Video of Rick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The long awaited video of Rick has hit the theaters! Millions are expected to come and watch this 1 minute, 5 second movie, paying 8 dollars for each ticket! Watch it today!!!!!!!

Ok, I know that I'm late for a post on this....

But it's summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so happy. This summer feels like it is going by sooooo fast. I kinda wish it would go a li-t-tle slower, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I just laze around all day, and then, before I know it, the day is gone, and I'll never get it back. Doesn't that make you want to do a bunch of awesome stuff that you've never done before? Like, see the Pacific Ocean, go skiing, travel to the other side of the world, and all that stuff. I wish I could, but I have to do school, take care of my dogs, and things like that.

Well, back to summer. I think that this is one of the best summers that I have had in a long time. I have achieved many things, like take short showers (that was really hard), do my school in half an hour instead of two, start liking the zoo again (I never liked the zoo because I thought it was boring. The animals never really did stuff, and we went to the same zoo over and over again. But now, I take pictures of the animals there, and I love it!), I found Arwen's tug-of-war rope, and I am now addicted to Chris Daughtry music. Talk about achievements!

I am not looking forward to the start of the school year, though. Although I have been doing school all summer, we are going to start hard core school again, not just the bare minimum. Ugh! Also, my friends are all starting a bunch of extra-curricular activities, so they are not going to be available after my half hour of school each day. Lacrosse, Band, and Soccer are included in these.

Well, even though summer is drawing to a close as I write, I can't be too unhappy about the next school year. Holidays and birthdays are coming, along with happiness and sadness, which I'll just have to meet sooner or later.

I love life!

Busch Wildlife!!!!!

I went to a wild animal rescue center called Busch Wildlife, yesterday (Wednesday). I brought the digital camera, expecting to get a couple fairly good shots. But I did not expect anything like this! The first exhibit we went to was the aviary. Inside was a couple songbirds and a blue jay. This jay used to be a pet, as we learned later. When I tried to take a picture of him, he reached through the fence, trying to eat the camera (just like somebody else I know...)!


The next exhibit that we went to, was the Florida Cougar exhibit. At first, the cougars were sleeping under a boardwalk thingy, but soon this one came right up to the fence and posed! So cute!

This fox picture was actually one of the last ones I took at Busch Wildlife, just before the camera died. :( It was hard to take, as the foxes were at the back of their little "house."

The Cockatoo's name is CeCe. All the parrots sit out front of the animal hospital, across from the box turtles. There was another parrot named Budweiser. I got pictures of him, but they were not as good as the ones that I took of CeCe.

The last picture on here is of a blue heron. He was with all the waterbirds. All the other birds were walking around pecking and chirping, while he just sat up in the tree surveying the land.

I thouroughly enjoyed my trip to Busch Wildlife, and hope to come back to take even more pictures!

Update on My Life

As of many times before, I do not have anything to write about. I want to write about something, but I can't figure out what. Sheesh.

Because of this, I will just give you an update on my extremely exciting, action packed, life.

Here it is-

I have decided that I don't like summer anymore. This is because all my friends are gone on vacation! What in the world am I to do?

I am once again addicted to the game Virtual Horse Ranch, or VHR for short. The web address is http://www.virtualhorseranch.com/. It is so much fun! If you get an account, which is most unlikely, my nickname on there is jose521. This is so you can look me up and message me.

I have finally bought a Nintendo DS! I have been wanting that for about a year and a half, as aforesaid in one of my other posts. I play it every night for an hour. Wahoo!

Rick the tortoise has moved away from his hole. I think it's because me and my friends came and bothered him so much. I am not exactly heartbroken, as there are four other tortoises that I can visit, although they are not partial to music and iPods. Whatever.

I have found out that I love to make, of all things, posters! I get a big sheet of newsprint paper, and place pictures on it. Then I write something that goes with the theme, and there you go! I made a poster today that had some really good pictures of horses on it, and it said, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." I get sayings like this from catalogs.

I have to go post a picture of Rick on this blog, and I can't think of anything else to write, so ye-ah (how does one say goodbye in a post?). Ummmmmmmmmmm...........

Goodbye!

Rick

Ok, this post, believe it or not, is about a tortoise. His name is Rick. You might ask, "Why is his name Rick?" And I would say,

"Because he is Rick."

Then you would ask, "Why in the world do you have a picture of an iPod on this post?" And I would say,


"Because it has a connection with it!"

You'll find out that connection once you know a little bit about Rick.

I found his burrow maybe a couple weeks ago. I am not sure if he was in it then, but I walk past his house almost every day, so I saw him once or twice before I started visiting.

The first time I came, I brought my camera. I had seen him a couple minutes before, so I knew he was there. When I got to his burrow, he was deep inside of it. I started singing "Feelin' So Fly" by tobyMac to him softly. Then, when he looked around to see who was bothering him with hip hop, I snapped a couple pictures. He saw the shiny-ness of the camera, then climbed out of his hole towards it.

He came so close that I shot pictures zoomed all the way out! He crawled up to the fence to try to eat the camera, and I touched his scaly feet.

I visit him a lot, so I take my iPod with me. For some reason, he likes my music. I turn it on full blast so he can hear it even through the headphones. When he is in his burrow, I just crank up the music, and he'll turn around and look at me. Look is in italics because he just looks around as if saying, "So! What do you want?"

I Was Not the One Who Traveled...

But my brother and dad were. They just got back from a trip to Thailand, quite an adventure if you ask me. I wish I could have gone, but I don't think I could have stood the 37 hour plane trip.

While they were there, my dad called in to the radio station that he works at, to try to get sponsors for these poverty- stricken kids at Compassion International's projects. All of the 300 kids got sponsors in one week! That means, now they can go to school, learn about Jesus, teach their families about Jesus, and have enough food to eat every day! All of this for the kids who had been raised to worship and pray to, their dead ancestors.

While they were there, Justice and Dad went to this elephant camp thing. All of the elephants there were specially trained to do something weird. Some even painted better than I can! To see a video of this, go to my dad's blog at http://www.branthansen.typepad.com/. It's crazy! At the elephant camp, my dad says the employees were geniuses for making money.

Along the trail for the elephants and their riders, were little food stands to buy treats for the elephants. If you didn't want to buy the food along the trail, the elephant was trained to reach up, over his head with his trunk looking for food, to make you feel bad and buy food at the next stand.

The pictures the elephants painted were money makers too. So was the elephants' poo even! They use it to make picture frames for the picture of you on your elephant. Those people are geniuses, I tell ya, geniuses.

Gabriel, not Gabe, Gabriel.

I have a new baby cousin!!!!! I found out yesterday when my mom just comes up to me and says that my aunt Erica has given birth to a baby boy named Gabriel. I was so surprised! I hadn't even heard that Aunt Erica was pregnant!!!!

My mom showed me pictures that my uncle Dan sent by email. The doctors had had to cut Gabe out of his mom using surgery, so his face was really round, since it had not been squished while coming out.

Mom told me that, when she had called the baby Gabe, Uncle Dan had said, "No, not Gabe, we don't want him to be called Gabe. It's Gabriel."

I am so excited, I will have pictures soon. Gotta go spread the news!!!!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dune Dog, the Best Restaurant Ever!!!!

On Monday, Memorial Day, I went snorkeling with friends again. The water was really murky and we couldn't see more than two feet in front of us, but I had a great time anyway. Since we were all hungry after swimming, we went to an outdoor, casual, swimwear on, shoes off restaurant called Dune Dog. It is right by the beach and perfect after a day of crashing and splashing around.

I bet everyone who reads this blog can tell where I am in the picture, but I will tell who is who.

On the far left corner, almost out of the picture, is my brother, Justice. Next to him, quite distracted at the time this picture was taken, is Joel. In front of him, grinning broadly, is Alecea Poole. In the back right almost completely overlapped by Joel's brother, the black haired Matthew, is Kyle Poole, whose sister is Alecea. Next to him is Tiffany Laster, my partner in crime. I am sitting right next to her in my blue swimsuit, unknowingly doing the exact same thing she is. Then, last but not least, is Brittany Adams. She was rather rudely cut out of the picture somehow, but at least we know that the right side of her face is smiling happily.

Yeehaw!!!

Me, my dogs, and my new house

Switchfoot Concert!!!!!!! Eeeeee!!!!!!!!

This picture doesn't make much sense, but it is cool anyway.

So, I went to a concert on Saturday night. A band called Switchfoot was the main event. Switchfoot is a christian band, but they try to get on "non-christian" radio stations.

Their concert was a smash hit. I invited my friend, (whose nickname is Padfoot) and we totally rocked out, if you would call jumping up and down and screaming at random intervals "rocking out." We had fun.

At the concert, Switchfoot had some really cool lighting going on. When the strobe lights were especially crazy, I looked up at the ceiling of the amphitheatre, and saw really cool shadows and things.

The keyboard person for Switchfoot, Gerome, actually smiled and waved at me! I know it was at me, because I was the only person in my section with a glow-stick, and I was screaming and jumping like crazy. I was thrilled, and still am.

I went to the "meet and greet" thing, too! I got every one's autographs on a cool poster. I gave it away to a friend, Kyle. When I gave it to him, he was so happy though, that I didn't really care that I had given my signed Switchfoot poster away.

When I was at the "meet and greet," there was a small pile of Switchfoot posters on a table out in the middle of the tent. I was the first person to get one, then my brother, Justice, went and got one. Padfoot, a.k.a. Tiffany managed to grab one before Justice's friend, Peter, tried to get one. But just then, since this all happened pretty quickly, a mob of people just swarmed in on the table, and engulfed it. Peter later told me that he got a poster, but somebody jerked it out of his hands, so he lost it. Sheesh!

Although I gave away my Switchfoot poster, and Peter didn't even get one, the concert was a huge success that I will remember for a long, long time.

My Friend

Please go to this website. The second post down is a prayer request from one of my best friends. Please pray for her.

My Amazing Fort Country

I've always wanted to make something really big and complex with friends. I have FINALLY got that chance!!!!

My friends and I have made a sort of "country" thing in my neighborhood. We have so many different forts, that we decided to organize them together, and trade between them. It is so fun!

I think I am in four of the forts. The only tough thing about that is that sometimes I trade something from one of my forts to another fort I have. And if I find something when I am alone, I don't know which fort to give it to.

When I get together with friends, we collect stuff to trade, work on our forts, make flags, and hide from innocent bystanders. For some reason we don't want ANYBODY to see us in our forts. I guess that's because nobody wants to be thought of as weird.

We haven't totally finished with the organization yet, but I think it's going to work out great! Unless I move to a different neighborhood.

An Update on My Vacation

Ok, so here is what's going on. In my last post, I told y'all that I am in Tennesee on vacation with my family. So, here is an update.

Today, I went out to eat with my cousins. We had a great time. We did that yesterday for lunch and dinner too. I am getting sick of eating out.

My cousins have left. I am pretty bummed about that. Right before they left, the boys were playing some army game on an Xbox 360. I hate it when I am trying to be peaceful, and I hear continuous shooting. Very annoying, very annoying.

I really slept in today. I woke up at around 9:00 am, which would be about 10:00 at home. Some people might think, "Oh, that isn't 'sleeping in', that's nothin'." For me though, that is a huge amount of sleep. I even missed the hotel breakfast, too! I usually wake up at six.

I woke up with a headache this morning. I hope I'm not coming down with something. It is really dry in Tennesee, so my nose is really stuffy and my lips are chapped. Not complaining, or anything. :)

Our flight is leaving tommorow morning (Wednesday). I never like airplane security. Of course I don't want to be blown up by some random bomb, but I still don't have to like it!

Another Friend's Blog

This is the link to my friend's blog. Penguin Person is one of my five best friends, in the group that includes Padfoot. Penguin Person would love it if y'all came on her blog and commented. That would be great! She is just starting up so there won't be many posts. The blog is worth the extra time! Please go on the site. That would be cool of you.

My Friend's Blog

This is the link to my friend, Padfoot's, blog. She'd certainly love it if you would go on there, comment, and vote on the poll up on her site.

She's a really great friend, and I think she'll be happy to see you've commented!

My Magazines are Better Than Yours

I am an incredibly "horsey" person. The kind of person who loves "that amazing, horsey smell" and loves cleaning a stall.

I recieve two horse magazines every month. One is called Horse Illustrated and the other is Horse and Rider. They are both excellent magazines, they are both my favorites.

One evening, my brother was having some guys over to play a board game called Diplomacy. It involves secrecy and socialization at the same time, so one would find lots of people around the house, whispering to each other.

I was gathering up my horse magazines, and as I stepped onto the stairs, I found two guys right in front of me. They saw the title of my magazine and laughed. "Horse Illustrated?" One of them inquired (they were both very kind about it).What could I say other than the "yes" that I did? Who knows?

Maybe Sports Illustrated wasn't published before my horse magazine, maybe it was published after? I doubt it. Gosh, can a magazine have a name with "Illustrated" at the end without having people laugh? Guess not! :)

Check this link out

This is the link to my other blog. My friend and I created it. We dance in little performances choreographed by us. Our business is called Smile Dance Co as is our blog. My nickname on the site is Reeses and my freind is CoCo. Please look at it!!!! http://www.smiledance.blogspot.com/.