The AC Menagerie Bulletin

Welcome to the August 26th addition of

 The AC Menagerie Bulletin

The AC Menagerie Bulletin is a weekly digital newspaper highlighting brief accounts of the week's happenings around the Zoo (our home) and on blogs by myself (Nita Davis). Sit back, relax and enjoy while you catch up with the Davis family.

Zoo News 

Our little zoo was blessed overnight with not just one but two additional fun animals. A wily little fox, who just happens to be the best friend of our miniature Giraffe, and Chewy the best friend of our little squirrel.

 

Celebration News 

Yesterday was my oldest brothers Birthday. He lives too far away for me to celebrate with him but that didn't stop me from wishing him a Happy Birthday with a silly e-card.

Sports News
We headed over to Scheels to check out some sporting equipment, and I wound up with some fun photos instead. Sissy is terrified of heights so the entire time we were inside Scheels she just kept saying 'No, No, No'. Bubba not to be left out has decided he doesn't like heights either. They both refused to take the escalator to the second floor and nervously climbed the staircase. I decided to take pity on them so we took the elevator down. As you can see from their expressions neither care too much for elevators either. I do believe it is safe to say neither will be taking up skydiving or a billion other sports that make use of varying degrees of altitude.

 

Comics 
Skippy shared this comic on my Facebook page with a comment asking if this was how my species came to be. I don't know but that may explain why my mother loves elephants. LOL

 

The Blog Review

On Artistic Composition this week:

- SIMC: Summer Rewind: This week's Sunday In My City focused on my oldest granddaughters softball game, with photos taken at the beginning of summer.

- Motivational Self Portrait: A combination of poetry and photography.

- Wonders N Wishes: This weeks Wonder Award was given to a 9 year old boy from whom we could all take a lesson from.

 On Nita's Photography this week:

- Happy: A bit of street photography capturing the joy of a young boy during a parade.

- European Hornet: An up close view of a rather mean insect.

- WW: Protesting School: With school starting in just under two weeks I thought a fun anti-school cat photo would be a great wordless Wednesday photo.

- The Challenge: Self Portrait: This is the first of 30 photography challenges that I will be taking part in over the next month.

-  Back to School Portraits: A few fun portraits of two of my grandchildren.

- Do You See What I See?: This weeks Weekend Reflection and Sky watch photos highlight seeing what another person sees.

Have a Fabulous Weekend!
Linking up with Willy Nilly Friday

SIMC: Such Sweet Harmony

One of the joys in any city is the joy of listening to the local schools winter concert. Sure the kids are just learning but typically they work really hard and present the audience with a good program. This last week my granddaughters middle school orchestra had their winter concert and we were treated not only to the six and seventh grade concert but a mini rehearsal of the eight grades concert opening. 

Their orchestra only had one bass player and so four bass players from nearby high school agreed to join them in their concert. Two of which were former students of my granddaughter's middles school and the orchestra teacher laughingly told them "see I told you I would get you back".

The mini rehearsal was really awesome. The kids filed into the auditorium playing as they spread out in the isles around the audience. It really made me want to go watch their concert as well.

After the concert I quickly snapped this shot of my granddaughter who was in such a hurry to get back to the instrument room that I forgot to change the ISO on my camera. So to save the grainy and slightly fuzzy photo I applied a few artistic filters.

I had hoped to get out and about to share some of our city's sights this week but it was too cold and then this weekend I was just very lazy. 

Did you have a good weekend?

Vickie Powers Park

The other day Sissy, Bubba and I went park hunting. This is one of my grandchildren's favorite activities. We just pick an area of the city and go exploring looking for fun parks. Some days the parks are not very exciting and we wind up going to one that we found earlier but on this day we were happy to find the community built Vickie Powers Park on the edge of Rapid City.

The park is a good size with lots of fun playground equipment to climb, hide and play on.

To join the virtual travel fun click on the Sunday In My City button.

December Wrap Up

December like the rest of this year has gone by so fast that I almost missed it. I did however capture a few special moments during the month. 

First was Sissy and Bubba's Winter music concerts. Sissy plays both in orchestra and in band as well as singing in the chorus. In their school band and orchestra are only open to 3-5 grade so Bubba who is in second grade was only had a chorus performance.

Sissy and her best friend both play violin and are in the center of the above photo. Everyone calls them twins and they do look a lot alike. Here is a cropped version of the above photo. It is not the best but easier to see why they are referred to as twins by their classmates.

In band Sissy is a percussionist and for this concert she got to play the snare drum which she was very happy about.

I tried to get a nice shot of her in the chorus performance but I definitely wasn't prepared for the fact that both her and her 'twin' moved the entire time. They held hands and even when everyone else was standing still the two girls swayed to the music swinging their joined hands. It was really cute but made for fuzzy photos.

Bubba was much easier to get a nice shot of. He is the little boy in the second row from the bottom wearing the deep blue shirt, just behind and to the right of the boy who is smacking his own forehead. Yes that is what he is doing, the poor boy goofed and sang out before it was time to start singing. I felt so bad for him as he didn't sing the rest of the performance. 

The concerts all went well and were very cute.

Next came Christmas

We had a quiet but nice Christmas. 

The kids were happy with their presents.

 Miss. M was happy with the fuzzy Cheshire Cat sock's the kids got her.

 Mrs. G was happy with the 'old lady' scarf the kids got her.

Mr. G was happy amused with the 'connect the dot' activity book the kids got him. His job requires mapping (connecting dots) so we tease him that he is just a glorified dot connector.

With a little over a day left until the new year I am excitedly anticipating a number of changes in my life and hopefully they will all lead to a rewarding year. 

How about you, are you looking forward to 2015?

Joyful Play

After a walk around the frozen lake at Memorial park we saw a large flock of geese. The kids got all excited, not wanting to scare them off they quietly and slowly walked up to them. Once the geese noticed them and started to fly off the kids ran after them. Soon the kids and geese were all going in circles. The kids would run a bit then walk. Some of the geese would fly to a different area while others would go up in the air when the kids got too close, only to circle around and land back near the kids.

I am really curious to hear what you my readers think. I understand that geese are protected waterfowl and there are laws regulating hunting and trade practices involving protected waterfowl. However, the kids were not hunting are trying to capture the geese. At no time did the kids try to hurt the geese. They did not throw anything at them or even yell or make loud noises. This is a city park not a wildlife refuge where disturbing the wildlife would be against the law, and yet I had someone tell me that we broke the law? Yes the kids startled the geese, but the geese did not seem all that upset about it. I mean heck let's face it geese can be pretty ornery critters and not once did any of them make that scary honking noise or come after the kids. So I really don't see any harm in running with the geese, what do you think?

For more virtual travels click on the Sundays in my City button:

Have a wonderful Week!

SIMC: Rising to the Challenge

It has taken us a while to convince 10 year old Sissy that the only way to overcome a fear is to face it. She is so terrified of heights that until recently we had to carry when crossing bridges, climbing staircases other than the one at home and going in elevators. But look at what we got her to do last week!

7 year old Bubba coaxed her all the way up, pointing out where to grab on to the rock and where to place her feet, and on occasion touching her sleeve to make her feel more stable.

She was very excited that when she realized she had made it to the top. We of course were very happy she made it and didn't panic. It may not look very high in these first two photos, but check this next one out!

 If I had to guess I would say it was about 13 feet high give or take a foot.

As you can see Bubba is the fearless one when it comes to heights.

As I explore more of the hidden parks around Rapid City I am discovering most of them don't have much in the way of traditional playgrounds but they do all seem to have rock formations like this one that the children can climb.

Thank you for visiting. To continue your virtual travels visit Unknown Mami's to see what other cities are linked up.

Wild Wet Wednesday

Okay so these weren't taken on a Wednesday. But hey, looking at this last weeks photos trying to decide what to post today the photos just screamed this title. So here is my interpretation of what a wild wet Wednesday should look like.

Happy Wednesday!

Storybook Island

Storybook Island  is a free storybook themed amusement park that was created by the Rapid City Rotary Club. Last Sunday we decided to check it out and here is what we found.

As you can see Sissy is not camera shy at all. Getting a shot of Bubba was a bit harder, but I did manage to get a few.

Lissa had almost as much fun as Sissy and Bubba.

Of course Mrs. G and I didn't want to be left out of the fun so we opted for a few random selfies.

To say the least we all had a wonderful time and definitely recommend others check out Storybook Island.