Some bone-jarring fun!

When the kids and I found our sledding hill to be part of a public school construction site this past week we were forced to find a another one. When we pulled up to this one and found pieces of broken sleds scattered about and people sliding down the hill wrapped in plastic bags we knew right away that this was going to be some fun.

You just can't beat several inches of ice covered by another three or four inches of new snow for for some good sledding.

I went down the steepest slope with my 6 year old daughter only to find a bunch of moguls on the hillside that I couldn't see from the top, talk about a beating! Ironically, after several bone-jarring trips down to the bottom, I saw the sign at the end of the hill. We were sledding at the Cleveland Chiropractic College.

Iceberg Right Ahead!

We may only have a couple of years left before the polar ice caps are gone (according to Al Gore) but I came home this past week to find an iceberg right at the end of my driveway thanks to the city snow plows.

With a little help from my oldest son we did manage to move it over about 6 feet and now we have an iceberg on our front lawn that will probably be there till June.

So how exactly do we blame record snow fall and dangerously cold temperatures and on Global warming? I have no idea but the kids sure had fun making Root-beer snow cones out of real snow.

Henry Doorly Zoo: Cat Complex

While looking through the camera earlier I realized I had quite a few more pictures from the Henry Doorly Zoo like these from the Cat Complex:

It was fun to looking at all the big "Cats" but there wasn't much going on here, most of them were just lying around doing nothing at all. Not a creature was stirring not even a....

...while I was taking this picture of a beautiful White Tiger I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, this cute little suicidal mouse was sneaking up behind it like it was going to scare it or something. It sat there for a while and then ran away.

What was going on in that little mousy brain of his?

Tobacco and Phones 4 Less?

My family and I saw this store while driving through Omaha Nebraska and had to wonder what great mind brought these two things together. Is there a connection here I don't know about?

Henry Doorly Zoo: Scott Aquarium

Perhaps one of the most interesting of the indoor exhibits at the Henry Doorly Zoo was the Scott Aquarium. You enter the exhibit through the Penguin area where you can sit and watch the Penguins playing around.




As you pass through the Penguin area you wind your way through numerous large aquariums full of all sorts of bizarre creatures


And you end up at the 70 foot long "walk on the Ocean floor" tunnel surrounded by hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and all sorts of interesting sea life.

Happy Birthday Alyssa!

Happy Birthday Alyssa! Thanks for six years with very few dull moments.

I hate this thing!

I try to take each of my children out separately for a date night each week so last week I took my 5 year old to a to an arcade where you get tickets for playing the games and then you get to turn in the tickets for cheesy cheap plastic toys when you're done.

Not sure what to do with with her left over tickets Alyssa got a Chinese finger trap. On the way home she ripped it out of the bag, pushed a finger in each side of it and said "Look Daddy, it's my Chinese finger trap!" The words were hardly out of her mouth when her face scrunched up and she hollered "Hey, my fingers are stuck! I hate this thing!" she said with a frown. "I'm throwing it in the trash!"

Now that was worth the ten tickets!

A Sunday Afternoon Bike Ride

The four kids and I had a blast taking a loooooong bike ride this last Sunday afternoon.

Here's Alyssa on her "co-pilot" She likes to tell me she's "right behind me" every few minutes.

We hiked on a few side trails

And saw lots of disgusting nature stuff like caterpillar nests in the trees

a lizard that was too fast to get a picture of (he was right here on this log a moment ago)


and several big ugly spiders.

What a way to enjoy Gods creation!

A big fat Sumo wrestler?

My 5-year-old recently made me this cute little card with pictures all over it. It had a cute little picture on the front and said "To Dad" in her best 5-year-old hand writing. I opened it up and this cute little picture was inside; she is on the left and I am on the right and I guess we really love each other.

But then on the next page I found this:

"What is that?" I asked.
"That's you as a big fat Sumo wrestler." she exclaimed.

Thank you Alyssa for that very interesting card!

???

I'm Headin to the Hills

The Family was sitting around when Alyssa suddenly announced "Welp, I'm zippin up my back pack and headin to the hills."

Goodbye Alyssa, we'll miss you.

I was way off!

Until recently I had never been Mountain biking before, but when I found out there were some mountain biking trails not too far from our house I decided to take some of the kids with me and give it a try.

For some strange reason I had pictured us riding on smooth dirt trails through the woods, down hill, with the wind blowing through our hair enjoying the great outdoors. I was way off! What I found was trails full of large rocks, large protruding tree roots, places where you could hardly fit your handle bars through the trees as they whizzed by and lots of up hills.

Talk about a workout! I was sore for days but we had a lot of fun.