Author: Jennifer
•6:14 PM
I had a job out in Houston last week. We decided to run out to Galveston to see how things are shaping up. It looks pretty good from the outside. This is part of what's known as "The Strand". There are mostly beautiful old buildings that have been well maintained. They were all closed for clean up and repair.
This is cool. See how the Ike waterline there?
I love this picture! We had to go walk out past the sea wall and enjoy the Gulf air.
This is an interesting jetty they're standing on built out of huge blocks of granite.
We wondered if they were part of a building that was knocked down.
Some sides of the blocks were smooth and polished.
There's the jetty in the background. Daniel was showing Ms. Deanna all the sand and shells and I'm sure some other fun discoveries.
How lovely the beach is, don't you think. There's a certain peace in it when it isn't a wall. The daytime moon showed up in the shot there.
We stopped to visit my little sister's grave on the mainland.
I wanted to make sure it was still in good shape.
As for
letterboxing, can you believe we didn't get a chance? That was a bummer. We didn't even attempt any in Galveston. All of the ones I looked at had been placed before Ike.
Author: Jennifer
•12:01 AM
I forgot to add this really cool video I took of the octopus being totally sociable. Check it out!
Author: Jennifer
•10:25 PM
This was another side trip on the way back from Houston. There is a hidden treasure there that many don't know about. This place is call the
Forbidden Gardens. It's kind of small, but it's really cool. Read up on ancient China before you take a trip out. Expect to take a guided tour of the place. You'll learn so much!
There are interesting statues all around this place. Hurricane Ike left it's mark even here though. There was quite a bit of damage from the winds.
This is a replica of one of Emperor Qin's terracotta army chambers only discovered in 1974 by some farmers! These guys were created about 300 years before Christ for the purpose of protecting his tomb.
There were over 8000 soldiers baried. What a way to spend a lifetime! You can barely see a statue of the emperor at the end of this chamber.
These are the replica of the Forbidden City. This was built in another city a few hundred years after Emperor Qin existed to house the imperial family. There is so much detail involved in the design of this place and they way they lived. It's a fun place to study architecture and culture. Of course, I had to purchase a book to read more about it.
Now, if you look really close, near the green tree on the left side of the picture, you can see us standing there. Look close. Do you see us?
Okay, I'm sorry... I just had to do that for those who would actually look. I could hold that tree in my hand. Yes, it's a miniature replica of the city. But, all of this really is in China. As soon as I get a job there, would you like to come with me and help me with my kids? :-)
This is the imperial vacation home. What a lovely place.
And that's all for the pictures. There are a few more areas on the tour. One being the weapon room and another being the architecture room.
And, the final display is the Venice of China. Here's some info about that: http://www.micktravels.com/china/tongli.html It's very interesting. This was always the place where men would go to find their wives. All women here were beautiful and had those lovely cripled feet the Chinese loved so much. To this day, men still go to Little Venice or Tong Li to find a wife.
Happy Ancient China studies!!! Now, get to Katy!
Author: Jennifer
•9:48 PM
One of the joys of my work is the ability to travel with my kids. I recently got a short-term job offer in Houston. I managed to con my friend into coming with me to watch the kids and stay in a hotel with a heated indoor pool. Not a bad bribe.
I wouldn't say that the Houston Aquarium is all that we thought it would be, but we still had fun. It's deceiving three-stories are for something like private parties. This is not part of the aquarium. There were some pretty good highlights though...
We rode of the carousel. You'd expect there to be all marine animals.
And so there were.
My Louisiana friend chose the
croc. Who'd have thought?
And, the lovely train.
There weren't many visitors as it was a school day. This was a field trip for us. This train was actually pretty cool. We went into a tunnel and stopped. The front and back doors of the tunnel closed. The walls were glass and there was water behind the glass... and in the water were... sharks! That was cool! I didn't get pics in there but I'll post my friends pics if she'll send them to me.... Deanna?...
Deaaaaannaaaa?
There was also a faster than usual moving
Ferris wheel that we rode on. That was nice. We saw some of the cool building in downtown Houston... and some of the blown-away ones that Hurricane Ike takes the credit for. And, the busy Houston highway.
Okay, now the unusual part...
White Tigers in the aquarium.
Hmmm... Guess they needed an addition. The tiger saw was very pretty, he just seemed out of place. How is a white tiger related to an aquarium?
Predator and prey? Well, whatever.
Here's some interesting tidbits that we just learned in our Zoology III study. White tigers are just regular tigers. They are very rare because they're simply albinos.
Oh, the fearsome beast. He might take my purse!
Here's some more aquarium as you would expect to see.
A view looking at the sting rays from below. They also had some nice horseshoe crabs. Yes, we did discuss trilobites. We can't resist reinforcing what we learned. Trilobites are the extinct relative of the horseshoe crab. They were huge. We learned about them in Zoology II last year.
Oh, this was the coolest part. I've seen these spraying water fountains before, but this one was really pretty.
Deanna didn't think they were so cool when she saw what I was letting the kids do. Oh yeah!
They got soaked. And my poor friend had to stay up half the night drying shoes and clothes because the shoes kept popping out of the drier.
I'm sure the other guests at the hotel are still mad at us for making all that noise. Have you ever heard the sound of four pairs on tennis shoes in the drier? :-)
Author: Jennifer
•9:06 PM
Looks like I never finished posting about Lake Eerie. Here's a little backtrack.
While we were staying with our friends in Ohio, we decided to rent a car so we could run up to see one of the Great Lakes. The nearest lake lies on the north border of Ohio - Lake Eerie.
We went to Marblehead to see a historic lighthouse. It's too bad that it wasn't open for tours that day, but it was a nice lighthouse and there was a nice view of the lake... and a more modern amusement park across the "bay".
See those huge rocks? That's why the lighthouse was built here. :-)
We went to a state park as we left
Marblehead heading towards Toledo. I was
surprised to see that there were no fee booths. It was free. We went to the sandy area to play. Looks like a beach at the Gulf, doesn't it?
We took advantage of the swings and observed some beautiful flowers and birds while we were there.
I was able to identify this guy as being the Eastern Kingbird. We'll not see those around here. There were several waterfowl that I had a tough time identifying. We just relaxed and observed. How fun! I wish we had more time to explore Michigan while we were so close to the border, yet we had to be getting back.
Author: Jennifer
•8:08 PM
We're on a great trip with a friend to visit far-away friends. We left on July 16th, stayed over in Searcy, Arkansas and arrived in New Albany, Indiana last night. We are now staying with a friend in Springboro, Ohio. We'll have to post trip pics on the way back home since we weren't able to locate our camera on the way. I took some great pics with my camera phone... I just have to figure out how to get them to my computer.
One bird we were thrilled to spot in Conway, Arkansas was the Eastern Bluebird.
The neighborhood where we are staying reminds me of The Backyardigans. It's a circular block with connecting backyards. We've gotten to see some lovely American Robins which are abundant in the area.
Now that we're here and settled, we found a few neat insects to study. We weren't able to identify all of them specifically, but they were fun to draw.
This is a firefly. There are many out here flying around at dusk. Isn't that just one of the best memories we have as kids of summer evenings? We put this one in a jar and found another one to add. By the time we started drawing them, they were mating. I guess we were good match-makers.
This is a nice beetle that we found after dark under the porch light. He sure liked the chunk of apple that Cameron added for his pleasure.
Here are a couple of nice moths.
This one is quite lovely, don't you think?
Author: Jennifer
•6:46 PM
Oh what fun it is to ride... cross country to the white sands of FL! Yes, that's sand, not snow.
Just look at those beautiful sand dunes. The Gulf of Mexico is just on the other side of those dunes... and it's beautiful from the fresh ocean waters of the Atlantic. Taylor summarized the beaches from an interesting TX point of view. "You could walk in the sand barefoot without burning your feet or even getting any stickers!"
This was a business trip, but of course we'll take any opportunity to travel and learn about other places. Oh yes, Taylor had the duty of completing a state workbook that I threw together from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/. She had a blast with that! On the front cover, I printed a map of the US. She drew a line showing our travel and she colored in every state from which we saw license plates. We learned about the state flag (colored and discussed what the symbols and colors represented) state bird, state reptile, state flower... and anything else I could find on that website.
The trip was wonderful. We even stopped to get letterboxes along the way when time permitted. Letterboxing leads us to neat places we never would have found without it. When travelling, it sure helps you get a feel for the nature of the area you are travelling through. The interstate only reveals pretty much the same thing for hundreds of miles. Below is a pic of "Jackson's Oak" at Village Point Preserve in Daphne, Alabama. Here's an exerpt about this tree from the website:
Other bits of the area's history are hard to miss, such as one of the highlights of the trip, Jackson Oak, that towers over the park and is draped in majestic and flowing Spanish moss. It was in the boughs of this massive tree in 1812 that General Andrew Jackson gave a rallying speech to his troops before moving out for the famous Battle of New Orleans. Today a boardwalk leads visitors around and up to the tree. A kiosk here features an audio recording that recounts the story of this famous tree.
We had the opportunity to stay with Tom's favorite Aunt Virginia and Uncle Bill. :-) They have a beautiful home and yard... and the hospitality is unsurpassed. Tom says that's Alabama food and hospitality that no one can beat! The food was wonderful... and it was served on platters rather than plates. Needless to say, we left with full tummies and recipes to take home... and of course memories to last a lifetime.
The kids got to go to the zoo and one of the lovely white sand beaches. Thanks to our wonderful family, they were well entertained!
Welcome centers can be really cool, too. Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit the FL welcome center because I was bad and took the wrong road to Ft. Walton Beach. We sufferred the consequences for being eager to travel the scenic route. After all, when will we get to do that again? When it started getting late, I began to panic for fear of my rudeness of arriving so late to such a welcome home. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop making mistakes of immaturity. At some point, we must outgrow all of that, right? Well, I made it a point to be prompt through the rest of the trip. My sweet husband told me to take our time on the way back so we could be sure to see what sites we could see. What a guy.
Ah, back in TX... and the best welcome center yet! We figured we'd see something huge when we got there. Texans pride themselves in living in the largest state in the US.... so everything in TX has to be big. 
Who knew this visitor center (I-10 bordering... well, you can figure that out) is located in a TX swamp! The Blue Elbow Swamp was such a neat experience. They had a board walk winding through the swamp that was full of turles, a few water snakes, baldcypress trees... what an intriguing ecosystem we just walked into. It was truly a different world. It's one thing to study and quite another to witness what you have learned. To learn more about this swamp, check out this website: http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2003/sept/ed_4/
Ode to the love of learning!!!
Eager to take another trip! Let's go!
This is cool. See how the Ike waterline there?
I love this picture! We had to go walk out past the sea wall and enjoy the Gulf air. 
We stopped to visit my little sister's grave on the mainland. 
