Family Home Evening

My favorite moment from this week's FHE (Family Home Evening):

Mom: "It is important to understand we are accountable for our choices. What is accountable?"

4 year-old Nathan: "Its someone who eats people."

Me: Laugh. (that's normally my part. That and being the enforcer).

Toads

For those of you who don't know me well ... who am I kidding, both people who read this know me well. So AS YOU ALREADY KNOW, I've always been into anything that crawls, slithers, or hops. Last weekend we visited my parents in Pima, AZ. This time of year, when it rains, that little town is hoppin! Toads everywhere. Last year we caught a small Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus) named Sedona, who was a valued member of our family for 9 months before dying of symptoms related to too much Nathan love. So this trip gave us a chance to pick up a couple replacements, and catch and realease hundreds more.


Nathan gets the award for catching the largest toad. He is fearless and loves small animals possibly even more than his daddy. This one is a large Sonoran Desert Toad (Ollotis alvaria). Definitely too big to take home, but fun to chase and catch.

Here is our new Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus). She is larger than the one from last year, so maybe she will survive Nate's play a bit better. We've named her Sedona's Big Sister, or Sedona II. I've noted she can jump out of the terrarium if the lid is left off, so hopefully that will not attribute to her untimely demise.

This cute little guy is a Couch's Spadefoot (Scaphiopus couchii). She's a cute toad, but I don't expect we'll see much of her. She likes to bury herself, and rarely comes out.

Our other two toads, which we have had for about 1.5 years, are Chinese Fire-Bellied Toads (Bombina Orientalis). Pictured here is Walker, who is a bit shy and reserved. Not pictured is his nearly identical twin Texas Ranger, who is much more outgoing; more of a go get 'em kind of cricket hunter rather than a wait-for-them-to-come type. Of course, we love them equally.

Here's where they live. And yes, there really are 4 toads and one fake frog in this pic.

We also brought home a few hundred small tadpoles of unknown species. they were in a puddle about to dry up. Many will end up as food for the above 4 mentioned cannibals. Hopefully a few will make it to froghood and to this blog at a later date.

A walk at The Mall

After work today I decided to go on a 5 mile walk at The Mall. I had my camera with me so I took a few shots and thought I'd brake my long-time blog silence.




This is a shot of the National Mall. I took it while sitting on Lincoln's lap. OK, they wouldn't let me do that, even after I explained I'm American. But I did take it from the top of the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial.




See? Doesn't his lap look inviting? Hard to tell scale from this photo, but there's room for a dozen red blooded Americans up there!



This is me at the Vietnam and Korean War memorials. I'm the one in the blue shirt. For those that have never been there, seen here is about 1/50th of the Vietnam Memorial. The Korean War Memorial is cool because until up close it looks like an ungraved huge stone with smudges on it.



This is the WWII memorial with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. If you visit, don't miss this little "Killroy was here" gem hidden in a back crevice by an air vent.



Here's the Washington Monument and the Capitol.



Here's the White House from the Mall and from Pennsylvania Avenue.



I love the Washington DC license plates.

I'm not sure why, but this is funny.

If you've been around the internet a lot, this one is most definitely not new to you. I've been asked what I think the funniest thing on the internet is. This guy just might be it. Drat!



This is his "second attempt". Its his best, but his third attempt is quite funny too. “That’s one of the things I hate about balloons” is my favorite line from #3.

Kids, stay in school, and move out of mom's house before you turn 40.

Where are they now?

Note: There are NO SPOILERS in this post. The spoilers are all in the "comments" section.

Last week I had a business trip to D.C., which was a great timing for me since it gave me about 10 total airplane hours (first class) plus a bunch of hotel hours to read Harry Potter book 7. I have to say that while book 1 remains for me the funnest of the series, this one easily wins the contest for best HP book.

But after reading 7 volumes and over 4000 pages (8000 for those of us who have done so twice), it is a sad thing to see it end. It is especially hard to have to sit and ponder "I wonder what <<insert character name here>> did with his/her/its life." I know, some of you are yelling through your PC at me (Dale) that they are fictional characters, so they did nothing, or they did whatever I want to imagine they did. But for those of you like me, this is not good enough. It is for those like me that I have a bit of good news. Yesterday, a bunch of people like us got JK Rowling to do a web chat, and share her feelings about what happened to some of the characters later in life. No joke.

So please click on "comments" below find out what she said, and also to join me in some Pottertalk (again, I already admitted I'm a nerd.)

The transformation is complete

I'm a Star Wars fan. I read Harry Potter even though I'm 36. And now I have a blog. It is complete. I'm a nerd.