We had some nice family time this weekend. On Saturday we went to base after dinner for a walk – treats in hand for dessert 🙂 We walked down to a little bridge over a stream feeding the fish ponds. The stream flows pretty fast, so I thought it would be fun to try playing “Pooh Sticks” – seeing which stick crosses under quickest (one of Pooh’s games). Sam and I had been looking forward to bringing Daddy to this particular bridge to play Pooh sticks, so it was neat to sit on the bridge, watch the fish (and sticks) cross under, and munch on our cookies. We even had a celebrity guest visit us! The huge puffer fish we found while running on this trail came by! I think he swims upstream along the edge looking for food, then he seems to float out into the middle where the current is fast and floats backward back down the stream to start his “route” all over again. Dave finally got to see this huge fish and knows that I’m not crazy. We actually saw several different puffers while we walked along the trail.

Then the adventures continued…Sam and I saw a huge toad lumber in front of us while we were looking at a large bulldozer on base. The toad spooked me because it lumbered like a rat, it didn’t hop. Sam was like “I want mommy to come!” meaning to come away from the toad. I tried to tell him it was fine, just funny. He was not convinced. Then yesterday I was transplanting some ferns and was clearing away some mulch. With my last stroke of the garden tool, the ground shook like a bowl of Jello, then lurched! YOW! You should have seen ME hop away! Dave likes to exaggerate my “toad dance” a bit, saying I was even shaking out my hair (huh?!) and prancing and dancing all around shrieking, and pointing dumbly at the ground. Then I brought Dave over to see and he still could NOT see it even with me pointing 24″ away. I think he was trying to get me to touch it or something. Those toads are really camouflaged! And they’re huge. I couldn’t believe he was hiding an inch under the ground, almost like he was hibernating. If you don’t believe me, and how fascinating they are, check out these links 🙂

inside a cane toad’s head – pretty funny computer graphics

this documentary can be rented on netflix! (I already moved it up to #1 in our queue!)