3 Years And 10 Months

Howdy y'all, Hallo, Moin Moin, y'allright me ducks!

Here's a valuable lesson I've learned this month - never go anywhere without a baseball hat. Sure, a hat will protect my face from the sun, but more importantly, if I get into trouble and Mum starts yelling at me, I turn the hat around and pull the elastic band down under my nose and make a piggy face. Mum can't help but laugh - if I try to look sad at the same time, she laughs even more and eventually forgets why I was in trouble.

Well this has been a really busy month! We headed back to Fredricksburg for their classic car show. This is one of my favourite shows because it has everything I love - I can ride my pedal car, sit on a long horn, eat giant sausages and dance to live country music. If they had a bouncy castle it would be THE best place on earth. Dad entered my car in the show this year instead of his, so it was officially my first car show. It's a strange place though - I asked a guy called Willie Nelson why the chickens were in the trees and why a lady was walking around with a parrot on her shoulder, but he never answered me.

I took my Dad to a Father's Day car show, I gave him some vouchers for kisses, hugs and a picnic so he used the picnic voucher at the show. We had sandwiches, crisps, cupcakes, pie and juice - I let Dad have a beer since it was a special occasion.

The president of our Chevy Club had a barbeque at their house, they have a garden as big as Germany! They have their own workshop full of 50's stuff, a ramp, a gas pump and they even had pedal cars that they let me ride on. They all worked on Dad's car and they finally fixed the horn - I personally quality tested it for 15 minutes, they did a great job. There was lots of food and root beer floats which tasted like cough medicine with vanilla ice cream. It was a really hot day and at the same time, really cool.

A friend of mine from school had a pool party at her house but the best birthday party ever was on the 4th of July - America's birthday! I'm surprised my parents could keep up with me because America certainly knows how to throw a birthday bash. We started out by going to our local park - bouncy castles, train rides and live music then we dropped in at our local fire station for pancakes and sausages. I took a quick nap and then we headed out to the ball park, Dell Diamond. They had a 'Freedom Festival' there and they built a stage and dance floor right on the pitch. The main attraction was Kellie Pickler (a famous country singer here in the US) and then there was a firework show that lasted for hours. I would have stayed around to see Jerry Jeff Walker but the parents were exhausted.

I also went to see a my first movie at the cinema - for all you Brits out there, I went to the pictures to watch a film. Why didn't my folks tell me about this earlier? Pop corn, lemonade and the biggest TV I've ever seen in my life, how can I possibly go back to watching our tiny projector screen!

So that was this month. Click on the slide show presentation or right here to see the pictures.Just a couple of videos this month - how best to jump in the pool and the coolest CD player I've ever seen. I was trying to get lemonade out of it all day until Mum explained that it's called a "juke box" and not a "juice box".

Hugs and Kisses
Carl

3 Years And 9 Months Old

Howdy y'all, Hallo, Moin Moin, y'allright me ducks!








Summer's here at last! I love summer in Texas because the only thing you can do outside is swim - it's too hot to do anything else. In fact some days are so hot that you're lucky to even survive the trip from the backdoor to the pool. I popped into Osh Kosh to get the latest pool outfit, picked up some matching shades and I'm ready to surf the waves. Of course the only waves we have in our pool is when Mum jumps in the water but they're good for a 10 minute ride at least, depending on what she ate for lunch.
The only downside to summer is that we get some pretty bad storms coming through every now and again. Last week we had frozen golf balls hit our house which broke some windows and smashed the skylights and winds so strong that a tree fell over in the garden and we lost our flag pole - the 2nd one since we've been here. The car and the barbie are full of dents too. These storms are pretty cool to watch but they're really, really loud.

This month was not the most exciting month I've ever had. I had to take a couple of days out from school because my eyes were pink, turned out to be allergies though. This piece of news may be useful once I have to go to Kindergarten, I just need to figure out how to make my eyes pink again. I have another new teacher because Miss Nancy has taken the summer off. Her name is Miss Marie and I think she's already impressed with me because she told my Mum I was a good talker. I'm glad she likes my voice though because Mum keeps saying I don't stop talking from the minute I get up to the minute I go to bed and keeps telling me to give it a rest. Parents are strange like that, they spend days and months teaching you how to talk and walk and as soon as you get the hang of it, they tell you to keep quiet and sit down. Same thing with food. Mum takes cold food, heats it to death in the Microwave and then tells me I can't eat it till it's cooled down. And what are underpants for exactly? I have to wear them at home where no one can see them and when I leave the house no one see's them either because they're under my trousers.

I took some more sports classes at the YMCA - T-Ball, Soccer and Basketball, I even managed to convince my Dad to buy me a new outfit, shoes, bat and t-ball stand so I can practice in the garden. Like I said, it's summer so I may not get to play in the garden again till November.

I've been really lazy with my toy blog this month - Outside The Box. I did manage to squeeze in a review about the Baufix toys though which turned out to be a great way to keep my parents quiet but I'm still trying to decide which box to open next. I might try out our new Varis construction sets in between dips in the pool and annoying my parents but both tasks are pretty time consuming.

Did I ever tell you that we have German Biergarten near to where we live? It's actually pretty cool - bratwurst, sauerkraut and schnitzels with live music at the weekends. I took my mate Remi there a couple of weeks ago and he was just amazed. He's never seen wine cooling in a plastic beer stein before or grown men in leather shorts and has certainly never yodelled whilst doing the chicken dance - I think he's a bit jealous that I'm half German.

So that was this month. Click on the slide show presentation or right here to see the pictures. I've uploaded some videos this month too because I'm teaching Mum how to speak German and also helping her to loose that weird British accent she's got going on. My latest collection of dance moves are also included for those of you who need a little help in that department.

Hugs and Kisses
Carl

3 Years And 8 Months

Howdy y'all, Hallo,Moin Moin,y'allright me ducks!

I know what you're thinking - he's finally had enough! Looks like he packed a case, grabbed some jelly bears and he's out of there! Not exactly - my case is full of sun cream, sunglasses and flip-flops and I've got my boarding pass in my back pocket - destination Disney World, Florida. It's been almost a year since I saw my mate Mickey, so I knew he was probably missing me. Mum had some work to do in Florida so I graciously offered to keep Dad entertained during the day. We had a 4 day ticket for the parks and one water park. We managed to see most of everything and some things even twice. I was a little worried about overwhelming Dad with all the fun but I was comforted by some wise words from some other kids - 'he'll sleep well tonight'. Mum joined us at the weekends and believe me it's not easy taking care of both of them. The 'It's a Small World' fiasco for instance. This boat ride takes you through a typical scene of many different countries, beautifully portraying their cultures, costumes and traditions. Last year, we pulled out our camera, eager to capture these scenes only to find that the battery was dead. Of course the spare was fully charged and ready to go but unfortunately it was also back at the hotel. So this year we were fully prepared. We boarded the boat, joyfully positioned the camera and successfully shot 4 pictures before the battery died on us. But never mind, the spare was fully charged and ready to go and also back at the hotel! The joys of having parents...
I got all caught up with Mickey and my other mates in Florida and even managed to watch a couple of films (or as Mickey says, take in a movie or two). I don't think films are very good for your eyes though because they give you some special glasses when you walk in. It must be to protect your eyes from the stuff flying towards you - in the muppet film for example, there were some bees buzzing right in front of me. Now that I think about it, that's probably why my Dad called it a 3-bee movie. I tried to grab the bees but couldn't catch them for some reason....
We also visited EPCOT for the first time which was just fantastic. Me and Mum went 'soaring' which was just like hang gliding. We flew over canyons and snow filled valleys and Tinker Bell gave us a birds eye view of Disney World at night. The only thing that Dad really wanted to see was "Ellen's Energy Adventure", a movie/ride that has Ellen Degeneres explaining the past, present and future of energy resources and at one point even takes you through a forest full of Dinosaurs. Dad waited all day to go on this ride and after asking 'can we go in now' for the 100th time, we finally gave in. His little legs ran ahead to the strangely empty waiting line only to hear that the ride was closed. You'll never guess why.... 'Ellen's Energy Adventure' was closed due to a power failure! Priceless! I laughed so hard that we had to take a rest. By the time my stomach had stopped hurting from all the laughing, the ride was open again and Dad got to go on the ride after all.

All in all, it was a magical week, I just hope they'll remember some of it when they grow up....

Last weekend was pretty cool too. We went to Houston for the weekend to the Lone Star Rally, an annual party for Texas Classic Car Clubs. Why do I hang out with antiques? Well it's not any different than hanging out with my parents and I also get to stay up late, swim in the hotel pool and the most important thing of all, I get a free pass to ride my Chevy inside the hotel. If I got a Dollar for every picture taken of me in my pedal car, I'd have my retirement home in Florida by now.

Last Sunday was Mother's Day here in America which I think is a really strange idea. If you ask me, Mum should be grateful every day that she gets to be my Mum, not just once a year. I mean really, what will they come up with next - Dad's day? I don't think so - Dad helped me clean my Harley so I know he's grateful.

So that was May. Click on the slide show or right here to see the pictures. I've added quite a few Disney pics taken on the rare occasions we actually did have a fully functioning camera.

See you all next month,
Hugs and Kisses
Carl