Critter’s Krib

This morning, Talon, Phoenix and I went to the International Festival held at the fair grounds. To be honest, I would have known nothing about it, had it not been for one of Talon’s friends from school participating in it.

We walked around the booths from different countries. It was interesting to see what types of items were there as a representation of the different cultures. Some of them offered food from their countries, but Talon was not interested in experimenting with his food, so he settled on a slice of pizza

Alp’s group (Talon’s friend) was the 8th group to go up for their dance. I did my best to keep Phoenix happy while we waited. He was in the backpack carrier, so I just bounced around as much as possible. I am sure I looked like an idiot, but it did the trick.

While watching the dancers from the different countries, it occurred to me. What if this festival was held in another country. What would the Americans do to demonstrate their culture?

It might sound like a stupid question, but what would be considered ‘our culture’ ? The dances performed at the festival had meaning, they told a story? What dance would be ours? What tells the story of America?

If the Macarena popped into your head, shame on you!

But due to the fact I left my camera over at Kate’s, pictures will have to wait until later in the day.

I took Talon and Phoenix over to Kate’s so all the kids could go out together. Besides, it’s nicer to go around a neighborhood than around an apartment building.

Talon was dressed up as Optimus Prime from the Transformers. His costume was store bought. They could have made a bit more effort on it for the money I spent, but Talon was happy and that is good enough. Phoenix was dressed as Chewbacca. Again, a store bought costume, but OMG, he looked so cute. *cue title of post*

Talon’s sister, Tayah, was dressed as a little witch, and his little brother Kyne was a puppy dog, again, too cute. Talon’s buddy, Tyler and his little sister, Briana (two n’s?) came over as well. We had a decent little group.

It was a small task to keep the older boys hanging back enough so that the younger girls could keep up, but it all worked out in the end. I’m pretty sure all the kids made out like little bandits last night.

Pictures later…

The boys are good.

Talon is getting on pretty well in school, and doesn’t seem to be getting into as much trouble lately. The bus Talon takes to and from school is consistently inconsistent. One day they arrive at 4:20 pm, the next they pull up at 5:00 pm. The times fluctuate so much a few of the parents have a hard time getting there in time, so Talon and I hang out with the kids until their parents arrive.

Phoenix is doing great, as well. He just had his 9 month checkup and passed with flying colors. His weight was 20.something lbs. (50%). His height was 28 in (50%), and his head circumference was something… but it was in the 75%.

He is finally growing into that noggin of his!

Me? Well all I can say is thank god I don’t feel as old as I look. I did a cardio-age test at the gym a couple weeks ago, and IIRC, it said my cardio-age was 29. I can live with that.

I am getting ready to do a new round of P90X in a week or two. I want to focus on my diet a bit more this go round. That is the only reason I am not jumping into a new session. I want to make sure I have everything setup for how I want it…

Not that you care… but I’ll keep you posted of the awesomeness that will be my Fizz-Eek

… time to put all pairs of white slacks in storage.

We left the house around 1:30am on Sunday morning, headed for Charleston, SC. The drive was pretty uneventful. A 2-hour nap prior to the trip along with a Spike Shooter and one Mini-Thin help to ensure I was wide awake and alert at the wheel. We stopped over at some shady hotel around 5:30am. We couldn’t get into our hotel until later in the day, so we made a small pitstop. We had planned ahead, which hotel we would stay at, but since we left the directions and the name of the hotel at home, we had to find a substitute. When I say ’shady’, I mean ‘SHADY’! It, of course, looked a lot better on the outside than it did on the indside. I felt like a fugitive staying there. *shudder* We only stayed long enough for us all to catch a couple hours of sleep, then we headed out for breakfast at IHOP. Twas good. Of course, all this time it has been raining. Yes, someone (not me) forgot to check the weather. *sigh* Oh well, we did venture to the beach, as it was only drizzling a bit. The beach, however, was barely there. So much of it (Isle of Palm, I think) has erroded away. It was a sad sight to see.
Instead, we headed out to Patriot’s Point and took a tour of the aircraft carrier, the battleship, and a submarine that are docked there. I have several other pictures on my flickr account. It was an interesting tour. It would have been a bit nicer had we been able to take the time to read all the placards that were posted, but with two children in tow, we did not really idle around too much.
The last day was spent relaxing by the pool and just kicking back. Monday made for a decent wind down, since Sunday was such a long day.
One interesting thing that did happen was at the rental car place on Saturday. I was told they do not accept out-of-state driver’s licenses. uh… Isn’t that what their business is all about? WTF?!? Idiots. Enterprise sux

Same ole same ole here…I’ve been coding a lot, working on my reptile site, Critter’s Critters. Once I am at a good place with it, I plan on releasing the code as an open source project. Not sure if there is anyone that will be interested in it, but most of the reptile sites out there are very roughly done. They need help.

I’ve been working on a new outside cage for Jill (the iguana). It measures 6ft high, 5ft wide, and 4 ft deep. I’ll post pictures of it once it’s completed. I will be able to put Jaeger (the tortoise) in it also.

Other than that, just busy work stuff. Talon went swimming with a friend of his on Wednesday, they both had a blast. He’s been going over to a friend of ours on Mondays and Thursdays. Their daughters are ‘babysitting’ him. I put it in quotes as he really dislikes that word. ha!

School starts at the end of this month, and I cannot wait. I pulled Talon out of his current day camp because he wasn’t really doing anything productive there. He would take his PSP for down time, but I think he just ended up playing it all the time. Hell, he can stay home and do that, and I could save a small fortune!

I have him doing a bit of work throughout the day, just to keep his mad skills up to date. I have also limited his PSP time to 3 20 minute sessions a day. He could very easily sit all day and play that bloody thing. Course, dad’s not going to let that happen

So Thursday afternoon we headed out to Wet & Wild at Emerald Point. We had a pretty good time. We have been to one before, but I cannot remember which one. This one did not seem as big, but the kids had fun and that’s all that really matters, right? Both Talon and Phoenix had a blast playing in the pools.

A couple of things about yesterday, though…

As we entered the park there was a AAA truck broken down. I asked the bloke if he would be required to show his card? He laughed. Second truck that broke down on him this week. I asked him if it was him or the trucks. “The trucks”, he replied, “definitely the trucks!”

I have never seen so many obese children in one day, it was truly sad. And I don’t just mean kids that are a little chunky. I am talking about kids that are huge. Six and seven year olds that get winded just walking up the stairs. Again… a sad, sad sight.

This one lady came up to her kid, yelling at him that he was to go on “one ride” and then come back. “That was 2 hours ago” (whoops)

Swim diapers for babies cost… are you read for this… $3.99 for ONE diaper!

On the way out the lady in the car behind (we’ll call her Chick-A) would not let this other chick merge in front of her (we’ll call her Chick-B). Chick-B sat on the horn for ages. They were both throwing words back and forth. We came up to a stop sign and Chick-B jumped out of her car and approached Chick-A. They just shouted back and forth for a bit until traffic started to move again. When we came up to a second stop sign, Chick-B, again jumped out of her car, and so did Chick-A this time. They started scrapping just as Chick-C jumped out of the passenger side of Chick-B’s car to help her friend. Chick-C immediately took off her shoe and attempted to hit Chick-A with it. That’s all I saw. I would have seen more, but Jenene was yelling at me to go. Both Chick’s had their kids in their cars… way to set an example. It was obviously a proud parent day at Wet & Wild!

I had a Hardee’s Thick Burger on the way home. The 2/3 lb. Monster. It was awesome! I don’t normally eat fast food.. or burgers period, but it was a one off.. (I just looked at their website OMG. 1300 calories 96g FAT um… WOW.. last time I have one of those… )

Talon had a regular burger. He threw up in the car 20 minutes later. Thank goodness we didn’t have a full on puke reaction. He was smart enough to grab a bag to puke in. *shudder*

That’s about it.

I’m not pointing any elbows, but…

Just a few lot of pictures

And a quick video

Introducing Kyne Adam