my hands

More importantly,  I learned from the x-rays that I have a lot going on.

i've got a lot going on!

• Area #1 is a cloudy spot on my tibia that the orthopedist wants me to have a MRI to look at. He said there may be a possibility that when I fell I fractured the bone and the increased density (that’s why it’s cloudy) may be where it is healing.
• Area #2 is a heel spur.  I have one on both of my feet.  This may help explain why I wake up with foot pain in the morning.
• Area #3 is a needle.  That’s right, a needle! About 8 years ago I stepped on a needle on my floor (from my cross-stitching heyday) and thought I’d pulled it out.  Life goes on and I forgot all about it until the clinician asked me about it as we were going over my x-rays.   I couldn’t believe it but you can certainly see it’s a needle – you can see the eye and everything on the higher-res pic I have.  That was too much!  I don’t need to have it taken out though as long as it’s not bothering me, so I guess in my foot it will stay.  

As for my ankle pain; still to be seen.  I may have done something bad to the tendons that stabilize my ankle so we will see what happens with that.   TMI? maybe

Well, the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago is seeking to make this a dream come true for people like-minded as myself.  If only I was free to do this – I’d certainly be willing to try.  They are seeking someone to move-in to a special residence they’ve constructed and live at the Museum for a month – all the while capturing their experiences via blogging, videocasting, and social media means.

A blog post on ApartmentTherapy.com shows this picture, as well as more pictures of the living space. More details about the experience, called Month at the Museum, are available on the MOSI site.

Here’s a video preview

FRIDAY

Friday evening, we went to dinner at Kyoto Japanese Restaurant. We went there last year for Jihad’s birthday so it was a great place to go again. Who can not love the fact that you get fire in your face during dinner?  I didn’t get any great pictures, but we had fun.

SATURDAY
On Saturday we were busy just about all day.   We had a birthday party for Jihad at Chuck E. Cheese followed by a Nashville Rollergirls roller derby game.  It was the Music City All-Stars vs. the Tallahassee Rollergirls.

The Party
We’ve never hosted a party at Chuck E. Cheese before.  While I expected the chaos, it was certainly a lot to bear – almost overwhelming! We had about 20 kids total and about 15 adults.  It was crazy! But we had so much fun.

The cake we had for him was a Star Wars cake from Publix – a marble cake with buttercream frosting – good stuff.   It had Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on top battling it out.

We think the kids enjoyed themselves. We were there for more than 3 hours, and I’d not expected that. The schedule at Chuck E. Cheese is well-planned – we had a party hostess assigned to assist us all.   Time passed very quickly.  Here is a video of Jihad in the TicketBlaster.  He won the largest prize there is to get in there too – a red ticket that gave him 200 free tickets.

After all was said and done, we packed it up and headed over to Municipal Auditorium for the roller derby game.

Roller Derby
This was our 2nd time attending a roller derby game.  We went last year and enjoyed it a lot! So, we’ve been looking for an opportunity to go back.  The Nashville Rollergirl teams are just cool.  There is even a Nashville Junior Roller Derby.  You have to be at least 10 years old to join, so if they’re still around when Kaleya comes of age – we’ll have to see if she has any interest.

Prior to sitting down, we ran into one of the players, Jersey Jackhammer.

Then, we sat down, and watched a great game. NRG won the game 159 to 70. I’m still learning how the game is played, but I have the basics down. Well enough to know when we were doing good and when we were not doing good enough.  Here is a clip of a round or “jam” as it’s called.  We see Rambo Sambo taking the “lead jammer” position.  Then, she circles back around to catch up and ultimately break through the pack to score points for her team.

The kids seemed to enjoy themselves.  They asked questions about how the game was played and even Kaleya joined in with applause when she heard everyone else doing it because of a good score.   It was a great game – during one bout, Rambo Sambo scored 28 pts.  Another player that was fierce was Lady Fury. All the players were great though.

After the game we went down to the speedway to see if we could meet the players; and meet we did! Many of them were still on the floor and we liked how well they interacted with the crowd. We got a whole series of pictures of Kaleya w/ the players and one of the Jeerleaders:

Kaleya with Union-Jack-U-Up

Kaleya and Union-Jack-U-Up

Kaleya and Dramatic Pyrony

Kaleya and Showstopper

Kaleya and Rambo Sambo

Kaleya and Lady Fury

Kaleya and Anita PBR

Kaleya and Maulin Monroe

As we were leaving the auditorium, the entertaining band, Halfbrass, was outside performing impromptu.  Kids were dancing, some of the Jeerleaders were dancing, and the crowd was singing.  See the video below.

A great birthday weekend so far! We plan to go back to their next game on August 7th.  All in all, a great day and now I must go to bed!  However, before I go, here are some things to know

• another video from the roller derby game – the girls being introduced
• see info about all the girls on the team
• Maulin Monroe & Rambo Sambo talking about the sport
• and the whole set our pictures from today are here

In other news, last weekend we took Kaleya to a “bring your friend” day at a dojo and while she was a little timid at first, she warmed up to it.  You go girl!

at karate class in June. big brother accompanied her on the mat to help with her nervousness.

Day 1 & 2 – travel to Florida & detour through campus of the University of Florida, visit to Heritage Village, St. Petersburg Pier & climbing in a Kapok tree

Day 3 – Science Center of Pinellas, International Plaza

Day 4 - Florida Aquarium, Honeymoon Island Beach

Day 5 – Adventure Mini-Golf, visiting a Seabird Sanctuary, and Indian Rocks Beach

Videos

• Univ. of Florida Graffiti wall
• Snowflake Moray Eel & the Science Center of Pinellas
• an Otter plays @ the Florida Aquarium
• Swim with the Fishes @ the Florida Aquarium
• the No Bone Zone @ the Florida Aquarium
• the kids play in the water area @ the Florida Aquarium
• watching a hermit crab
• Miles getting splashed!
• Kaleya on the Indian Rocks Beach

Here is the slideshow of all the pictures

or, you can view them all here.

Saturday was our last full day in Florida.  My mom was off work so she was able to venture out with us.  We had hot dogs for lunch, which Miles was kind enough to make (he totally rocks!) and then we went out to play miniature golf on the beach @ Smuggler’s Cove Adventure Golf.

Their golf course was 18 holes and unfortunately, we went out at the hottest point of the day.  The course was neat though – themed with decor of palms, pirate ships, cave taverns, etc.  As well as beautiful views of the ocean and intercoastal water.

They also had baby alligators that we were able to feed.

Miles & Jihad quickly got ahead of me so I didn’t get many pictures of them playing, but they did play the whole course! Kaleya decided at about hole 8 that she was too tired & hot to continue. I didn’t blame her! Before she quit she took this picture of me and I just love it!

Following the miniature golf, my mother found another free site for us to visit – the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. The sanctuary is is the largest wild bird hospital in the United States and was just down the street from the miniature golf. A quick trip down Gulf Blvd and we were there. Let me tell you, birds were everywhere!

Even Kaleya got into the spirit and started taking pictures.

The Sanctuary is right on the shore, so even though we were not dressed for it, we decided to go play on the water — Miles was insistent on “touching” the Gulf of Mexico. We had such a great time on the water! The kids found more seashells and it was so beautiful out.

In this video clip Kaleya runs from an approaching wave.

After the beach we went back to my mom’s, had a big spaghetti dinner, then called it an evening. Sunday was spent on the road coming back home to Nashville. Utterly exhausted, but we had a great trip!