New Orchid!

So when I was at work yesterday I met the grandmother of the 2 boys that I nanny for. Well I should probably explain to those of you who don't know what I have been doing with myself lately! I found a job being a Nanny for a family with 2 boys (Charlie 15, and Sam 13) plus there 3 cats ( Coco, George , and Emily!) and dog Rodger. The boys are obviously a lot older so my job is pretty basic. I am there to cart them around to friends houses, tennis lessons, make dinner, keep them out of trouble, ect. In all honesty most of the time there is absolutely nothing to do so I end up watching animal planet or playing with the animals, Very low key. So back to my story. Yesterday I met their grandmother. She is this sweet lady that travels the world and collects Orchids. We hit it off and talked for hours and when it was time for me to go home she told me to take home this Orchid with me. I told her no but she insisted. It is this gorgeous purple and yellow one that she got in Florida a few weeks ago. I didn't know much about them so I stopped by this wonderful garden center on my way home to get a new pot and learn what on earth to do with it. I met this cute old Asian man that I could hardly understand (makes me wish you where here Richard and Nathan!) who re potted it for me and told me how to take care of it. This guy was so sweet! He even packaged it up all cute for me with a bow and everything!









He really did a good job. He even put all of this moss on it and made it look so pretty! :)






















Here is a close up of what the flowers look like. I love how they are outlined with white! This also makes me miss you Marinke! (lol, probably spelled that wrong!) You would love this garden place, there are all sorts of Orchids everywhere!










I had to take a picture of the pot because it is so perfect for me. I am obsessed with swirl patterns and I just feel in love with this pot! So thats about it for the Orchid. Lets just hope it survives the car ride home!!!

BIG Storm!

Since I finally figured out how to post on this thing I thought I better post again soon before I forgot! I just wanted to show you guys these pictures. Lately it has been storming like crazy out here . Sometimes the storms get pretty intense. These are some pictures of a storm that was going over us the other day. It was so creepy! As you can see there where these black clouds covering us and the thunder was just out of this world! I got pretty nervous when I was taking a picture and then saw a house about 2 blocks from us get hit by lightning! I couldn't believe my eyes!! this huge bolt of lightning came down and seconds latter huge sparks and flames where coming up higher than the trees. It was intense to watch, I hope no one was home. To bad I didnt get a shot of it. So thats about it for our weather adventures this week. Post again soon!

Day at the Beach

Since Nicholaus accidentally erased this at the bottom, it is now at the top. This is just a cute picture of him avoiding having his picture taken, while at the beach.
So Nicholaus and I decided to drive down to the beach today. It is about a 40 minute drive from where we live, and we were really excited to get there. We arrived immediately dissapointed to find that this was not much of a beach at all. We were soon surprised to find many dead jelly-fish skewed all over the sand! For some reason, there were hundreds of these jelly-fish that were swimming to shore. This is a picture of one of them that was still alive. Don't know what kind it is, but we thought it was pretty cool.

Dead Hela-monster? Okay, so lets have a little zoology lesson . . . What looks like metal, and is related to pre-historic tarantulas? Ding! According to Nicholaus, a giant fossil on the beach. Actually though, it is called a Horse Shoe Crab!!! How cool is this!?!? I have always wanted to find one ever since my zoology class in High School!! As we were getting ready to leave this dissapointment of a beach, I stumbled across what looked to be some metal helmet in the sand (with a tail) . . . Anyway, looking closer, we discovered what it was. Check out the cool pictures below to see more of what it looks like!
At first, there was no way I was going to touch this thing! And besides, we thought it was dead anyway, so we just turned it over with a rock.
When it started to twitch and hover away, we realized, HOLY COW, THIS THING IS ALIVE!!!
So now I will take over on the typing (yeah, it's me, Nicholaus). Emily soon found that this helmet, like any other animal, was something she HAD to touch with her hands. This picture is her showing it like a dog at the prize show.
This one is the thing sticking it's butt at me, with the tail going for my eye!
Emily felt guilty after getting him out of his sand-station, so we decided to relocate him for a brief moment in the water (mainly for a bath, to get a better look at him). These guys do belong in the water too, so don't worry - we didn't hurt him.
After getting a good look at this guy, we lovingly named him Henry, the Horse Shoe Crab. It doesn't really work because we didn't keep him, but if we ever find him again, we'll see what happens. . .
His tail is going crazy there - I think he was finally starting to get angry! At first, it was wagging more like a dog's tail, but then he started to move his crab/pre-historic-spider legs and tail in a frantic way. So we finally let him go back to a peaceful life, face-down in the sand and water.
My cute wife standing on the beach :)