Lunar Eclipse

So on Tuesday morning there was a total lunar eclipse. Being the total weirdo that I am...I set my alarm for 5am so that I could take some pictures of it! So at 5am in the dark I am in the front yard with camera and tripod to try to take some pictures of the lunar eclipse. Taking night pictures are so hard!!!! Even though the camera was on the tripod the pictures were still blurry just from me pushing the shutter button. I for sure need one of those handy remotes next time! Anyway, during the total eclipse you could still see the moon because of all the stuff still in the atmosphere. It just looked like it was glowing red orange.

I went back out about 30 minutes later and not much had changed.

The coolest change in the moon was actually when the sun started to come up because then you could really tell how the moon had darkened and there was a little sliver that was already coming out of the shadow.

This is a picture of the full moon the next night. I took this just to see how bright it is supposed to be!


Call me a nerd but I think any kind of eclipse is so cool!

First Day of Second Grade

Boo hoo....my summer playmate is gone to school! Katie started second grade today. I am sad for my friend to be gone all day but excited for her to continue her learning and for her to meet lots of new friends. Katie picked out her outfit for today all by herself. I thought she looked quite fashionable. As a surprise for when she gets home...I got her new horse sheets and stuff for her bed so I am going to get it all ready for her when she gets home from school today. Here are some pics from this morning.

Meet the Teacher

We went to "Meet the Teacher" last Thursday and got to take a look at Katie's new classroom and meet her teacher and fellow students. I think she is going to have a great year.

Katie and her dad!


Katie and her new teacher - Mrs. Zaccarella


Katie and the principal - Ms. Bacque

KATIE JUMPED!

Big day at our house!!!!! Katie jumped her first crossbar at riding lessons today! I wanted to just kick myself becasuse I didn't have my good camera, all i had was my little Nikon but at least I have some kind of pictures even thought they are not good quality! We had no idea that she would be doing crossbars today but the instructor that we had today wanted her to try. She was not even the tiniest bit scared...she was so pumped. She went through the crossbars about 5 times and for most of them she trotted through but on the third pass the horse she was riding decided that he wanted to jump them rather than trot over them! It was so AWESOME!!!

An Orange Dog What?

For those of you who haven't heard the story (and I am sure that is few) a huge butterfly was in our backyard a couple of weeks ago while Katie and I were swimming! Be the total bug crazy girl that she is, Katie went right over to inspect it and see if she could catch it! It was the butterfly that Snickers was also trying to catch in the pictures from earlier this week. So the butterfly flies away and Katie tells me that she laid eggs on our lemon tree. I said "ok" thinking what she was seeing were just some kind of tiny insect but not caterpillar eggs. Boy was I wrong. When we got home from San Antonio we had caterpillars. Of course at first we didn't know what the heck they were because they were so ugly and looked more like slugs to me! Katie assured me that they were caterpillars and proceeded to give them all names. These things are super huge and the other day Chris touched one and all of the sudden these red things shot out of its head and we all screamed bloody murder for at least five whole minutes! After the initial shock Chris tried to make them do it again! Well, the other day we went to the World Aquarium and while we where there we picked up a caterpillar field guide book and a insects of Texas book and lo and behold there was a picture of our creepy bird poop looking sluglike caterpillars! Turns out that they are called Orange Dog Caterpillars and will eventually turn into a Swallowtail Butterfly which is one of the largest in North America! Something like this would only happen to my Katie who is such a total animal and environmental lover that her Dad will have to face the facts that one day she might vote Democrat since they are for saving the environment!! (Ha, Ha, Ha!) Here are a couple of pictures of the caterpillars!

True Love

I think Katie has found her true love and at such a young age!! Don't worry.....its not boys....its horses and riding! She just loves everything about horses and everything about riding. We changed barns and she is officially a rider at Prospering Farms! Her instructor is awesome and has already taught her so much! I took my camera with me today and snapped some photos of the horses and katie riding! The horse that she was riding today is named Ladd and she has ridden him the three times and she just loves Laddy boy! The light colored horse was just by the road and she thought he looked like Spirit from the movie and she wanted his picture. When we went by the fence he just walked right up to Katie!











The last two pictures of Katie are not her in the saddle wrong...she is playing "around the world". I think it is a game to help with balance in the saddle!

Bad Parenting!

My sweet little Katie was doing her reading tonight and when I went in to check on her she had fallen asleep while reading. She looked so angelic that I needed to take some pictures....of course Chris and I had to have a little fun too!!

The Freak Show!

If you are really bored and have tons of time to totally waste check out this website www.pixyland.org This is such a trip. My brother showed me this website the other day and all I can say is FREAK!!!!

When Fellow Bloggers Attack.......

....beware all you non-bloggers! If and when you finally do start a blog and when you get busy and don't have alot of time to update beware because your fellow bloggers will attack and send you threatening emails about deblogging you and how could it be that nothing is happening in your life to update your blog with!!! Geesh, I never knew so many people depended on my little blog to provide them with a little entertainment every day! Ok...here are some pictures over the last couple of weeks!

Katie is such a great girl and is basically teaching herself cursive handwrititing. Mind you they don't usually learn until third grade and she will only be in second this year but she wanted to learn anyway. I must say on the handwriting side she got my genes because she has really nice handwriting!




So...here are just some cute pictures of Snickers. She is such a fiesty and funny little dog. One day a butterfly was in the backyard and Snickers wanted to catch that butterfly as bad as Katie did! The butterfly actually laid eggs on Katie's new little lemon tree and now we have caterpillars. I will take some pics of them today and post them for tomorrows update!!





Since the weather has finally turned hot Katie has been doing alot of swimming. She loves to come home and jump in the pool after riding lessons because she is all hot and sweaty and smells like a horse! Here are some pictures of her jumping off of the slide! We (Katie and I) call this series of pictures....the how to jump pictures!






OK...I hope that this was a big enough update for at least a day or two. School starts in two weeks and I will probably have more time to blog then.