WordPress weekly photo challenge: Two Subjects

I just spent the past two weeks enjoying Spring Break with my two boys full-time and… I survived! We had a long wish list of activities and managed to do all of them except two – not so bad. Of course I’ll be missing spending time with my kids but it will be nice to get some free time back to work on some work projects I set aside during our vacation time.

One of the activities on our list was to visit the Legoland Sealife aquarium in Carlsbad, CA, north of San Diego. Every time I’ve gone to an aquarium and tried to take pictures with my digital camera, I’ve always ended up with not a single photo good enough to keep. Too dark, too blurry, too pixely… I’ve never read my camera manual closely and couldn’t figure out how to take good pictures in such low light environment when it’s not the camera’s best working conditions.

So this time I decided to do some homework, especially after Nancy at Nrhatch encouraged me to take more photos of sea creatures in aquariums a couple of months ago. I guess my hard work paid off. Of course not every picture I took was good. In fact I had to delete many, but I still ended up with a few good ones. And several of them fit this week’s WordPress photo challenge about “two subjects.”

In this first picture, you can see two Japanese spider crabs crawling on opposite sides of the tank. These crabs can have a leg span of 16 feet, yikes! Or, yum, if you like eating crab like me.

Weekly wordpress photo challenge: two subjects - Japanese spider crabs

I’m really proud of this second picture, my first success at photographing sea jellies. I wanted to take a photo of just one but I couldn’t get close enough (other people were standing in front of the tank) and they were twirling around too fast. But in this shot I managed to end up with two sea jellies.

Wordpress photo challenge: two subjects - sea jellies at Legoland Sealife aquarium

My last picture is one of my boys “underwater”. My eldest stood there for me to photograph him when suddenly his brother head’s popped up right behind him. Two for one!

Wordpress photo challenge: two subjects - Legoland Sealife aquarium

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. with a single quote

Last week I took the plunge and answered the “50 questions that will free your mind”. Question #13 was:
Would you break the law to save a loved one?
My answer, as short as it could be, was “Absolutely.”

Today I read a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that made me think about this very question, and now I know how King would have answered it himself.

“Never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
― Martin Luther King Jr

Such timeless advice, still relevant today.

My husband and I happened to watch the movie The Help this weekend. We didn’t time it to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day. It just happened to show up at the library late last week and it gave us the opportunity to watch a movie together this weekend. I read the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett several months ago and I loved it. I thought it was especially good as a first time novel, with an interesting way to tell a fascinating story. As always, I found the book  much better than the movie since many parts had to be cut, but the scenes still flowed well.

I just can’t imagine these events happened barely 60 years ago. Of course, we’ve come a long way since then (at least compared to how things used to be) but it’s still hard for me to remember how bad things were not so long ago.  And so, if I could change my answer to the question Would you break the law to save a loved one?, I’d refine it with this answer. “To do what’s right, absolutely.”

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I believe in Santa Claus and you will too!

Merry Christmas cat in a Santa hat

Last night I read one of the most wonderful Christmas stories of all times. It’s so wonderful I thought I’d share it with you and I’m sure you’ll want to share it too. I read this story on the San Diego KPBS website .

Take a minute to read this story about a cat named Merry Christmas (no, I’m not making this up) and just in case you were doubting, you’ll truly believe there is a Santa Claus.

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San Diego, CA, December 22, 2011

A Merry Christmas came a couple of days early for a 7-year-old Oceanside girl who received exactly what she wanted today — the return of her missing cat.

The 4-year-old tabby that belongs to the Hess family is appropriately named “Merry Christmas,” Kelli Herwehe of the Humane Society said.

“He went missing the day after Halloween, and the family had just about given up,” Herwehe said. “(The girl) went to see Santa Claus last week and the only thing she asked for is for the cat to come home.”

As it turned out, a good Samaritan found Merry Christmas and took him to the Humane Society on Sunday. Herwehe said the feline was identified through a microchip and returned to the Hess clan.

Animal services officials encourage pet owners to get microchips in case their animals disappear. Several pets have been reunited with their owners this year after going missing for long periods of time, thanks to the tiny computer chips.

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How amazing is that? And I thought watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” was the perfect thing to put me in the Christmas spirit.

Now, what the news story failed to say is, the girl decided to take her cat Merry Christmas to say thank you to Santa Claus and this is what happened:

Typical cat, quite ungrateful by nature.

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WWW Wednesdays – December 7, 2011

My bookshelf

- What I’m currently reading
The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson. I’m reading this book for my upcoming book club meeting in a couple of weeks. The reviews on Amazon are not very kind and so far this book is super easy to read but mostly fluffy and not well written in my opinion. Let’s see where this goes…

- What I recently finished reading
Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative by Sir Ken Robinson. This book was very interesting but I don’t think it went far enough to explain what really needs to be changed about our educational system to help kids get ready for the 21th century economy. I recently found out Robinson’s book called The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything is supposed to be excellent so I’ll be reading it very soon.

Never Have I Ever by Sara Shepard. After reading The Lying Game and being sucked into the story of Sutton’s mysterious disappearance and Emma’s awkward replacement for her long lost twin sister, I couldn’t wait to read the sequel. And I’m so glad I did! I read this book in a couple of days and had a hard time putting it down (my kids got in the way…). The mystery continues and unfortunately I just saw there’s not only a #3 but also a #4 book in the works. Argh, I want to know who killed Sutton, although I now have a picked suspect. I hope it’s not whom I think it is though, because I really like that character, but it would make for a very shocking ending. If you like fast paced mysteries and nailbiters, this book is for you, but read The Lying Game first.

- What I think I’ll read next
The Christmas Thief by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark. I impulsively grabbed it off the shelf at the library since I’m a Mary Higgins Clark fan. It’s supposed to be funny and mysterious, so we’ll see. I love reading books about Christmas this time of year.

My kids’ bookshelf

- What they’re currently reading

- The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. We’re actually reading the French version right now, called Boreal Express. It’s one of our favorite books about Christmas and the magic of Santa Claus, with beautiful illustrations to go along the sweet story.

- Oliver and Amanda’s Christmas by Jean Van Leeuwen. A cute, short chapter book about Oliver and Amanda getting ready for Christmas. My favorite part? Oliver making a list of 22 toys for Santa, not because he needs them but because he wants them. Jean Van Leeuwen KNOWS kids.

- The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. Two fourth-grade boys who write comic books and love to pull pranks manage to turn their school principal into their superhero Captain Underpants. This is a chapter book with very funny illustrations. My five-year old can’t stop looking at it and asking us to read it. I’d say it’s a hit. Should I add we’re fans of Dav Pilkey? The guy is brilliant.

 

- What they recently finished reading
- Penguin and the Cupcake by Ashley Spires. This is the funny story of a Penguin who decides to head North to satisfy his cravings for cupcakes with pink icing. On his way, he meets Polar Bear and Walrus who can’t help but interrupt the story as they think Penguin’s storytelling skills are a little far-stretched.

- How Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joseph Bruchac and Raccoon’s Last Race : a Traditional Abenaki Story by the same author. Both books are inspired from Native American stories that explain how the chimpmunk and the racoon managed to look the way they do today. They both start as teasing, arrogant animals who can’t keep promises and learn the consequences of their poor behavior the hard way. These books sure make my kids think about a few things.

 

- What I think they’ll read next
I hope to get more books with a Christmas theme soon.

What about you? Any books you or your kids are reading you’d like to share?

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I want to get bigger so I can go on the Shamu swings

We started the three-day Memorial Day weekend by attending our town’s street fair on Saturday. This is the third year the town has held the event and it gets bigger and better every year. The fair takes place so close to our house, we put the kids in the double stroller and walked to it, enjoying the just-right sunny breezy weather.

While at the street fair we browsed a few hundreds of local vendor booths, went bankrupt buying rides for the kids, and enjoyed scrumptious artificially colored and flavored snow cones while listening to live bands. I actually don’t think you could find more shaved ice vendors anywhere else in the world than on this half-mile stretch! We managed to go through the whole Memorial Day weekend without eating anything off a BBQ grill but we couldn’t pass on the refreshing snow cones.

Carnival spinning swing ride

I walked around the fair with our oldest while my husband took our youngest to the kiddy rides he couldn’t wait to get on. When we got back together, my youngest spilled the beans. “Mama, I want to get bigger so I can go on the Shamu swings.” He was talking about a spinning swing ride decorated with dolphins and orcas. Apparently my daredevil barely-three-year-old son was dying to go on the ride, but since the swings were single-seated, he had to meet the height requirement. 42 inches, making my son about two inches too short. How disappointing. So his father told him he could go on the ride when he’s a little bigger.

That’s when it hit me. Wait, I’ve read this in a book before! Specifically Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola: I Want to Be Much More Bigger Like You:

Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola: I want to be much more bigger like you

In this story Lola wants to go on the “Super Duper Loop-the-Looper” roller coaster ride but she’s been too small. So she tries a number of things to make herself grow bigger. Of course, the book ends with a funny twist so I won’t give the story away. Just like Lola, my youngest is suffering from “my body is too little but my mind thinks big” syndrome. Even his brother, who’s a year and a half older, was a little unsure of the spinning swing ride and skipped it. I hope they both feel big enough next year to try it out together.

On Sunday we had a funny encounter with the same swings, this time on the road. While we were driving around town, we saw a truck pulling the ride on a trailer and getting on the freeway. My youngest spotted it right away and exclaimed, “Why are they stealing the Shamu swings?” Haha, kids really do say the darndest things! (more darndest things here and here)

I hope you enjoyed a great long weekend, at least if you’re in the US. What’s the best thing about a three-day weekend? A four-day week right after it!

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