Galloping at the Park

During a recent parent/teacher conference, Terai's teachers mentioned how funny he was. Here is a great example of where the teachers told the children to ride on horses. As you can see pretty much everyone quickly reverted back to a regular run, but there is Terai, staying on the horse.
Terai says, "And also Leon said ready, set , go, then we went on our horses. Then I whacked my horse and it went so fast. Then I was on and then I was still on. Then we went all the way to the play garden. Then we were there and we were playing." "I like horses and I don't have a real horse. Then I wanted a horse, because they don't belong on Earth. Actually I want a boy pony."

Santa Sighting in NYC

It's not too often you get to see what Santa is up to just before the holidays. Here is a rare glimpse.
An amazing sideway's sit down, not an easy task.


Actually, this was the most fantastic, or at least one of the funnest, youngmen's activity that I have been involved in. Here are just four of us that participated among the roughly 25 other Santa's (and a couple elves) that went longboarding down Broadway on a busy NYC Friday night.


We passed through a number of fun landmarks, here is Radio City Music Hall. On our way back to finish about 12 miles of boarding through the city.


Gotta love it!


And one of the many highlights was cruising right through Times Square and hearing the festive cheer and random shouts by the crowds on the streets, passing cars, and the lovely ever present Taxi horns. A great experience to be part of a bunch of Santa's taking up three lanes of traffic (only for short periods).

Cat as a Hat, or a Prop!

Only in NY...Whilst walking home today, I ran into this man, with his cat, sitting on his head, like a hat. Here is the link:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/the-cat-as-a-hat-or-a-prop/

Outings

Terai and Pop went cruising around in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in a canoe. The water was super cold, but we were able to find loads of wild cranberries. We paddled for roughly four solid hours.
Terai says "When I went on a trip with Vinson, Papa and Vinson went in a boat. I wanted to paddle. Then I went to sleep and there was no bathroom. And we went in the boat again then we went in the car and I wore my dragon shoes with rips in them and we went home."
Well Terai had it easy. "I laid down and went to bed."
Seppo says "I run really slow in the grass. Somebody kicked me in the pee with the soccer ball."
Seppo says, "I had fun picking leaves with Belen and Terai. My papa found a click beetle. Papa flipped the click beetle on the back. Then we found this little tee pee in Central park."
Seppo says, "I jumped, I laid down on my belly and I jumped like Spiderman!"

Kurt, Chamaine and Ansley came to visit us in NYC.The kids were able to play a little welcome noise.
Kurt and I went to an interesting art exhibit in a pet store. Great social commentary by Banksy.
Here are the fish sticks. All of these were animatronic so the fish really did swim around in the bowl.
A chicken nugget. They also had sausages, salami, and hotdogs, all able to move around in little cages.
And here is a worn out, locked up Tweety. I was wondering what happened to him.

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun. I was Hermione Granger ,Seppo was Bummblebee from transformers ,Terai was Batman and my papa was a fly. I was trick or treating with my friend
from school and Seppo and Terai were at my brothers friends house then went trick or treating. Later we went to Jeremiah and Breanne's house. We ate a lot of candy. I got the most.

Hiking in Fahnestock State Park

Right before leaving for Puerto Rico, we were able to get out of the city and go for a nice day hike.  Thanks to plenty of rain the previous two days, the fungi were out in full force (and luckily we had a mycologist along with us).  There were also many little frogs and toads, a few salamanders, and other fun organisms.

Tatjana with a purple mushroom.

If you ever thought mushrooms should not be called toadstools, think again. 
One of the many five inch long millipedes, the contrast between the colors just doesn't come out quite as well in the picture.
Not sure why, but Seppo did wear his TMNT mask the entire day.  
Can't really see too well in the picture, but this is actually a cyclops salamander.  Well it wasn't in the middle of its head, but the left eye simply did not develop.  These too are a very brilliant color, which the picture cannot do justice.
For part of the hike we went along the Appalachian Trail, maybe only half a mile of the over 2000 mile trail, but a great section none-the-less.  The trail was completely elevated here, on the rock wall, with about an 8 foot drop on either side, haven't seen that too often.
This is a huge slug scooting and sliming across my hand.
Terai sitting inside a hollowed out tree trunk.
Tatjana, Seppo and Terai at the edge of a stream where they were trying to catch the frogs that were hanging out on the rocks.  

Times that past without a post

Tatjana dancing at the Japanese festival, Obon dance in Bryant Park.

Jeremiah and Breanne came to join in the fun.

Grandma and Grandpa Simpson came out to visit NYC.  It was great to have them out, and I think they had a fantastic time.  

And just a nice day out in the park.

Puerto Rico

I took a last minute trip to Puerto Rico at the end of the summer before school started back up.  Three of us from the garden (NYBG), went to collect bulk samples of plants for the National Cancer Institute.  

We were able to see a great diversity of habitats.  Most of our time was spent in the tall forest in the center of the island.  But as a quick break, and change of scenery, we were able to take a trip out to the coast.  While there we saw bioluminescent algae in the ocean, we were able to do some kayaking, and saw plenty of cool creatures.

The famous and loud Coqui's.

A cool lizard with a ridged tail.

A descent size toad, found in the opening of a cave.

Here is a cavern we went to out in the desert.

This is in a a National Reserve; Los Tres Picachos, the three peaks.  This was the third highest peak on the island, and the trail was right across the street from our place of residence.

We went camping on our last weekend.  Here is the hammock and tarp camp.  It was a cold night, but a great place to be.  At night the entire forest floor was lit up with glowing fungi, blue-green mycelium colonizing all the dead leaves, an amazing sight.

Climbing and collecting samples at the top of the tree.  I also did some old fashion monkey climbs, but this was a really high one and I was just waiting for a good chance to try out the ropes.

And once up the tree, cutting down some branches.

Just a great photo

More hiking and such

We hung out with Chip and Becky.
I guess Terai was marking his territory. Seppo took the picture, so no one else saw this until later while reviewing pictures. Not sure what was actually going on.

And some other fun up in the mountains.

Slacking

After the garden, we set up some good slacking. I think this is actually from the following day. Chip was jumping on the line, and we couldn't let him be the only one doing it, so Seppo and I joined in.

Seppo was the main photographer on this day (and most days), but he caught a great picture of me, apparently paying respect to the slacking gods.