My Brother the Snake Charmer

Here is Carl's little friend that they found on Tuesday morning. Actually Bailey the dog spotted it and started barking. There was a hole that goes under the house that the snake had found and slithered back into, so they had to wait for the snake to come back out.

Mr. Snake came back out and wasn't to thrilled about Carl blocking his way back to safety. So not able to get a clear shot of the head, Carl managed to get a shovel shot to the body.

I don't think they were planning on having any snake soup or anything like that, but he says that sharpened shovels are now placed around the yard in case of any other little friends that want to visit.

Side note: the news today had a story about a guy that got bit by a snake on the hand as he was trying to shoo a rattle snake away from his family while they were visiting a grave site at Rose Hills, which happens to be on the other side of the mountain were Carl and Francine live. I don't think I'll be hiking or wandering around there till next winter when they are all sleeping.

LOTS OF WICKEDLY TULIPS

So after a wickedly fun Sunday and a fairly busy Monday morning/afternoon spent shopping, we all met up back at Thalea's house to go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I like tulips - they definitely mean springtime. But in California you just don't see them growing anywhere other then the grocery stores and those ones are the expensive kind. Evidently they need COLD weather to grow in and it's just not cold enough for them to grow in LB unless they live in your refrigerator. Well I have enough problems with things growing in my refrigerator that I don't know about let alone trying to remember that I might have tulips in there, so I just don't see tulips growing in my flower beds in the all too near future. It was amazing to see 250,000 tulips. Here I am trying to pose like the statue. Thalea was afraid I was going to fall in the water. They have a really fun children's area. Here I am with Mason and Sam posing with the bear. The bear was a little shaky about the boys being on him, so I was holding both of them tight. They have this really cool water fall area. I blogged stalked Deb's or Sandie's and they said it was the world's largest man-made falls. Who knew??? Here is Mason with me in the tulips - he tells me I'm his favorite auntie! I believe him too! Poor Sam was riding in the stroller the whole time and he wanted out to touch the flowers. So again I'm the cool aunt who stole him from his stroller and let him touch!!! I saw this fountain /waterfall thing . . . ummm - not sure what to call it, but it's definitely cool. We hurried and took pictures. There was a bride and groom that weren't getting married till June but wanted to get wedding pictures with the tulips. Here's a nice picture of Thalea and I, or to be grammatically correct, me and Thalea. Man you could never tell that in a couple of months we will both be in our 40's. Yes - I'll still always be younger and prettier, but I'll give her smarter!!! Love ya Sis!!! They have this really big pond with a TON of Koi fish in it. I was busy taking pictures before my battery died so I was the last of our group on the pier thingy. Being the COOL Auntie . . . I happened to have one quarter in my pocket - not sure how or why it was there. But it was enough to buy a handful of fish food so Mason could feed the fish!!! I'm laughing or smiling here because my life is being threatened if I dropped Mason into the pond. I personally think he would have had a blast swimming with all the fish, but I don't think his parents would have been happy about that . . . and it was a little chilly, so I held him tight. One last shot of me with Thalea and the boys. So Sam's 1st birthday was going to be a week after I left so I got to do a little early celebrating with him. He kinda liked me or at least thought I was pretty cool. Mason will have to do a little talking me up to him, but he can't help liking his cool but silly Auntie.