Adventures in the land of skimboarding...

Here's a video of my first time skimboarding at the beach several weeks ago.

Georgia Gets Buried in Sand

What other dog will let you do this?

What my sister does when she's been away from horses for too long

Should we be worried?

Georgia Conquers the Ocean

IT'S ROO-DOG!!! She's starring in her very own video for the first time ever! Roo-dog is quite impressive at jumping over waves in the ocean. She has no fear at all...until a big giant wave crashed her right in her face. But that's not on the video, fortunately. This video is all PRIOR to the evil wave experience. Enjoy watching the cute little Roo-dog jumping through the wave to chase stuff!

Storm Chasers

So when we went to the beach this summer, my sister and I noticed a significant change in our mother. She has become obsessed with storms. If the sky even turns a slightly darker shade of blue, she freaks. So every night when there was a chance of thunderstorms, it was like listening to a walking version of the Weather Channel's storm chasers. On the way to Cold Stone one evening, Kathryn and I found ourselves heading right into a terrible storm. A storm so terrible, we couldn't help but be worried. My mother's newfound fear of thunderstorms was rubbing off on us. Kathryn pulled out the video camera to track our progress in the event of sudden death, so that the rest of the world would know what happened to us. In the process, we also realized that we forgot the directions to Cold Stone. We did, however, have access to a little Enrique Iglesias. And that helped us to make it through.

Here's the video FINALLY! It took me a while...I hope it works somewhat smoothly. It was having issues loading.

More funny comments

So yesterday one kid climbed up inside of the really tall tower on the playground and shouted down to another kid named Bracken. She said, "HEY BRACKEN!!! I OWN A PRIVATE GIRLS' LOUNGE UP HERE! WANT TO COME?"

Bracken wisely shouted back, "Um, NOT INTERESTED."

And she called back, "But there's lots of boys up here!"

Bracken asked why there were boys up there in a girls' lounge and she answered, "They're my slaves!"



So after I laughed really hard, we had to tell the girls that having a private girls' lounge and using the boys as slaves was probably not appropriate at school. Another kid insisted that writing his initials on every word study card involved the letters "JEPPSTA". I told him, "No, you're supposed to just write your initials - TWO letters. That's all."

He said, "Those ARE my initials."

I said, "Your initials are JEPPSTA?"

He answered, "Yes. Justin Evan Porter Peplin St. Thomas Aquinas."

Looking at him like he was nuts, I said, "Your name is St. Thomas Aquinas? Like the church?"

He said, "No, my name is Justin Evan Porter Peplin St. Thomas Aquinas. JEPPSTA."

Finally I just shook my head. I said, "Fine, write JEPPSTA, but you only have 25 seconds left to do it. So if you can write JEPPSTA on all 20 word cards in 25 seconds, it's fine with me."

crazy kids!

DC United WINS AGAIN!

Sweet, sweet game. DC United vs. Colorado Rapids. 3-0.

I went to the game last night with Miguel and Ivan and what a great game it was! There's a new player for DC United named Ivan Guerrero. He's really good and we liked that he had the same name as Ivan! When Ivan saw the field at the DC United stadium for the first time, he froze and stared at it. Finally he said, "Wow...it's so beautiful!" It was the first professional soccer game that he and Miguel had been to.

Miguel is possibly one of the luckiest kids I know. We happened to get to the game at the exact perfect time for this pre-game kids thing. He managed to win 5 DC United t-shirts. Yes, FIVE. Every time he came back to us with more t-shirts, Ivan and I just shook our heads and said, "How does he do it?" So then he just happened to be one of the few kids in the stadium who was chosen to go down to the field, carrying an enormous American flag to hold for the national anthem. If you look in the top picture, there's an arrow drawn to show where he is. He was really excited that he got to walk on the field and he came running back up to us afterwards, telling us all about how there wasn't a single hole on the field, not a single one! "I even touched the grass!" he shouted.

After the game, the DC United players typically sign autographs in one particular corner of the stadium. Well in the other games I've been to, I've always tried to get an autograph, but I've never been able to. The players always leave before I can get anything signed. So when Miguel wanted to get an autograph, I didn't really encourage it because I didn't want him to get his hopes up. So imagine our surprise when he came running back to Ivan and me carrying one of the shirts he won with FOUR autographs on it! How does he do it?????

Among other funny things that happened: Miguel kept calling the DC United eagle mascot a chicken. Every time the eagle walked by, he would beg, "PLEASE CAN I GO TOUCH THE CHICKEN????"

When we rode the metro, it was shaking a lot in this one place as it moved and Miguel said, "We need a new train. When I was this age, the trains used to be better."

When we were waiting for the metro to come, Miguel had this inflatable DC United tube thing that makes noise and he decided that jumping on it in a echoey metro station would be a great idea. So of course it popped and made a HUGE explosion sound that echoed off of the walls. Everyone in the station turned and looked and Miguel froze, pointing at Ivan as if to say that HE was the one who did it. His face was so hilarious that Ivan and I fell over laughing so hard.

funny comments from the first two days

"I don't do coloring. Colors don't interest me."

From the smallest kid in the class, "The most important thing about me is that I'm tall."

From the kid with brown hair, "The most important thing about me is that I have blond hair."

"The most important thing about me is that I have a cat and my cat is the kind of popular cat."



I definitely have a really funny, cool class this year. The first two days have gone really well! We've been busy learning about pirates and Spanish! I'm looking forward to this weekend though because on Saturday I'm going to the DC United vs. Colorado Rapids soccer game with some friends! Oh yeah and we lost our baseball game tonight, but I did get a single. How does it happen where you get bases loaded with NO OUTS and you can't get anyone to score? Oh well.

school starts tomorrow

Tonight is it. The last night of summer vacation. At 7:40 tomorrow morning, the bell will ring and 20 little children will enter my classroom of mooses, Spanish labels on every possible surface, and a little fox named Zorro. I'm excited. Really, I am. Tomorrow we're going to be learning about pirates, apples, and maps. Now let's see if I can break my habit of going to bed at 2 AM so I can actually fall asleep at 10.

What would it feel like to be a dolphin?

"Superstars and cannonballs are running through your head
Television freak shows, cops and robbers everywhere
Animals and children tell the truth, they never lie
Which one is more human, there's a thought, now you decide

I want to live like animals
Careless and free, like animals
I want to live, I want to run through the jungle
The wind in my hair and the sand at my feet."

from The Animal Song by Savage Garden

Aquatica - the coolest waterpark ever!

This is Aquatica - Sea World's new water park! It's awesome! This is my favorite slide - the racing one with 8 people racing against eachother. I like it because you get to go headfirst! Here's a picture of me going headfirst. I think I went down it like 35 times!
Here's another slide that was fun!
This is Aquatica's main slide! It's awesome because at the bottom, you can see a clear tube. The tube goes right through the tank of a rare kind of dolphin - the Commerson's dolphins. They are black and white like orcas, but they are not orcas. They're dolphins and they're very small. They like to swim upside down! When you go down the slide, you can see them when you go through the clear tube! It's totally cool!
Here's a Commerson's dolphin swimming upside down! He's really cute! The other cool thing that Aquatica has is a lazy river that you can float through. The thing that's cool about it is that the river goes past the dolphins' tank too! You can stop and watch the dolphins when you're floating around the river. There's also a place to see tropical fish when you're going around the river!
The other cool thing that Aquatica has is a FAST lazy river that doesn't have tubes. You just go around really, really fast! There are even waves and stuff in the river! It's so fast, you can't walk, even if you wanted to. It's totally awesome!

The Best Day of My Life

Today was officially my favorite day of all time. I went to Discovery Cove at Sea World with my sister. Let me just tell you - it was worth every penny! We did the Trainer for a Day program and it was AMAZING! I don't think I can even explain how awesome it is to swim with dolphins! We learned so much about them and it was so cool to see what trainers do all day long! I learned a lot of the hand signals they give to the dolphins and how they teach the dolphins the signals. The trainers let us do the hand signals and the dolphins did lots of aerial tricks, waving tricks, splashing tricks, and sound tricks. I thought they could only make one sound, but they actually make lots of sounds! The really cool thing is that each dolphin has their own signature whistle sound. Their moms teach it to them when they're babies. It's kind of like naming them. The mom names them this whistle that no other dolphin has. Then when she wants them to come, she calls the whistle. The dolphin learns to call itself by that whistle so for the rest of its life, the dolphin uses that whistle to communicate to other dolphins! Some of the dolphins at Discovery Cove will do their signature whistle on command, so we got to hear Kaylee the dolphin do her signature whistle!

We also got three dolphin rides! One was a dorsal fin pull where we put one hand on the dolphin's dorsal fin and the dolphin pulls us through the water! Here's a picture of me riding Dot the dolphin! She's 4 years old and she's just learning tricks, but she's VERY, VERY good at them!

The next ride that we did was a double dorsal fin pull. That's like the first one but there are two dolphins so you put one hand on each dorsal fin. They go REALLY fast for this one! The dolphins who pulled me were Rascal and Capricorn!

The third ride was called a double foot push. That's the one I was the most excited for! It's the one that you see the riders doing in the shows! There are two dolphins and each dolphin puts his nose on your foot and then pushes you through the water! My dolphins were CJ and Capricorn. I FLEW through the water! It was so much fun!

I even got to kiss Dot the dolphin! She was so cute!

Yay for Sea World!

This is Sea World week for my sister and me in Florida! Yesterday we saw all the Sea World animals, including these ridiculously cute dolphins! Sea World has new night shows and one of them is the sea lion and otter show. It's completely different from the other show they usually do with the pirates. It has to be the most hilarious show I've ever seen. The whole show is the sea lions, walrus, and otter making fun of all the other Sea World shows. It's hysterical! We're going back later this week just to see that show again! Today we went to Aquatica, the new Sea World water park. It was AWESOME! I'll post pictures and tell more about it tomorrow. For now I'm exhausted and going to sleep because everyone made me get up at 7:30 to go to Aquatica today and tomorrow we have to get up at 6:30 to go to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins!!!!! I'm so excited but the thought of waking up at 6:30 makes my eyes hurt, so I'm going to sleep now! Enjoy these dolphin and sea lion pics!

I'm surprised we didn't have to fly the plane ourselves...

Newport News airport is officially NOT my favorite airport of all time. Here are my list of reasons:

1. First of all there were 17 different parking lots, each with a different price per day.

2. There wasn't a shuttle bus from the parking lot that WE happened to park in, even though we had to walk through our parking lot AND the entire parking garage to get to the airport terminal.

3. You have to carry your own checked baggage practically all the way to the plane.

4. They don't give you paper envelopes to hold all your plane tickets anymore. They said they don't believe in wasting paper anymore. So the attendant handed me about 35 pieces of paper that included checked baggage receipts, tickets, boarding passes (all of which FORMALLY went inside the nice envelope). I asked her, "So I'm supposed to keep track of all of this without an envelope?" She said, "Right. US Airways doesn't believe in envelopes anymore either."

I'm really surprised we didn't have to fly our own plane.

On a more positive note, we had a hilarious pilot who made jokes the whole time. For example when we landed in Orlando, he came on the intercom and said, "WHOOOOOAAAA lil fella!" as the plane was slowing down. Everyone clapped for the pilot when we pulled into the gate. And our plane had a sweet touch screen for each seat that broadcast live tv - with channels like ESPN, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, HGtv, etc. So that was sweet! And it was Zorro's first time on a plane and he made the lady next to us laugh and laugh. One of the flight attendants really liked Zorro too and he petted Zorro every time he walked by.

So now we're in Orlando and heading off to smell a dolphin and get splashed by a killer whale!

Don't forget this if you're visiting Fort Story Lighthouse

So yesterday we had a 6:45 PM flight from Newport News to Orlando. We left the Outerbanks at 10:30 so we had a lot of extra time to find something to do in Virginia Beach. Kathryn decided that she wanted to visit the Fort Story Lighthouse since she has a slight obsession with lighthouses. So we pulled up to the entrance and never made it any farther. I'm here to tell you to not forget one critical piece of information if you want to go visit this lighthouse.

So we pull up, right? And I'm a little surprised because there are 23 policemen standing in front of the entrance. When we stop, one said, "We need the licenses of everyone in the vehicle." I'm like, "To see a lighthouse????" So we give him our licenses and he scans them. Then he said, "Okay pull up to the next policeman." We did and the new one said, "Licenses please." I was like, "Um, we've already done that." But he needed them again. Then he asked for one additional piece of information. I'm sure you're wondering what it is...passport maybe? Social security card? No. Nothing logical.

He said, "I need to see your vehicle insurance card."

MY VEHICLE INSURANCE CARD???? To see a lighthouse???? So I gave him my card but the only one I had with me had expired so he wouldn't let us in. So for future reference. Bring your insurance card if you want to see a lighthouse.

cool lightning

Here's my second picture of totally sweet lightning! There was a cool electrical storm going on in a cloud near our house. It was all inside a cloud. If you look at the top you can see the stars in the sky. There's a smaller lightning bolt to the right in the cloud too! I'm sure my mother would have said, "BETH TICE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUTSIDE IN A SEVERE LIGHTNING STORM????" To which I would say, "Look at the picture, Mom. Just look at the picture."

I think the bird pants help

So yesterday and today I totally got the skimboarding thing. Yesterday I only fell one time. Today I fell a bunch, but I was trying to do tricks so I was falling doing tricks. I can do 180's easy now. I still couldn't get a 360, but I could get around 270. I was also learning how to do a shove it, which I can do on a skateboard. I did it twice and landed on the board but then promptly fell. I'm happy I did the shove it at all though! I think my bird pants help the most!

Zorro tried skimboarding too! He was very good and only fell one time!
Here's Zorro waving goodbye to the beach. Tomorrow we leave and fly to Florida.

Goodbye beach!

Roanoke Island

So yesterday when we went to Roanoke Island, I got to dress up in armor and battle my sister. Except she was battling me with a camera - my camera - so I didn't actually want to hit her.
We went to our favorite store , The Christmas Shop, too! We were really excited because it was supposed to be closed, but the owners reopened it two months ago because everyone was so upset that it had closed!Then we went to a really cool shell shop that had tons of cool shells! When we returned to the beach, we buried Georgia in the sand! It was great fun and she was so patient to let us bury her! She just laid there and let us cover her. Then my mom covered me up too and took a picture of us!

sweet lightning

This is the first lightning picture I've ever taken! I've been trying to get a lightning picture for a long time now and finally I got one! My mom freaked out and said, "Don't you know there's a severe lightning storm going on out there?????" And my sister replied, "Oh come on, Mom. That is perfectly normal and average lightning!" So it was worth it for the picture!