wasn't for Columbus I'd still have no idea what happened in 1492. Actually come to think of it I wish my mistakes were celebrated!

In honor of Columbus Day and his great flight across the ocean we went to the National Aviary.

Last year when Granddad was visiting the Aviary, he almost got nailed by a big ugly bird. The kids made up a song to go with the memorable occasion ( hence the title of the post).

Oh I wish I were a big ugly bird
Oh I wish I were a big ugly bird
I'd aim for your head
but hit the ground instead.
Oh I wish I were a big ugly bird

or

Oh I wish I were a very pretty bird
Oh I wish I were a very pretty bird
I'd fly above you
then hit you with my poo
Oh I wish I were a very pretty bird

 Andrew is standing under the famous bird.


The aviary has a new condor exhibit. Condors are really REALLY big birds.

 Sometimes Andrew gets sassy when I'm trying to take a picture. It reminds me of Jared. I think that's why Andrew keeps doing it because Uncle Jared is kinda cool.

 It was late morning and the condors were trying to get the warmth from the sun. It was totally cool. Their wings are HUGE. Way cool....

 They kids were well behaved ( like always right?) and we all had a good time

 Except for Hannah who didn't want her picture taken. Bad idea Hannah. Now I HAVE to take a ton of pictures of just you.

ps. Natalie broke her finger at school today. Second broken bone this year :(

Scottish cows are best

Once upon a time there was a mother who wanted to take her three kids on one last trip before school started. The mother thought and thought about what she should do. It needed to be somewhere close, that didn't involve driving in the scary city and entertaining for all.

Hence entered the fairy Godmother aka Grandma who offered to pay for us to visit Living Treasures Animal Park.  What a great idea! The park was in the opposite direction of the city ( huge huge plus), a place the family had been wanting to visit and was very inexpensive. Thanks Grandma!

You are allowed to feed the animals at the park so we made sure we were there when it opened. That way we were sure to have hungry animals. Let me tell you in case you didn't know that feeding hungry animals is a lot more fun than feeding animals that are full. Full animals have the nasty habit of ignoring you.

For $2.00 you could buy a bag of baby carrots to feed the animals and with another $2.00 you could get a small silver bucket of food pellets.  I'm amazed that the animals were not more orange with all the carrots they ate.

We were able to get really close to the animals making it more fun in a lot of ways then an old plain Zoo.

 Hannah near her favorite animal.

 Robbie and Andrew feeding a Wallaby.

 This cow was by far everyone's favorite animal. Her name is Goldie and she is from Scotland. You can tell because of her accent when she moo's. Moowoo. See, Scottish mooing.

 She is a very bright cow that had figured out the fasted least amount of work in which to get her daily amount of carrots. She would see a child with a carrot, open her mouth wide and throwing her tongue to the side and waited for the carrot to be thrown into her waiting mouth.

This method was brilliant because the kids thought it was so funny and threw the carrots again and again. Anyone who says cows are dumb just haven't met Goldie yet. If I ever get a cow, I'm going to get me a Scottish one.

tournament

We went to a second tournament. I get so nervous and stressed for the kids that sometimes I think I'm more stressed out then they are. It's hard for me to see my kids pale and big eyed and when I try to catch their eyes to let them know that I'm here, your awesome and brave, and I love you all in a quick smile and two thumbs up, but they refuse to look over.

The competition for Hannah and Andrew was intense. There were a lot of kids in both Hannah and Andrew's groups. Most of the kids had been to a few tournaments and were very competitive. The last competition the kids had been in was when they were orange belts. For most this was their first competition so it was a lot more laid back. I think both Hannah and Andrew we surprised how competitive this tournament was. I"m sure they thought that they would take everything because they had been working hard and were so much better then they were in February. So it was surprising to them that they would have to work hard and focus to be able to place.

It took Hannah a little while to warm up. Forms are first. That is when they do a whole set of moves in a set order. These forms all have names. Hannah was called up first, which is a hard position to be. She really started to shine when it came to sparing and combat sparing.

Sparing is when you get to kick and punch the other person and Hannah is good at that. She is very strong and knocked over a two different girls, one of them twice. Each time Hannah looked up at me and I just mouthed, "It's OK." I noticed that Hannah held back a little. What a sweet girl she is feeling bad when she kicks a girl down.

Andrew did really well also. I think his group was a little larger then Hannah's. There are a lot of boys that do taekwando. There was one boy that was really good. He did a harder form then the other boys and was pretty darn awesome. Jim called him Bruce Lee. Andrew does spare with higher belts in class, but he has always had his speed to make things a little even. But this kid was the same size and just as quick! Andrew had to work really hard. It was a great learning experience for him. Jim called Andrew Chuck Norris.

Natalie's group was only five girls. Not a lot of girls start Taekwando at her age. It was so layed back. The girls were really nervous and not very focused on being competitive. One girl forgot part of her form, burst into tears and let the mat to her parents. The judges came over and talked to her telling her that they had all messed up or forgotten something at one time or another. Everyone was kind and helpful. It was a nice relief after watching Hannah and Andrew's

There were two gyms to use at this tournament. I'm so grateful that were in the smaller one because it was HOT. For some reason they did not have the air conditioning on. When the kids took off their sparing gear they were covered in sweat! Yuck!

 Ah. The spoils!

Steelers Commercial

Here is a link to the commercial I participated in. You won't see the viola section because the camera is looking over the top of me at the second violins.

It was nearly two hours of filming for 3 seconds in the commercial.


http://www.steelers.com/videos/videos/Wear-What-We-Wear/241b233a-cf7b-405f-aeeb-57039f5fb864