Ez is hopeful for a #1 spot!!!

what's black & white and lives in africa?

did you know?  the zebra will give birth away from the herd and stay away as long as 4 months with it's baby.  this is so the baby has time to memorize the mom's stripes and recognize her when they return to the herd (zebras are like snowflakes--no 2 are alike)

elephant graveyards: fact or fiction?

FICTION!  

many people think that elephant graveyards are made because elephants know theyr'e going to die and they go to their grave.  on the other hand, elephants have 5 sets of molars throughout their lifetime.  once their last set falls out they have to eat mushy food so they head to the swampy grounds where the plant life is softer and they can eat without teeth. 

i don't know....maybe we could use one more sticker on the right, just in case the audio jack isn't obvious enough

new desktop background day!

Home

I finally got to go home! (It is my birthday month after all). Somehow I am always "fortunate" enough to be a tulip trooper, in which I help my mom plant 380 tulip bulbs. This is a yearly thing here and it looks like holland in spring. My dad is such a thinker and hooked the drill up. I drill holes and my mom sticks bulbs in. Yay tulip troopers!

One of my favorites

Happy mo-vember!

did you know?

the heart of the giraffe weighs about 46 lbs.  

it has to be large because it takes so much force to pump blood all the way up the neck to their head. 

monday = new desktop backdrop!

what's more peaceful than this carnivorous kitty?  

New level of "pit"-tiful

Ezra has definitely been soaking up every extra ounce of attention. Yesterday he got to go to the p-e-t s-t-o-r-e and get a new toy. While we were there we noticed a giant dog bed sized heating pad. It was of course, a fortune, and I wasn't going to buy it unless he liked ours at home first.

love/hate relationship

i love facebook.

it is the only way i am able to communicate with some of my friends

i hate facebook.

what a waste of time

i love facebook especially today, because,

the following picture was posted and

 it was the first time i laughed out loud all week.  

some kid's halloween costume.

 don't know who this is?  

 shame on you.  

watch more college gameday.

some ksu parents pretty much nailed it on the head

 

why did the elephant cross the road?

el-if-i-know

ha ha ha!

ok.  lame joke.  i did actually say that to one of our fellow safari-ians.  :)  

meet rambo.  he's about 30 years old

elephants have 2 noses.  one is their trunk.  the other is right where the guy is pointing in the 2nd picture.  it's called the jacobson's olfactory.  so elephants will sniff something with their trunk, "hold the smell there" and then blow it into their jacobson's in order to determine what it is. 

cheetahs

did you know?  the black "tear drops" under a cheetah's eyes are similar to that of black under a football player's eyes.  it is there to absorb light so nothing is reflected back up. 

princesses and castles

i'll pretend to be the princess and here is my castle. 

normally this is surrounded by the alps.  instead, we got fog.

 this is Neuschwanstein Castle built in the late 1800s by king Ludwick II.  He was nuts and would regularly walk around the castle dressed like the swan king.  He only lived here 174 days when the townspeople he was taking taxes from decided to have a doctor check out his mental status.  He was raided in his bedroom and told he was no longer able to be king because he was declared insane.  A few days later both he and the doctor were found dead in a lake.  6 weeks later the castle opened up as a museum and has 1.3M people visit regularly.

this was one of kim's ideas.  kim is my awesome friend who lives in germany and was kind (& patient enough) to hang out with us a couple days as our tour guide.

 

hippos, part II

did you know?  hippos can open their mouth up to 150 degrees.

this week's screensaver

i'm very sure these have a scientific name.  at our house dallas would call them splineball ionizers (chelsie- you know what this is!) and i call them bad hair days.... and i'm very sure that neither of those are their actual name. 

click on the image so it's bigger, right click (for my fellow non-mac users) and choose as desktop background.

today i ordered our vacation book.  my only saving grace was that it was >50% off otherwise i would have never been able to afford it.  basically i have sorted through our 2600 pics (collective between dallas and i) and narrowed it down to 351.  phew.  this will make it much easier to show everyone our trip, in the small case that you are interested in seeing that many pictures!

Happy things

One of my major highlights from the trip was seeing the African penguins. I took video on my iPad (like dorky tourist) and Dallas told me to watch it whenever I was sad. It definitely helps but still a somber weekend here. 

Did you know? They have pink glands above their eyes, which are used for thermoregulation. The hotter the penguin gets, the more blood is sent to these glands so it may be cooled by the surrounding air, thus making the glands more pink

Gretta Jean. 2008-oct 2012

Tonight we made a generous donation to heaven. Our poor gretta lost a heroic battle to aggressive cancer. She was a lover, loyal friend and faithful kitchen shadow. She will leave a hole in my heart but I know she's much better off now. It makes me feel better knowing all dogs go to heaven. Go get your squirrel Gi-Gi!

i saw the sign.....

while driving around simonstown on our cape town tour we saw these signs, in this order.  i find it so funny....

those golfers are a breed of their own!