Orchid Show

Hello everyone. I am in Holland visiting family, since Simon was born recently and is being baptized this weekend. My grandparents are in town, and both of my brothers will be around for some of my visit as well. Today I went to the orchid show, which is part of the Tulip Time festivities. They had very nice orchids, as you can see below. Along with the orchids, you can also see my grandparents and mom in the pictures.

Living Room Tour

I recently took some pictures of our living room, so you can see how it looks. These pictures go in sequence. The first one looks towards the front of the house (front door, car outside in driveway), so you are looking west.


In the second picture, you turn so you are facing south. Brian is doing a little work on his smaller fish tank (on table next to couch). The dining table is just left of this picture (see next pic).


In this picture, you continue to turn, now facing southeast. Here you can see our dining area, the kitchen entrance, and the primary fish tank.


As you continue to turn, now you are facing east-northeast. The primary fish tank is still in the picture, along with the entrance to our bedroom (door open) and Brian's drumset. You may notice that Brian has hung the spear his brother brought home from Africa above the drums--pretty cool. In the very left side of this picture, you can see the door that leads to the ferret's room, which is facing north.


So that's the tour. Maybe I will post a tour of another room soon, but some of them are so small that it is hard to take pictures of each wall.

short crab video

This is a video that Brian made that shows one of the crabs in our tank. It is not long, and it is pretty cool to watch the crab eat and move around. It is clear from this video why this crab came as part of a tank cleaner set.

Rex climbs the gate (uh oh)

This video shows our most recent problem with keeping the ferrets in their room all safe and sound. Rex has always been our best jumper, and this gate may not be enough to keep him in his room any longer. Brian says that Rex is inspired by his uncle, who is also like Tigger. I blame Brian for telling Rex about this uncle and Tigger.

More from Epcot

Here are a few more pictures from our visit to Epcot for the Flower Festival (see last post). I really like the characters they make out of plants/bushes, like this Goofy, who is close to the entrance. Mickey and Minnie are on either side of him, but this picture cuts most of them out (except Minnie's ear).


We took a tour of some greenhouses at Epcot where they are experimenting with different growing techniques. Here they have suspended plants so that the fruit (cucumbers, watermelons, squash) don't grow on the ground but suspended in the air. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the pumpkins that are being forced to grow in mickey mouse shapes by molds, but they are interesting.


Here is Brian looking at the lovely landscaping at the Japan area garden. There were several waterfalls, bonsai, koi (fish), and other traditional Japanese garden elements. Very nice!


Here are some more character-shaped bushes. These were my favorite of the day. There was a Snow White bush in front, but she had no face (creepy!) so I cut her out of the picture.

Epcot's Flower Festival

On Saturday, Brian and I visited Epcot to look at all the flowers at the festival. There were many lovely plants that we really enjoyed. We had a nice leisurely walk around the World Showcase. Here we are in front of the garden in the China area.


Here is a special phone booth from the British area. Brian thought this was a dorky picture to take, but he took it for me anyway.


Here is Brian in front of a large bed filled with his favorite flowers (Germany area). What a nice smile!


As usual, we ran into one of the characters at Epcot while we were walking around. This time we stopped to see Donald Duck, who was dressed as one of the three amigos in the Mexico area.

Court Softball

Brian has been playing on the softball team for work. The team is called the Per Curiams, which is some sort of legal term. They have lady justice on their shirt. Anyway, here are some pictures from their game on Thursday. The team played pretty well. Brian was the catcher for his team, so his knees are sore today. He also batted several times. The last picture is of the whole team (minus a couple people).