Beautiful little guys!

Here are some pictures of the 3 firebelly newts: Fireball, Flame, and Fuego. Which one is which? There's just no way to be sure!
This is one of them, maybe Fuego, and look! He's giving the peace sign as he's swimming by!

This is probably Fireball and Flame, with their little arms around eachother! They are clearly friends. And the guy at the pet store said they had no capacity for friendship, loneliness, or love. What does HE know?

Here's Fuego again, swimming like a crazy aqua maniac. He's always in the water! I just love looking at their beautiful bellies. It's mesmerizing.

Calabaza

I think I've decided on a name for my little kitty. Everyone seems to be in agreement that Pumpkin is the best name for him, BUT my mom already had a cat named Pumpkin and my hamster is now named Pumpkin so I think that's a little too much of that name. So I've been calling him Cala from the Spanish word for pumpkin - "calabaza". I think his full name will be Calabaza and it'll just be Cala for short. It's really easy to call him too...if you say "calacalacalacalacala..." he comes!

5 in one week. That must be a record.

I think I've just set a family record. I went from NO pets to FIVE pets in one week! Remember earlier how I was saying I wish I had a hamster, some newts, a corn snake, and a cat? Well now I've gotten my hamster. I've gotten my firebelly newts. And tonight...I GOT A CAT!!! He was a stray cat that my mom found in Waynesboro. He's been on his own for a long time, and he's very thin (obviously he's not very adept at hunting). But he's REALLY friendly...like REALLY REALLY friendly, which is good because those are the kind of cats I like. He's been following me around everywhere! He doesn't have a name yet either and I was warned by my sister not to accept any suggestions from my mother. I didn't really take her warning seriously until my mom brought me my new kitty and she said, "I think you should name him Harry Peter."

My mom is notorious for coming up with bizarre names for animals. Take some of her past animals for example... MR. Sally, Bridget, Sir Thomas, etc. Of course my sister isn't much better what with her evil, vindictive cat she named Cuddles, possibly THE most inappropriate name ever. Still, they mean well.

My friends Jonathan, Sara, and Kim came over tonight after we went to a totally cool worship event at the University Chapel. We got to hang out and they met my new kitty, who is still nameless at this point. They had good suggestions - Jack for Jack o'Lantern, Alexander, Buddy, and Jonathan was really pushing for Trout.

So we'll see... we've named the hamster and the newts now too! The hamster's name is Pumpkin Pie and the firebelly newts are Fireball, Flame, and Fuego (the Spanish word for "fire"). I'll post some ridiculously cute pictures of my newts tomorrow! For now, it's off to a goodnight's sleep with Harry Peter.

more new friends!

Well tonight I went to the pet store to find out when they would get any more firebelly newts in (since they were sold out of them this past weekend). The guy working tonight said, "We have firebelly newts right now!!!" I was so excited! I've wanted a firebelly newt since I was a little kid. Every time I went into Pet Forum (the best pet store in town) I would go straight to the tank of firebelly newts and stare at them in amazement at their brilliant bellies! My parents would never let me get one though. So I was stuck with just wishing I had one for my whole life so far... UNTIL NOW!!

I learned all about how to care for the little creatures tonight and they're surprisingly easy! Easier than most lizards and amphibians! They eat a wide variety of foods, including crickets, small fish, chopped up worms, and food pellets. They don't need a heat source, unless their water gets really cold. They don't need a filter. They don't need a light. Those things are all just nice to have, but not necessary. Really they just need a place to swim and a place to get out of the water when they want to. So I decided to get one! Well, actually I didn't get one. I got THREE!!! They are so nice looking and they are very good swimmers. They don't have names yet so if anybody wants to suggest names for three delightful firebelly newts, I'm open to ideas!

YAY!!! I can't believe I have my very own firebelly newts at last! I just can't stop looking at them!

MY NEW BABY!!!

Look everybody! Here's my new baby! I just got him today! Anybody who's talked to me in the past month knows I've been desperately wanting a pet. I've almost bought a corn snake once, a cat three times, and the pet store was out of fire belly newts, which I really wanted. So instead I decided to get a new little furry friend! He looks kinda like Mouse King, but he's lighter colored, sort of pumpkin spice color. He's really friendly! He won't crawl into my hand yet, but he lets me pet him already and it took Mouse King like two months before he would let me pet him. He's very curious and wants to explore everything. He's been spinning in his wheel for the past couple of hours! He's really small so I think he's just a baby and he'll probably get a lot bigger in the next few weeks.

Anyway, he doesn't have a name yet so if any of you have ideas for a name for him, post a comment! The winner will earn endless fame among 18 seven-year-olds and recognition on a future post of this blog! How can you pass that up?

5-YEAR WINNING STREAK!!

My school does a massive fundraiser every fall to raise money for the PTO. The class who sells the most wins a pizza party! I just found out tonight that my class won for the 5th year in a row! YEAH!!! I get to announce it to my class on Monday!

Terri Allard, Paul Reisler, and Kid Pan Alley!

My school just did the coolest thing ever this week! We had Terri Allard and Paul Reisler come with the program, Kid Pan Alley, to work with all of the second and fourth grades! It's the neatest music program I've ever seen! They worked with every class in second and fourth grade for two days, writing a song.


They took the kids through the whole process of how to write a song, from brainstorming to creating lyrics, rhyming, rhythm, editing, practicing, and even recording the songs! The kids loved it! Each class gets to write one song in the two-day period, but my class was called the "core" class so my kids actually got to go with Terri and Paul EVERY day this week and they wrote two songs instead of one.


Then today all the second and fourth grades performed all the songs in a concert for the whole school! It was so awesome! The songs were amazing! It's hard to believe 7- and 9-year-olds wrote them! The cool thing was when a kid would start singing a melody for the song they wrote, he could just start playing it on his guitar! I don't know how he did that, but it was so cool! Like the kids would just make up a melody and he would start playing whatever they were singing! Crazy. He's so good and Terri Allard has such a beautiful voice! Man, I wish we could do Kid Pan Alley every week! You can find out more about it if you go to http://www.kidpanalley.org/!

is it possible to feel MORE tired?

wow. big surprise. I'm tired. I've been really grumpy the past two days and I'm predicting today will be no different. I have definitely not gotten enough sleep for three nights in a row. But last night I wrote something that I think is cool. We have this composition we have to write for my Spanish class about discussing and comparing the social realities of Bolivia, Argentina, and the United States. I, of course, decided that it would be boring to do it the normal way (which means #1. in English and #2. to simply do what my teacher asked). Of course I did. So I decided to do it in Spanish and write it from the perspectives of three children, one from each country. The children would be stating their perception of the society they are growing up in based on what they hear their parents, siblings, and others say. Hidden within the children's perceptions would be the comparison between the three countries. I had a lot of fun doing it...way more fun than if I had done it the "normal" way, but I'm now doubting that it's really going to be acceptable to my teacher. It doesn't seem exactly what he was going for. I'm going to show it to him at class tonight (it's not due until next Monday - yeah SHOCKER, I finished an assignment a week early), that way I can re-do it if he doesn't think it's what he was looking for. I hope he likes it though because it really was fun to write and I think I learned the objective of the assignment, which was to understand the social realities of the three countries. At least I think that was the objective. AHHHH it's 7:01!! I have to go to school!!! Time to get back to my social reality!

Happy Birthday, MIKE!!!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday so I went out to my mom and Mike's house for dinner to celebrate! Mom cooked a delicious dinner and I brought balloons, cake, and party plates! Even Cuddles the grumpy cat was there to celebrate with us in spirit. (You should click on the picture of Mike and look more closesly at the party plates if you want a better view of the spirit of Cuddles the grumpy cat!)

Ever since my mom and Mike bought the new farm, Mike has wanted a donkey named Speedy. He said they have to wait maybe until next year though because there's too much going on right now to take care of a donkey too. So since he hasn't gotten his treasured donkey yet, I decided to get him the next best thing: donkey ears for Baxter! So now while he's waiting to acquire Speedy to the list of critters out there, he can pretend with Baxter! (Just for the record, Baxter was not amused.)

The kitties were also around to help celebrate. Pickles is the one to the left. She came in from chasing blue-tailed skinks outside just in time for cake and ice cream. The cat named Sweet Pea who is absolutely NOT sweet at all, was a little angry all night and kept growling and hissing at Pickles for some previous offense done to her. Needless to say, I did not take a picture of Sweet Pea as she was in an unfortunately grumpy mood. Lover Boy (the cat who came camping with us a couple of weeks ago) came in to play in the gift bags, but promptly left to find more interesting things to do outside. So there aren't any pictures of him either. This cat on the left is named Mr. Nifty and he's the newest addition to the zoo at my mom's house. He was the only cat who stayed for the whole party!

It was a great party and the cake was particularly scrumptious too! It was so nice to hang out with my mom and Mike and all the animals!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!!

ADIDAS ROCKS!

I just wanted to get this out in the open. Just to make sure everyone understands where I stand. I've had too many secrets in the past and I'm done leaving people feeling confused or unsure. Too many times, I've felt like I'm giving contradictory messages and now I want the truth to be known:

ADIDAS IS THE WAY TO GO! DOWN WITH NIKE! IT'S ADIDAS ALL THE WAY!

I think I'm going to make the Adidas logo out of Legos next time I get a spare moment, which will probably be in the year 2011. Perhaps I'll give it to my sister for her birthday.

tired. so very very tired.

tired. really tired. really, really tired. one of my kids today said, "i'm so tired. i can't even concentrate." i looked at him, nodded, and said, "trust me, buddy, i'm right there with ya. i'd be curled up on my sofa, fast asleep, in a second if i could." he stared into space knowingly and simply said, "yeah..."

in other news i got a 99 on my spanish exam last week. and albemarle county gave me a new laptop since my old one is 4 years old. it's amazing how well it still works though. ya gotta love a mac. in 4 years, i think it's frozen one time, compared to my pc freezing 18 bajillion times in the same amount of time. i'm really excited to use the new mac, but sadly i'm too tired to even turn it on and look at it right now.

i had a good weekend hanging out with friends! ann, alicia, and peter and i tried to go to the observatory on friday night at uva but it was too cloudy. so we went to a nameless, unidentified playground to play instead. on saturday, i took a bunch of kids to the uva vs. unc mens soccer game. uva won, OF COURSE!! they are #4 in the country. then on sunday the uva women played miami so i took some kids to that game. and once again, uva won. uva is just awesome.

ann and alicia went to a cool concert but neglected to tell me how it went afterwards! so since ann checks this blog, i think she should click on the word "comments" right below this post and let me know how the concert went. all in agreement say, "YEAH DO IT ANNHEAD!"

okay that just took all the energy i had left. good night.

we love you Grandpa Pickwoad

man i don't feel good. I feel kinda sick, but kinda not sick. like my stomach hurts, but i don't really feel sick otherwise. well i'm really tired too, and achy, but it doesn't feel like the kind of sick tired and achy. and one of my grandfathers, Grandpa Pickwoad, died last night. he was really cool...just a funny guy who loved and accepted other people as if they were all a part of his family. I know he's in a better place now, a place with streets of gold and gates made out of giant pearls. A place with everything good and not a single thing evil, painful, sad, or disappointing. How awesome that will be to be in a place where you're never disappointed ever again. I can't wait to see him again when I get to heaven. We love you, Grandpa Pickwoad.