International TV

A few weeks ago, Curtis was contacted by a Finnish TV Station (From Finland if I misspelled that) that wanted to do a story about houses underwater during the USA housing crisis. When they first contacted him they asked if they thought he might be able to find a good example of a home that is being foreclosed on where the people owed more than it is worth. Curtis assured her that it would be no problem. They just wanted to confirm that it would be necessary to find those homes since this is what the story was about. Easy task. When you click on the link, nothing is in English, so I have no idea how to download this video other than watching it from the link. After it downloads, the story on Curtis starts at 9:28

 http://areena.yle.fi/video/1054344 

 Glad there are subtitles for Curtis, or I would have no idea what they are talking about (haha)

Ducks continued

On Saturday, May 29th I went out to check to see if the ducks had hatched. I knew it was getting close to the time they should be hatching. 

 I looked in the garden and 5 baby ducks jumped out. The Mother duck jumped out and the babies followed her around the yard. I went back to get my camera and they were already in the pool. I have no idea how the mother duck got under the net because she could not get out of the net by herself. We finally had to undo the net for her to get out. She tried and tried but just couldn't fit through the holes. She must have had an adrenalin rush to get her and her babies into some water. We kept the net off for a few days and watched Trey like a hawk. They never went back to the garden and 3 of the eggs never hatched. After about 4 days they seemed to be doing well and they were getting in and out of the pool all by themselves. 

 On Thursday morning I could only see 4 baby ducks and 2 of them were sitting outside the pool. The two sitting outside were starting to not look good. I don't know what the problem was because the night before they were all there swimming around doing fine. I don't know if it was the chlorine from the pool, or what happened. When the kids woke up they went to check on them. The two ducks were limp and weak and not well. Dax and Derek wanted to help them. Duck Triage unit on the back patio. They are trying to feed them baby formula through a medicine dropper. The ducks are not actually dead in these pictures but they sure look like it. So these two ducks died. I saw the mother duck with the remaining ducks walking out of the pool and around the yard, then I never saw them again. I hope they walked outside the neighborhood and down the street a block and found a new home at the pond. That is where they should be with the other ducks. Maybe we will see some more next year

Kindergarten Graduation.......

..........."they keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity" Mr. Incredible 

 The last day of school. The school has Kindergarten Graduation, which is cute, but somewhat of a joke to me. I hope these kids have much bigger and better things to celebrate than finishing Kindergarten. It is quite a production, the kids march in with the graduation music Pomp and Circumstance playing. Then they sing songs and do a little ceremony. The parents bring balloons, teddy bears wearing caps and gowns, and all kinds of gifts for their "graduate". Some kids and parents even dress up. Derek did not get a new outfit and neither did his parents. The parents all look like paparazzi trying to snap a picture of "Brangelina" when their little graduate walks in and accepts their diploma. We still got cute pictures.

Derek and his good friend and neighbor Sean Paterick.

Mrs. Laura Lopez, Derek's Kindergarten teacher, said how much she loves these kids. Which she truly does. She was a great teacher for Derek.

Derek marched in to  Pomp and Circumstance. This cute girl is named Chloe

Cute picture of Curtis and Derek right after the "ceremony" WAHOOO! Schools is out for summer.