Double Whammy(overnight!)

Thorin has a 100 to 1 chance of surviving his molt. The reason being is because even though he has not completely hardened, he has begun to eat his exoskeleton. The other thing I wanted to tell you about is that Crabby changed shells. He went from a smooth shell to a spiky shell.If you want to learn more about hermit crabs, I recommend http://www.hermit-crabs.com/.

The Molter... yet another crab update

Two molts so far... one unsucsessful, the other sucsessful.
The unsucsessful... Ariel, the sucsessful... Crabby.

DUN-DUN-DUH!

MOLT #3 HAPPENED

Thorin has finally molted! Yesterday while I was misting the crabs I decided to mist Thorin first. I picked him up, look at him, and boy was I surprised! My hermit crab was pink with-I'll just say he was pink, purple, and white.

Then, as gently and as quickly as possible, I transferred Thorin to the ISO(along with his exoskeleton).

Happy August!

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8!

The eighth month of the year ALREADY! 2009 has just flown by!

August 1, 2009

Championship game today! I'm sooooo excited! Hope I win....
We have batting practice @ 8:30, game @ 10:00. We face the Tampa Bay Rays...tough team.

focus...concentrate...do good

Focusing and concentrating worked. My second at-bat I hit a triple to right-field and drove in 3 runs. My first at-bat I struck-out. My third at-bat I got walked on 4 pitches.

We ended up losing. Oh well...can't win every game.

We have family coming from CA. Here is the list of to-do's.

Cedar Point

Harry Potter 6

Ohio Caverns

Put-In-Bay

Mary Poppins, the play

There you have it. Good bye[for now]!

P.S.

HAPPY AUGUST!

Friday Facts

The vote was 1 vote for animals and 1 vote for pizza party. I will be adding 2 extra facts about animals since I have so many animal facts.

1. A sea turtle can weigh as much as a water buffalo.
2. Food passes through the giant squid's brain on the way to its stomach.
3. The "barking pigeon" has a call that sounds like a loud dog.
4. A newborn kangaroo is about as long as a paperclip.
5. One of the largest man made islands is shaped like a palm tree.
6. Red rain has fallen in parts of Europe and Asia.
7. Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.
8. The first microwave oven was almost as tall as a refrigerator.
9. The record for the world's longest continuous series of somersaults is 12 miles 390 yards.
10. The first person arrested for speeding in the United States was driving 12 mph in 1899.

Pizza Party

Tony Gemignani holds the record for spinning the largest pizza dough. The dough was nearly 3 feet wide. Tony spent 2 minutes stretching the paper thin dough until it reached a width of 33.2 inches. The dough would have made enough pizzas to feed 20 people if it hadn't been measured on the floor.

The surfacer... another crab update

If you read the digger, you know what a hermit crab is.

Anyway, time to get down to business.

Just today, my sister Rachel's hermit crab came up from a successful molt[a molt is when a crab sheds its outer layer of skin-a.k.a. exoskeleton-so it can grow bigger]. When I found out that Crabby surfaced, I ran through the house yelling,"CRABBY CAME UP!"

Then I ran upstairs to tell Rachel the good VERY good news."Rachel," I said,"Crabby came up!"


"Are you serious?" she asked.
"Yes! Now come on!"
"Okay! Just let me get a blanket."


I gave Crabby fresh food and fresh water. Sure enough he was thirsty and hungry. Then I got to clean out the food dish after Crabby spent 30-60 seconds in the food dish.

If you want to see Crabby before and after pictures, here they are.

BEFORE

AFTER

Poll for Friday Facts

Here are your 2 choices for the first 2 Friday Facts:

1. Animals
2. Miscellaneous State Information

Guinness World Record choices:

1. Dog almost flies
2. Pizza party
3. Bling tone

The digger...A crab update

You might be wondering what a hermit crab is. It is something that looks like that.








My sister's hermit crab, Crabby, got put in a molting cage on June 13 and has been under the sand for 6 weeks. In one of the dishes in the molting cage the water has been mysteriously disappearing. Then I noticed 2 small little holes in the bottom of the dish. So I figured the water must be draining out through those holes. So I decided to check under the water dish and see if there was any moisture. I kept on sliding my finger around and then-POOF!-some sand colapses to reveal a tunnel dug by Crabby. I just froze[I also got a weird feeling in my stomach]. I covered the hole with the water dish but the water dish made the whole big enough that it stuck out ever so slightly, but I did NOT want to risk Mom and\or Dad seeing the hole. So I decided to cover the hole with a shell. But the shell only made the hole worse. So I put the shell back where it was. I just decided to let the hole be. Sure enough, Mom and Dad both found out about the hole. That is a molting cage.

That is the hole that I discovered.

P.S. I still get a weird feeling when I walk by the ISO[molting isolation tank].

Friday Facts

Sorry that I didn't do Friday Facts for the past 3 weeks. I've been waiting for someone to break the tie. So I've decided to go with a completely different Guinness World Record. So here are the facts:
1. A snail would take about 220 hours to crawl one mile non-stop.
2. There can be about as many insects in one square mile as there are people on the entire planet.
3. The earth traveled more than five thousand miles in the past five minutes.
4. You are made up of about ten trillion cells.
5. The tallest volcano on Mars is about 17 miles high. That's 61 times taller than the 110 story Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois.
6. The oldest continuously standing tree on Earth is nearly five thousand years old - about the same age as the pyramids in Egypt.
7. The brightest light on a hotel is in Las Vegas, Nevada and can be seen from airplanes 250 miles away.
8. A San Francisco man used 10,000 toothpicks to build a four foot long remote controlled boat.
9. The world's first hand held cell phone cost $3,995.
10. Studies show that when evenly matched teams compete the team wearing red has a better chance of winning.

WOMAN GROWS BEARD

What's on Vivian Wheeler's face? You might think it's pretty make up, but it's actually a beard. She is proud of what makes her different. She started shaving her face when she was 7 years old but more than 15 years ago decided to let the beard grow. The longest strand was 11 inches long when last measured.

Poll for Friday Facts

Sorry I didn't get to the poll or Friday Facts last week. I just didn't have time. But I will have Friday Facts again this week (by the way, you are voting on only the first two facts). Here are the choices:

1. Animals
2. Outer Space

This is a poll for the Guinness World Record
1. Stretchy Skin
2. Gigantic Duck
3. No Jacket Required

Leave your vote in the comments section below.

Friday Facts

The results of the poll were 2 votes for candy, no votes for nature. So, as promised, here are two candy facts:

1. The biggest Gingerbread house was decorated with 4,750 pounds of icing - that's heavier than a giraffe!

2. The first candy canes were made without stripes.

3. The longest Monopoly game played in a bath tub lasted 99 hours.

4. Some diamonds are more than a billion years old.

5. A space suit weighs 280 pounds - without an astronaut in it.

6. The world's tallest waterfall, called Angel Falls, is taller than five Washington Monuments stacked up.

7. Americans eat 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips each year - more than ten times the weight of Egypt's Great Pyramid.

8. Your brain is sometimes more active when you're asleep than when you're awake.

9. Some fish can walk on land.

10. Chewing gum was banned in Singapore until 2004.

One Amazing "FEET"!

The longest chain of shoes tied together could have stretched a mile and a half if it had been laid out straight. National Geographic Kids donated 10,512 shoes to make the chain. The best part is that all those shoes were recycled and used to make two basketball courts. All those shoes were kept out of landfills and used for something useful. The shoes that were donated ranged in size from tiny baby shoes to monstrous size 20s.

Poll for Friday Facts

Hello Everybody,
As I said I'm giving you a chance to choose the theme of the first two facts in Friday Facts. Here are your choices:
1. Candy
2. Nature
Go to the comment section below to place your vote!

Friday Facts are BACK...

...and they're better than ever!

After a long break[which I regret taking] from doing Friday Facts, I'm restarting Friday Facts. In addition to ten facts, I will also start letting whoever comes to my blog take a pole to vote for the subject of the first two facts in next week's Friday Facts. I will also post a Guinness world record.

Here are ten Friday facts and a Guinness world record!

1. If you never cut your hair, it could grow more than 30 feet in your life time- long enough to reach from a third story window to the ground.

2. In outer space, liquids become sphere-shaped.

3. Dolphins can hear sounds underwater that are 15 miles away.

4.Baby rattle snakes are born without rattles.

5. Messages from your brain travel along your nerves at 200 miles per hour.

6. If you traveled at the speed of light, you could reach Pluto in just 4 hours.

7.The first bubble gum, made in 1906, was called"Blibber-Blubber.'

8. The world's largest pizza was 122 feet, 8 inches across and weighed 26,883 pounds, as much as 2 male African elephants.

9. About 10,000 of the cells in your body could fit on the head of a pin.

10. Some salamanders can regrow their tail, legs, and even parts of their eyes.

BIG BUNNY!

How long is Amy the rabbit? She's so big- 2 feet, 8 inches from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail- that she sleeps in a dog kennel. Each day the longest rabbit on record eats a bowl of rabbit food, 2 apples, several carrots, hay, and half a cabbage. She may have a big appetite, but she's a picky eater. Amy won't eat her carrots unless the stems are still attached.

Crabby and Thorin are Best Buds

The CUTEST pictures of my cousin Henry

Just so you know, I took these photos.

[Should I start a photography business?]

Wordess Wednesday

Chloe

My favorite dog...

Chloe.

Me and Chloe go way back. We got her when I was about four years old, and we've been BFs[best friends] ever since.

Chloe is a crazy, energetic, and loving dog.

When I was about five years old, I taught her a trick called "cowgirl'. Here's how it works: I bend over till I'm on all fours, then say,"Cowgirl!" then Chloe will go through my legs.

I love you,

Chloe!

In memory of Ariel

My sister Rachel's old hermit crab Ariel died anything but a peaceful death. Ariel had molted a few days before her death and became very vunerable. She survived a couple of nights. On the night of her death, Thorin came over and flipped over Ariel's shell and began tearing off her legs. When I woke up around 6:30am Friday, April 3rd, I rushed downstairs to see if Ariel was ok. I was so shocked to see her shell opening facing the sky and her legless body. I rushed to wake mom up so she could see what had happened. As I was about to tell her I nearly burst into tears because I was so sad about Ariel's death. I love working in the crab cage but I did not want to handle Ariel's remains. We were going to the dentist that morning and after the dentist I was going to boil Ariel's old shell to get rid of any germs and sediment that was left in her shell. But when we got home with Crabby, Hermie and Fluffy, Thorin had already moved into Ariel's old shell. Below you can see a picture of Ariel's remains.

THE GOLD CROWNED SPARROW

I've been seeing a mysterious bird at our bird-feeder. At first I thought it was a white- crowned sparrow, but it wasn't. Then I thought it was a white-throated sparrow, but it wasn't. I went through the sparrow section of my bird book several times but found notta thing. I went through the sparrow section once more, and then saw what I was looking for.''This must be it.'' I thought.

I was excited to have a different type of bird at the feeder. Every time I saw it I frantically ran to the camera, so that I could take pictures & videos.

Wordless Wednesday on Thursday

What a messssssssssss!!!!

Well Mom is taking more responsability when it comes to crab care. She is feeding the crabs when Thorin eats it all after I go to bed. But this time she went a little too far.

She tried to feed the crabs while Thorin was in the food dish.

While she was reaching down to the food dish[remember that Thorin is in the food dish], Mom scared Thorin, and, because he was in the food dish, scared Mom. When Thorin withdrew, he made a noise that scared Mom, and Mom's hand shook; scattering the food EVERYWHERE.

Guess what? Me and Rachel had to clean all the scattered food.

BOOHOO!

NASA Glenn Research Center

On the 18th of April, I went to the NASA Glenn Research Center with my dad. We got to see 2 rockets[yes, the rockets were real], go inside a segment of the ARES test rocket, watch 2 mini-movies, go on a 45-minute hike, and eat lunch with the Ridgewood YMCA Adventure Guides. Did you now the ARES rocket will replace the space shuttle in future missions to:THE MOON. On the 45-minute hike, one of the dads found a dead baby snake on the sidewalk. We also saw 2 deer in the woods. In the lobby, they had a bunch of model planes, rockets, helicopters, and a model space shuttle.

NASA Glenn Rocks!

Wordless Wednesday

Dennison: One in a million

Last Friday my family and I went to Dreamsville, Oh[a.k.a. Dennison, Oh] on a field trip to a train museum. What's even more amazing is that the museum is housed in 5 train cars! Back in the 1940's 3000 people worked in the train yards!




On the tour we got to watch a mini-movie, sleep in a pullman bunk, try on the hats of 6[I think] different presidents, be the president, and learn some amazing things about world war 2, world war 1, and Dennison in the 1940's. Did you know during WW1 a dog named Bing[I'm not kidding]was trained to detect bombs, and was so good at detecting bombs, that he had a harness of medals. There's a passenger![below]

During World War 2, Dennison would have been very, very, very, very, very busy. Trains would be pulling in and out most all day and night. The Salvation Army had a canteen in Dennison where they always had something for soldiers passing through on trains to eat. The soldiers would have only had 10-15 minutes to eat, so the ladies who worked in the canteen could not dilly-dally. Over the years signals advanced from raising balls to working lights. In the museum they had model trains that resembled Dennison in the 1940s. After work the three thousand people who worked on the railroad needed something to do and thus a Dennison baseball team was formed. The railroad even had a big stadium put up for the team.

We even saw some hobos!

Saturday Surprises

1.Mr. Potato Head ran for the mayor of Boise, Idaho in 1985.
2.Some hummingbirds weigh less than a penny.
3.If you eat too many carrots, your skin can turn orange.
4.Your hair grows faster in warmer weather.
5.Your eyes can see about 10,000,000 different colors.
6.Camels chew in a figure 8 motion.
7.The earth is slightly pear-shaped.
8.The wingspan of a 747 is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
9.A zebra's skin is black, only its fur is striped.
10.If you heat a diamond to 1405 degrees Fahrenheit,it will turn into vapor.

Crab Portraits

This is Hermie.

This is Fluffy.



This is Crabby.

This is Thorin.

Wordless Wednesday on Thursday

An Easter to Remember

As I was trying to keep Emily from going downstairs she slipped out of my hands and managed to get downstairs, so I had to go get her. But as I arrived in the family room I saw a terrible sight: Mom on the couch, fast asleep. You're probably wondering why that's so bad. Here's why: NO EGGS; NO BASKETS. But we did get eggs and baskets, just not in the regular places. The eggs were outside and the baskets were hidden all over the house. That's Sarah's basket in the photo above.

This is Rachel's basket.

This is Emily's basket.

And lo and behold. My basket was in the dryer.

HAPPY EASTER!

Friday Facts

1. Alpacas fur comes in 22 different colors.
2. The longest soap bubble on record is as long as four school buses.
3. More water is in the Pacific Ocean than in all the other seas and oceans combined.
4. There is a town called Popcorn, Indiana.
5. It would take a jumbo jet about 120 billion years to fly across the Milky Way galaxy.
6. Thousands of tiny earthquakes happen every day.
7. A mountain climber carried the Olympic torch to the top of Mt. Everest.
8. Cleopatra became the queen of Egypt when she was only a teenager.
9. Girls have more taste buds than boys do.
10. Vision uses one third of all your brain power.

The Alpaca Farm Field Trip

I went to an alpaca farm today with my Mom and my sister Rachel. We got to see all different kinds of alpaca. We learned about two different species[kinds]of alpaca. In the photograph above is a huacaya[wa-ki'-a]alpaca.

This is me walking a[you guessed it]huacaya alpaca. You can tell it's a huacaya alpaca by its very colorful fleece that is crimpy and gives the alpaca a woolly and round appearance. By now you're probably wondering what the other kind of alpaca is. It's

called the suri. Its fleece appears to be in the form of dreadlocks and is very silky. Alpacas prefer outdoors to being cooped up in a barn so a three sided shed is perfect.

They even had some llamas!

Humpty Dumty

While I was misting the crabs, I arranged 2 of the crab's logs into a ramp. I put it in the corner where Crabby usually sleeps. Guess what he did? He went up the ramp! When he decided to get down,WHOOSH! Crabby sommersaulted all the way to the bottom. Luckily I had beforehand cleared the bottom of the ramp. And, yes, Crabby is still in a shell that is too small. Thorin, Hermie, and Fluffy are also doing great.

My Lovely Crabs

As I said before, I looove hermit crabs. So I want to introduce you to my families' hermit crabs: Thorin, Crabby, Hermie,and Fluffy [Fluffy was named by Emily; my 2-year-old sister].Thorin is a cannibal.He killed my sister's old hermit crab Ariel by ripping of all her legs. I hoped it would take a turn for the best; and it did. We ended up getting the other three hermit crabs. Crabby is crabby. He kinda reminds me of Ariel because he hates being misted. Hermie and Fluffy rarely come out of their hut. But they do come out.Crabby is surprising us all by residing in a shell that is way too small for him. Crabby is very active. Hermit crabs; I love 'em! [Hermit crabs are hypo-allergenic,so if you are allergic to animals or their fur, check out hermit crabs!].

There's a new blogger in town!

Hello Everybody,
I'm new to the blogging business and this is my first post. I hope you enjoy the rest of my blog once we get it up. This is my first blog and I'm really excited.