With all the storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean lately, I’ve been especially interested in hurricanes.  I’ve lived a lot of places, but since I’ve only resided in the midwest, I’ve never witnessed a hurricane firsthand.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  There was a hurricane a couple of years ago (I forgot its name unfortunately) that ventured up to our corner of Ohio.  By the time it got here, it had been over land for quite some time which had reduced it to nothing but rain, lots of rain.  It was really no different than any other rain we’ve gotten, except that I had been watching the radar, and I knew that it had been a hurricane in a past life – that made it special to me; I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, last night, the baby decided to wake up right as we were going to bed, so I was stuck watching tv while I fed him.  And it’s strange, because I really used to enjoy tv, but that’s changed for me recently.  Maybe it’s because we are so busy all the time so I got used to not watching tv…  I don’t know what it is.  All I know is that I used to be the kind of person who could be happy watching anything on tv –  I could find something that would entertain me at any time of the day or night.  Not so much anymore.  I still like tv, and I love watching my favorite shows (like The Office – almost time for new episodes!!!), but “junk tv” as I call it (reality shows, documentaries, etc.) isn’t so appealing anymore.  My point in detailing all of this is to explain how interesting I found some random documentary I caught last night on the History Channel while I was feeding my son.

The documentary was about giant snakes, specifically pythons, and how they are starting to become a threat to people in Florida.  What I found most fascinating about this is the fact that these snakes are not indigenous to the United States, but in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, many pet stores and homes that had kept these animals as pets were destroyed.  Baby pythons were released into the wild and because of Florida’s tropical climate, especially in the Everglades, these animals now have a wild population that is thriving.  On the show, they had pictures of one snake that had swallowed an adult human whole.  They weren’t sure if the pictures were real or a hoax, and unfortunatley I never found out because my son let me go to bed before the show was over.  They also had pictures of a snake that had swallowed a 6-foot-long alligator whole, but it had ruptured the snake, causing his death.  In the words of a snake expert on the show, “snakes can digest anything” – it’s just that the alligator probably clawed the snake open.  But you could see the outline of the alligator in the snake – it looked like an alligator colored like a snake – it was bizarre.

I may have to find this documentary again so I can watch it when I’m not half asleep.  But it’s really interesting to me that because of a hurricane, Florida now has another fearsome reptile lurking in the Everglades.  I’m sure that was the last thing on people’s minds after Hurricane Andrew wreaked its havoc 16 years ago – I bet this scenario didn’t cross anyone’s mind.  Who knows what unforseen side effects we’ll see from Hurricane Katrina in a couple of decades?  One can only imagine… 

I was just curious at a picture I saw on the web tonight. My question is why would anybody take a picture of the shoes that the candidates are wearing? I don’t think I can recall any other shoe pictures. I may be wrong, but I remember a lot of Pant Suits, Power Ties, body surfing, hunting, fishing, and of course hand shaking pictures of any other candidate in my lifetime, but not shoes. Was there really anything stunning about either pair of shoes? The red pair did remind me a bit of the ruby slippers, but that is because of the color. Just wondering?

And then of course during this I also found this picture:

Is this making a fashion, religious or political statement? I’m not really sure. Interesting effect though. I may want to try to get a few of those for me. Could they put that on my driver’s license? Should I use something like that on my blog? Should I use it for my pic on a dating site? (nah, too over the top for me…) Maybe I could just print up some ‘saint j’ cards.. I could give them out to all my friends…

Then again, if we can get that effect with lighting, and actual naked eye seeing, a red light in the background could set the tone of something in our haunted house. Or we could go with the dead guy in the corner. Yes, that is really a dead guy in the corner.

Oh well, I guess that’s all the good pictures I found. Unless I include some of my own. Just one uninvited guest at my daughter’s wedding last year.

Now he would be a good addition to the haunted house. A 6 foot gator on the prowl could get people a little jumpy.

Of all the places to find fun, who would have thought that middle of nowhere, IN would be such a sight?  Every summer, we meet my mom there about 4 times to swap the kids.  She’ll take them for a week, twice a summer, so because South Bend just happens to be about as close to halfway for each of us to drive, that is where we meet.  We used to meet at a Wendy’s just off the expressway, but our horizons have broadened, and my husband and I have been venturing off the beaten path to discover new things to see and do in the area.  We found a good restaurant called Eleni’s with amazing gyros and saganaki, two of our favorite dishes.  We also found an authentic Greek restaurant called Elia’s right down the street, but oddly enough, they are almost never open.  They have more exotic Greek food like stuffed grape leaves, moussaka, and baklava, YUM!  Their food is excellent, though we’ve only been able to eat there once because of their strange hours and seemingly constant family vacations.  After eating and getting the kids back from my mom, we headed to the Potawatomi Zoo.  The zoo is a really cool size, perfect for our family of 3 small children and a now VERY pregnant woman.  Not much walking to do at all, yet it has a good amount of animals, native and exotic, all types and sizes from lions, tigers, and bears, to monkeys, bison, alligators, parrots, and red pandas.  I wil have to mention that the Potawatomi Zoo did not seem very well-kept.  A gardener in that place could have done wonders as there were many overgrown weeds, trees, and shrubbery, some even blocking what could have been better views of the animals!  One tree was so untrimmed it was blocking a drinking fountain!  But as I said, it’s a very cute little zoo, and they reciprocate with our home zoo, the Toledo Zoo, so our admission price was free and they don’t charge for parking.  I was surprised to see that the zoo wasn’t very crowded seeing as how it was a Saturday in June under 90°…  That zoo could really use a Jack Hanna to fix it up and get the publicity rolling – I see a lot of potential for it, but it does need some work.

After the zoo, we had kids begging for ‘one more fun thing’ (remember, they had been used to the fun of Grandma’s for just short of a week!), my husband whips out Mr. GPS, and apparently he has a phone book feature on him, so from your car, you can find gas stations, restaurants, and most importantly, fun places and attractions to visit!

So KUDOS belong to Mr. GPS this time!  Instead of getting us lost and chuckling at us electronically, he led us right to this strip mall that was like a step back in time, it was really strange.  It looked like it was right out of 1983.  I don’t know how to explain it – we should have taken pictures.  It would have been a great place to film a movie set in the early ’80’s, took me right back to my childhood.  Anyway, in this strip mall was a place called Mega Play.  From the outside, it looked closed down – they really need to get themselves a big bright ‘open’ sign.  But once inside, it was a huge space where they had tons of video games, pinball machines, indoor minigolf, bouncy castles and tunnels for the kids, lots of ride-ons for toddlers, and right out of 1983 – a ball pit!  The ball pit had a pyramid in the middle of it that the kids climb up with ropes and once they got the hang of it, they had a ball – cheesy pun intended.  That pyramid gave me a flashback of playing on the same thing when I was little.  I think they used to have them in KMarts, and my husband agreed.  It was neat to see vintage video games and pinball machines also.  The arcade ATARI games they had in one bouncy castle area were free to play – they had Kangaroo, Pole Position, Asteroids, and some shooting game I hadn’t heard of.  I walked over to the pinball machine area because days earlier, we visited this cool pinball shop in a suburb of Toledo.  The guy started it as a hobby, but it grew into a store, and he had all kinds of pinball machines, new and mostly vintage.  He had titles on display like Demolition Man, Star Wars, The Shadow, and Hercules (an older game – it was HUGE!).  He even had this Looney Tunes racing game (not pinball) that was really vintage and one-of-a-kind…  it was cool to see.  I wonder if the pinball guy outside of Toledo is familiar with Mega Play?  But anyway, back to Mega Play…  it was a huge, wide-open strip mall space that had tons of games, ride-ons, and bouncy castles packed into it – lots of fun there, but still spacey so you didn’t feel closed it.  It was the exact concept my husband and I had in mind for our own business of the same type we started a few years ago.  We ended up having to sell the business because it was too labor intensive for the time and staff we had however.  Too bad Mega Play is all the way in South Bend, or we could challenge our putt-putt-ing friends to the mini-golf course 🙂

After Mega Play, it was time to find something to eat, and before we knew it, we were out of South Bend and into the country.  The kids started getting crazier and crazier, and we vowed to stop at the very next restaurant we found before someone passed out or went insane – and some of us were close to either condition!  So, we stopped at a restaurant called Dakota’s in Elkhart IN, and I highly recommend it if you’re ever out that way.  They had the best cornbread, and their steak and cheese sandwich was simply AWESOME!  They also have barbecue items, and they happened to have karaoke the night we went…  it wasn’t too intrusive though.  They were in another room and we didn’t even know it was karaoke at first until the audience began applauding.  The DJ hosting the karaoke was singing a few songs also, and he was pretty good, so he actually sounded like a recording with a live quality.  I don’t how often they have karaoke there, but their food is great, prices reasonable, nice atmosphere, and the staff is amazingly friendly.  Keep in mind I say this coming from a super-friendly town myself, so we’re used to the usual chit-chat when we go out to eat –  but people in Elkhart were exceptionally friendly.

Overall, not a bad place to spend a day – fun and very inexpensive to boot.  Too bad with gas prices the way they are we can’t consider South Bend for a normal day trip for our family – there is plenty to do!  Maybe we’ll wander around some more the next time we meet Grandma there in July…

Our poor little 8-year-old daughter, Taylor, was born on the short side of the genetic crapshoot when it comes to teeth.  The poor kid has cavities, teeth that are fused together, and other dental problems.  They wanted to do so much dental work on her that our small town dentist referred us to the big city of Toledo to get it taken care of.  So, yesterday saw an all day excursion to Toledo so the poor kid could undergo some major dental work.  It actually went quite well; she handled everything like a trooper.  I’m sure the laughing gas and novacaine somewhat helped the pain, but when it was all said and done, she did freak out a little about all the blood.  After that whole ordeal, we wanted to make the day special for her, so we made a quick stop at the zoo between dental appointments.  We only had about an hour, so we didn’t get to see our favorite animals, but we did have time to check out the reptile house, which, crazily enough after all of our visits to the Toledo Zoo, we had never been in.  It was a typical reptile house, full of snakes, lizards, and frogs (even though they’re not reptiles, zoos always put them in the reptile house I’ve noticed), but what I really enjoyed was the crocodile.  I can’t tell you the last time I saw one of those, especially indoors.  It was huge, and unlike their cousins the alligators, crocodiles are not friendly nor docile.  They are very agressive animals, and you can almost see it on their faces.  The Toledo Zoo also has a Chinese alligator, and I was wondering if Chinese alligators are similair to American alligators in temperment.  I know the Chinese alligator is smaller and much more rare, but I wonder if that is where the differences end…  I’ll have to do some research.

After the second dental appointment, we made a stop at Chuck E. Cheese, gauze packed mouth and all.  The kids had a blast, although it wasn’t very crowded, so Chuck E. didn’t venture off the stage for a visit, much to my 3-year-old’s disappointment.  But I came to a realization that it was our youngest-for-now’s first visit to a Chuck E. Cheese, at least her first one where she was old enough to enjoy it.  Since we live in the boondocks, we just don’t find ourselves at Chuck E. Cheese nearly as often as when we lived in the Chicago suburbs like when our oldest was a toddler.  But that’s quite alright, the place is expensive, and going infrequently really teaches the kids to appreciate the times we do make it there.  Over the years, not much has changed there…  when I was a kid, they called it Show Biz Pizza, and I was able to find pics of the old characters for others my age who like nostalgia.

The main character for the chain, a bear named Billy Bob (top right picture), really scared me as a kid…  for some reason, he had long claws, which can be really scary for a kid.  In Kindergarten, we got to go on a field trip to Show Biz; they took us behind the scenes and “undressed” one of the robots and took us back into the room where they have all the control panels for everything.  Why they wanted to show a bunch of 6-year-olds that the characters were actually robots is still beyond me, but it was a very cool field trip and something I still remember.