Category: airplanes

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An Afternoon of Happy People!

We just got home from a weekend trip to Denver.  Before we even left Dallas, I knew it would be a good trip because I met all kinds of happy people in the airport!

Mr. Guy and The Lady wanted some holy donuts for a snack on the airplane.  I’m not exactly sure what makes a donut holy, but they went into a store and asked for holy donuts and the nice lady behind the counter filled a bag with them and gave it to Mr. Guy.  Then the cheerful lady behind the counter asked all about me.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told her about how we travel and meet new people and about my 100 People Project.  She said that sounded like fun and was happy to be #37 of my 100 People!

Ms. Lashanna shared her holy donuts and her smile with us.  What a great start to our trip!  I still don’t understand the whole holy donut thing, but if they make everyone cheerful, I guess that’s all I need to understand.

After we met Ms. Lashanna, we went to sit at our gate to wait for our airplane.  There we met more happy people!  Ms. Shelby was sitting across from us.  She asked what my name was.  Mr. Guy told her that I was his little blue and orange furry monster, Blueper B.  She said that she had a little monster too.  His name was Baby Ivan.  He didn’t look like a monster to me. He was a cute little boy. Ms. Shelby told us that she liked to call him her little monster.  We talked to Ms. Shelby for a long time while she and Baby Ivan ate their lunch and we ate some of our donuts.  Even though Ms. Shelby had some sad things happening in her life, she was still cheerful and smiling.  That made me smile too!

Ms. Shelby said she and Baby Ivan would also love to have their picture taken with me!  I was excited about that, but Baby Ivan wasn’t too sure that he wanted me to be that close to his mommy…or maybe it was that close to his chicken nugget.  I think he thought that I might try to eat his chicken nugget.  I wouldn’t do that!  Most of the time Mr. Guy and The Lady feed me well.  I don’t have to take food from sweet little babies!

There are lots of terrible things going on in the world and sometimes it is hard to smile.  We were lucky to meet all of these nice people.  There was also another lady sitting beside us while we were talking to Ms. Shelby.  That Lady had to leave her house in Florida because of Hurricane Irma, which was on its way close to her home. Her family wanted her way far away from Florida so that she would be safe.  Even though she was facing the unknown of this great big storm, this lady too was cheerful.  I didn’t have time to have my picture taken with her.  I do keep thinking about her, hoping that her home is safe and that she is still smiling.

I will probably never see Ms. Lashanna, Ms. Shelby, Baby Ivan, or the nice lady that was sitting next to us ever again, but I will always remember the smiles and happy conversations that we shared for a few minutes in the airport on that day.  The world would be a much better place if everyone made a point to share smiles and kind words every day!

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Play-ing in NYC


I bet you are wondering why I went to New York…

Offspring #2 and The Lady have a friend, Ms. Mandy, they said that she plays right in New York City and they wanted to go visit her.  That sounded fun.  I like to play.  When I asked The Lady where we were going to play  – at Ms. Mandy’s apartment? a park? a pool? a beach? – she said it was not that kind of play.  Ms. Many writes the kind of plays that you see on stage at the theater.  She is a playwright; she doesn’t play right.  Well, I bet she does play right, but that is not what was happening on this trip.  We were going to see the play From A to Double D that she wrote and Ms. Mandy was also acting in her play.  I like the theater so this plan was OK with me.

The title of Ms. Mandy’s play sounded like it was a story about the dictionary, but only a little bit of the dictionary, since it only talked about the the first three letters and part of the fourth.  I thought about it and that makes sense.  That is job security for Ms. Mandy.  At this rate, she can write six sequels to her play before she gets all the way to the letters ZZ!  I did think that it was a little strange that she stopped with “DD.”  I had to go look at the dictionary and see what words even started with two d’s.  All the words that I found were either abbreviations or acronyms.  I didn’t really understand Ms. Mandy’s thinking on this one, but she is the professional playwright so I guess she knows what she is doing.  When I asked The Lady about this, she explained that the play was not about the dictionary, it was about bras.  Bras??  The Lady explained that little (boy) blue and orange furry monsters don’t need to know or think about bras.  They are for grown-up ladies.  She showed me hers.  Boy was that a confusing contraption!!  It was even more strange than my vest!  Not only did it not have any sleeves, it didn’t have much of a front or back either.  I can see why the grown-up ladies wear these weird things under their clothes.  They are funny looking!  The Lady said that grown-up ladies wear bras to keep their breasts in place.  Breasts?  Where is Mr. Guy when I need him?  I needed a boy to explain all this girl stuff to me! 

As it turned out, I learned a lot about bras and boobs breasts and girls while watching From A to Double D.  I don’t think I understood everything, but I am pretty sure that I am glad that I only have to worry about my t-shirts and not trainers, underwires, and sports bras!  There are definite advantages to be a little blue and orange furry boy monster!  

I was happy to be at the play because The Lady, Offspring #2, and The Young Guy were very excited to be there.  Offspring #2 has been friends with Ms. Mandy for a long time, since when she was kind of a little girl and not famous, maybe since after the trainer time and before the double D time.  


And, Ms. Mandy was happy that they were there.  We had breakfast with her the next day.  She  agreed to have her picture taken with me!  Maybe some day we will both be really famous!

During the day before Ms. Mandy’s play, The Young Guy, Offspring #2, and I walked around New York City.  Well…they all walked and The Lady carried me.  Mr. Guy does a little better carrying me. The Lady didn’t do so well trying to hold me and her camera.  She didn’t take very many pictures on this trip.

The first place that we walked was to the World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial.  Offspring #2 and The Lady explained that sixteen years ago, two buildings called the twin towers, were hit by airplanes that had been taken over by people who did not like our country.  Lots and lots of people died and lots were hurt.  I was not born when this happened and Offspring #2 was only eight years old.  The Lady remembered it very well.  There is a memorial where these two towers stood.  It is a fountain and a reflecting pool with the names of all those who lost their lives on that day.


There were so many names on the memorial.  So many people died.  This made me very sad.


A new building has been built in the area.


It is called Freedom Tower and is the tallest building in the western hemisphere.


It hurts my heart to think about that day in 2001.  I wasn’t even alive back then and seeing this memorial sends chills down my furry spine.  I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for all the people who were right here in New York City or even those, like The Lady, Offspring #2, and Mr. Guy, who watched it all on television.  The people who’s names I read on the memorial here and their families now have a place in my heart forever.

After we visited the 9/11 Memorial we walked some more and then decided to take the subway.  I have ridden the trains in Dallas, where I live, but they are above the ground.  In New York the trains go under the ground through tunnels.  The Lady told be that that is why they are called subways, because sub means below.  I should have figured that out by myself.

We bought our tickets and then walked through this gate that looked like we were going into a sideways jail.

The good thing was that the bars kept moving so it didn’t feel like we were in jail!

Once we were inside the not-jail, I saw the tracks and watched for the train we needed.  Offspring #2 told me which one to look for.


We got on…rode for a few minutes in the dark…got off and walked up some stairs…and we were right where we wanted to be.  It sort of felt like magic.  I guess the same thing happens on the airplane, but since it is usually not dark in the sky when we fly, it doesn’t feel so much like magic.


I wish we had more pictures from our trip. I thought that Offspring #2 and The Lady might be taking lots of pictures with their phones because they were in their hands all the time.  When I asked to see their pictures they said that there weren’t many.  I was confused until they told me that they were using their phones so that we knew where to go.  The phones had a map on them and gave them walking directions.  I wondered how they always seemed to know where they were going!

We weren’t in New York very long.  I wish we could have seen a little bit more of the city, but I was also glad to come home because I missed Mr. Guy.  Hopefully Ms. Mandy will do another play right and we will get to go see her and one of her plays again!


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Orange You Glad To See Me In NYC!

This week was both fun and a little strange.  I went on an adventure.  And The Lady went on the adventure.  But, Mr. Guy did not go on this adventure with us.  We went to New York City.  Mr. Guy had important stuff to do here at home.  Plus, he said that he doesn’t really like New York City.  That made me a little nervous.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t like it either, but I decided to be a brave little blue and orange furry monster and go.  I hoped that The Lady, Offspring #2, and The Young Guy would take good care of me.
     


Mr. Guy always carried me in airports and I always sit on his lap on the airplanes.  It felt funny to sit on The Lady’s lap, especially because we had kind of a bumpy ride to New York and I got a little scared.  It all worked out, though.  The Lady did OK but I hope that next time I fly somewhere that Mr. Guy goes too.

We landed in New York and had to take a taxi to our hotel.  

I have never ridden in a taxi before.  It was like the fancy black cars that have picked us up at airports before, the lemonzines, except that it wasn’t fancy and wasn’t black.  It was yellow.  That was all OK.  We crossed some bridges and went in a tunnel and passed lots of big buildings.  Then we got to our hotel.  The Young Guy picked the hotel and made the reservations.  It was called the Mobile Noble Den.  We have a den at our house, but it doesn’t have a bed.  I thought maybe The Lady and I might have to sleep on a couch.  We don’t have a bathroom in our at-home den either.  Maybe that’s because it is just a den, not a noble den.  Hopefully the noble part means that it has a bed and a bathroom in addition to a couch.

The Lady and I shared a room and Offspring #2 and The Young Guy had another room.  The room that The Lady and I had was perfect for us.  It was all orange!!!  Everything was orange.  I didn’t think The Young Guy knew me well enough to know that I love orange, but he did.  I still missed Mr. Guy, but the all orange room did make me happy.

Look at all of the orange!


Our bed was orange…


Our shower was orange…

I guess that you noticed that our den has both a bed and a bathroom.
Our telephone was orange…
Our sink had an orange stripe, though you can’t see it in these pictures.  I think that you can in the one above.  Even without the orange, this was a cool sink!  It was sort of in the middle of our den, but that was OK.  It had a fancy light up mirror.  I had fun looking at my fur in this mirror.  I didn’t even mind brushing it because I could watch for tangles so that I would not pull my fur and hurt my little monster body.

Eben “my office” was orange.  I sat here and made notes about all of the things that I wanted to tell you about.
Can you see my orange chair?
This is the view from my window.  We were staying right between Chinatown and Little Italy, whatever that means.
I really did miss Mr. Guy on this trip, but I have to admit that it was nice to have an entire half of the bed to myself rather than being squished between Mr. Guy and The Lady.
Speaking of having lots of room in the bed…now that I am home, I have my own bed back and I am very tired tonight.  Tomorrow I will tell you all about what we saw in New York.
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Day 21: My 100 People Project #30-33!

After sleeping in a little on Sunday morning, we got up and had breakfast with the picture taking people who were staying at our hotel.  I was sad to have to say good-bye to them already, but they were already talking about someplace where they will meet again to take more pictures.  That made for happier good-byes.


After we finished eating. but before everyone left the hotel, I remembered that I hadn’t taken any photos for my 100 People Project during the weekend.  When I among all the fun people, I forget that I should be taking pictures of them.  Maybe I picked the wrong kind of project for myself.  Anyway, I did take a couple this morning.

Ms. Peggy was one of the first of The Lady’s picture taking friends that I ever met.  She lives in Delaware.  When The Captain was sick, Ms. Peggy and another picture taking friend, Ms. Michele, came to visit The Lady so she had some friends to do fun things with while she was taking care of The Captain.  Ms. Peggy brought two of her friends, Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy, with her to Leesburg for the weekend.  Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy live in Lewes, DE, the same town where The Captain lived and where Mr. Guy and The Lady adopted me!  It is a small world!

We haven’t been back to Delaware now that The Captain is gone and The Lady sold his house, but since we now have lots of new friends in Lewes, maybe we will go back and visit sometime soon.  I think that I would like that.  I could go back to Kids’ Ketch, the store on Second Street in Lewes where Mr. Guy and The Lady found me, and tell them how happy I am to have been adopted by Mr. Guy and The Lady even though I had to move from Delaware to Texas.

Even though I met Ms. Peggy a few years ago, I did not have a good picture with her because I had not started my 100 People Project back then.  She and her friends agreed to help me!  I like taking pictures with people who are friends.  And, I got three new numbers in one picture!


I am thankful that these pretty ladies were willing to have their picture taken with a little shaggy blue and orange monster!  

After we said good-bye to the Delaware Ladies, we had to go pack our suitcase and get ready to head to the airport.  On our way back in to the hotel, The Lady stopped at the front desk to make a reservation for the hotel shuttle to take us.  The man behind the desk was very cheerful and helpful.  He made our reservation and he told Mr. Guy where he could get more coffee.  Since this man was so nice, and I was on a roll with my project, I asked him if he would have his picture taken with me.  He said, Yes!  Thank you, Mr. Eric!


We were staying at the Courtyard by Marriott at Dulles Town Center.  If you ever go to Leesburg, or Dull as Dulles, or Sterling Virginia, you should go see Mr. Eric at his hotel.

I did have one concern about Mr. Eric’s hotel though…they had some crazy art in the hallway!

I like the colors in this painting, but it made me feel like I was in the middle of a Texas tornado.  Well…I’ve never really been in the middle of a Texas tornado, but if I ever am, I think it would feel the way this painting looks – twirly and dizzy-making!  I wonder if the inside of a tornado would be blue and orange?

After we packed our bags, we loaded into the shuttle and were on our way back to the airport.  We had a couple hours to wait for our plane so Mr. Guy went to get us something to drink.  For a minute I was confused about this place, Five Mr. Guys…there aren’t five Mr. Guy’s; there is on one real Mr. Guy!  Then I read more closely. It is just Five Guys, not Five Mr. Guys.  I felt much better!


We had an uneventful airplane ride home.  I slept the whole way.  I didn’t even wake up to eat any nuts.  When we got home the canines and the felines were glad to see us.  I wanted to catch up on my blog as soon as we got home, but I was still a tired little monster.  Having fun is hard work!

Thank you again to all of the picture taking people who made me feel a part of the group and to Ms. Peggy, Ms. Karen, Ms. Wendy, and Mr. Eric for agreeing to be part of my project.

I am a happy and grateful little blue and orange furry monster!

Monster hugs to everyone!

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A Month of Me: Day 19 – In the Air Again

Friday seems like a long time ago now!  I could not post from The Lady’s iPad while we were gone to Virginia so I had to try and remember for three days everything that I wanted to write!  That is hard for a little monster with limited storage space!

We got up early, but not too early, to go to the airport.  The Lady told me that we were flying to a new place in Virginia called Dull as.  

Dull as…?  Dull as what, I asked.  

The Lady looked confused.  What do you mean dull as what?, she asked.

She said we were going someplace dull as…  Maybe this was some kind of game and I was supposed to fill in the blank, kind of like a Knock-Knock joke.  Dull as ice cream with no chocolate sauce?  Dull as a story with no pictures?  Dull as blue without orange?  

She said, “No!  No!!  No!!!  Dull is!

Oh!   Dull is…  Dull is a pencil with no lead.  Dull is people who take themselves too seriously.  Dull is watching golf on TV.

“Dull es…D-U-L-L-E-S,” she said in a rather frustrated way.  

Why are we using Spanish verbs?, I asked.  Is, es…what’s the deal?

Sometimes The Lady loses her patience with me when it comes to conversations like this.  When that happens, she sends me to Mr. Guy to straighten me out.  He told me that Dulles is one word, not two,  and it is the name of a place.  Finally it all made sense.  I was happy to hear that we were not going to a dull as or dull is kind of place!

We had a nice uneventful flight, nothing like our last flight to Virginia!

When we landed at DULLES, we went to our hotel.  We had a few hours before we were supposed to meet the picture taking people.  Mr. Guy and I continued the nap that we had started on the plane and The Lady did some work.

Then it was time to go on our first adventure.  We met just a few of the picture taking people and went to Great Falls Park.  I didn’t know there was such a thing as great falls.  I always thought falls were bad things because when people and monsters fall, they break bones, and scrape elbows, and get stitches.  Mr. Guy explained that falls is also a word that describes water flowing over a precipice.  I had no idea what he was saying, but I did get that we were talking about water and not people or monsters so I figured it would be OK.


The falls looked pretty and I liked the sound of the water.

Mr. Guy and I sat and listened while The Lady took pictures.


Except for the no hair and blue fur part, we kind of look a like, don’t you think?  Oh, and Mr. Guy hides his horns a little better than I do.

It was very hot while we were watching the water fall.  And then it started to rain.  We did what everyone does in less than ideal circumstances; we went to Starbucks.  Then we went to dinner with a few more of the picture taking people.  And finally we went back to the hotel and went to bed because the picture taking people wanted to start taking pictures at 6:30 in the morning!  I was going to have to be awake and dressed very early for a second day in a row!  I wasn’t sure that this was a good thing.

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Seeing Seattle

It is trip time again!  I never even finished sharing all of my adventures from our trip to England and now I have another adventure to write about!  We just got home at 10 o’clock tonight, but The Lady said we should stay up and write about our trip to Seattle now.  She said something about it really doesn’t seem so late since we are still on Seattle time and that is different from Dallas time.  I don’t quite know how that works.  All I know is that I am a sleepy blue and orange monster. but I want to tell you all about our trip, so here goes…

We left on Thursday after The Lady taught her classes.  Mr. Guy helped me pack my things while she was at school.  He told me that we were going to Seattle so that The Lady could learn new stuff about picture taking.  I thought she knew about picture taking, but apparently there is lots more stuff that she needs to learn.  Mr. Guy and I picked The Lady up at school and we went to the airport.  After we got checked in, we had some lunch.


We don’t eat the “M” meals very often.  It is special airport food.  I sure do like those french fries!  While we were eating our lunch, Mr. Guy got a message saying that they had changed the gate for our airplane.  We had to go to a whole different terminal.  I was afraid that we would have to walk, but Mr. Guy said that there was a thing called SkyLink that would take us.  He said it was kind of like a train.  A train at an airport seemed a little strange to me, but as long as I didn’t have to walk, I was okay with strange.


We didn’t have to wait too long for the train.


I was happy to see Seattle on the sign when we got to our new gate.  I didn’t want to have to move again.  Really, I didn’t have to walk at all.  Mr. Guy is always a good sport and carries me.  Oh!  I got a new shirt for this trip!


It’s perfect, don’t you think?

When we finally got on the plane, I put my little monster head down and went to sleep.  I don’t remember any of the trip.  I didn’t even have a snack.  I guess all of that moving from terminal to terminal tired me out!  Next thing I knew we were picking up our luggage and getting in a fancy black car to go to our hotel in Seattle.  I went right back to sleep.  The Lady said that it wasn’t as late in Seattle as it was in Dallas because we gained two hours.  Here’s that time thing again!  I just wanted to go to bed.  So, I did!

I was nice and rested when I woke up on Friday.  Friday was the day that The Lady’s picture taking classes started.  The event was called Click Away.  I like that name.  It makes sense to me since I always hear The Lady’s camera go click, click, click when Mr. Guy and I are around.


Mr. Guy and I looked around while The Lady was in her morning class.  When she was done, I asked what her class was about.  She said, “Boudoir photography.”  I said, “Boo what?”  She explained that it was a special kind of picture taking where ladies wear the kind of clothes that people don’t see them in most of the time.  I asked her if she meant pajamas.  She told me that that wasn’t it.  I must have looked confused because she finally explained that the ladies wore fancy underwear.  I don’t know why anyone would want their picture taken in their underwear!  The Lady explained that this kind of picture taking helps ladies feel pretty and helps them to accept how they look even if they may not always feel pretty.  I thought about that and wondered if anyone wanted to take a picture of a blue and orange furry monster in his underwear.  Then I changed my mind.  I think I’ll stick to just letting The Lady take pictures of me in my t-shirts!

The Lady also took some classes in taking wedding pictures.  I guess I won’t be in any of those pictures either.  I am too young to get married.  But even when I’m older, I don’t want to get married.  I don’t think that there is a girl monster out there who would love me as much or take care of me as well as Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I think that I will live with them forever.  Besides, the closet with all of my t-shirts is at their house.  

This was The Lady’s favorite place at the conference.


The Lady got a new camera there.  I asked her if you had to have a special camera to take pictures of people in their underwear and wedding people.  She said, “No.”  She told me that she could use her new camera to take pictures of me and Mr. Guy too.  So far, she hasn’t taken any pictures with it yet.  She said that she wanted it to stay packed in its box so it could travel home safely.  I bet she will take some pictures of me this week…I will be wearing a t-shirt, not just my underwear!

On Saturday night, Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I went to The Seattle Space Needle.  We had to walk almost a mile from our hotel to get there.  That wasn’t so bad, but it was raining.  The Lady said that it rains a lot in Seattle and that she likes the rainy weather.  I don’t mind the rain, but I sure wish I had had a raincoat!  Mr. Guy did his best to keep my warm and dry.


When we got to the Space Needle to buy our tickets, they said it would be two hours before we could ride up the elevator.  That is how you get up high so you can see the city.  While we waited, Mr. Guy and The Lady took me to the Chihuly Gardens.  I asked them what  grew in the Chihuly garden.  The Lady said it was a glass garden.  They grow glass?, I thought.  That sounded a little strange to me.   The Lady told me that it is a glass sculpture garden.  Dale Chihuly, the glass artist, makes all kinds of beautiful shapes with colored glass.  I was a little nervous to go to a place where everything is glass.  I am a careful monster, but I was still worried that I might break something.  Mr. Guy said that it would be fine as long as I didn’t touch anything. He held me very close so that I wouldn’t trip and fall and break something accidentally.


Some of the glass looked like Christmas trees.  They were brightly colored and had lights shining through them  They were beautiful!

The light bouncing all around through the glass was really neat looking.  I liked the place where the glass was on the ceiling.  I knew that I could not break anything if the sculptures were up high!


While we were looking at the glass on the ceiling, I met a really nice girl named Lindsay.  She was from California and she wanted to be my friend.  Though I have done a terrible job with my Hundred People Project, Lindsay made me want to get back to it because she asked to have her picture taken with me.  That made me a happy little monster.  Her mister friend took a picture of us and The Lady took one too.  Now I have twenty-five people!  I will make it to a hundred.  I will.

After I had my picture taken with Lindsay, I saw something that looked like a big glass bowl.  Mr. Guy said that they should put Chex Mix in it.  I don’t think that is what it was for!


It was a very pretty blue bowl!  I liked Mr. Chihuly’s glass because he used a lot of blue and orange, the best colors for almost anything!  I was nervous being this close to Mr. Chihuly’s big blue bowl.  I didn’t want to stay in this spot for very long!

Next we saw more glass sculptures up on the ceiling. More orange glass!


This part was in a great big glass building, but it was just plain building glass not the cool kind of glass used for the sculptures. 

There were also lots more glass sculptures outside.  I don’t understand how they don’t get broken.


Mr. Guy got mad at The Lady because she let me sit on the wet rain covered bench.  I didn’t mind, but  my monster underwear did get a little wet.  That was OK because nobody was going to take pictures of my underwear!   I do definitely need a raincoat before we again visit any place with lots of rain.

After we finished touring the garden, we still had an hour before our elevator time.  We went and had a snack, fried cheese curds.


The words “curds” is kind of an ugly sounding word.  I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to eat anything called “curds.”  Mr. Guy said that they were good and that I should try them.  I did and they were, but the word curds still does not sound appetizing!

Finally it was time to get in the elevator line to ride to the top of the Space Needle.  The Space Needle is 605 feet tall.  That is like 600 hundred of me standing on top of each other!


I was a little scared, but not too much so.  We got in line with lots of other people.

The elevator ride to the top was super quick!  It took us longer to ride the hotel elevator to the twelfth floor where our room was than it did to ride all the way to the top of the Space Needle.  When we got off of the elevator, I felt like I was in a giant spaceship.
We then went outside to walk around the outside of the spaceship Space Needle.  It was rainy and cold and SO WINDY!  I was a frigid little monster.  Not only did I need that raincoat, I also needed my orange sweater that Ms. Joni made for me. 
I didn’t even think about bringing my sweater because when I was packing in Dallas, it was almost too hot for a t-shirt, forget a sweater!  If I had my own cellphone with all of those fancy app things, I could have checked the weather in Seattle while I was packing.  I mentioned this to Mr. Guy.  He said no phone for me.
Back inside, there was a great big map that showed all of the places where people have traveled from that have visited the Space Needle.
Mr. Guy added our names to the map.
One of those yellow dots is me!

After Mr. Guy signed our names, we walked back to our hotel.  It was still raining, but it was not nearly as cold and windy on the ground as it was 605 feet up in the air!  We needed to get back and pack.  The Lady got lots of new picture taking stuff and Mr. Guy was not sure where it was all going to go.  I got a new t-shirt and the Space Needle, but it did not take up much room in our suitcase.

When we got up on Sunday morning, it wasn’t raining anymore.  We took a short walk around our hotel.  There were lots of pretty orange flowers, and the leaves on the trees were also turning orange.  The trees in Texas do not have orange leaves.

We took a few pictures and then it was time to leave for the airport and our trip home.

When we got to the airport, I was hungry.  Mr. Guy bought me a sandwich on funny a bread.  It had a hole in the middle of it.  That seemed strange.  I was worried that Mr. Guy got defective bread.  He told me that it was supposed to be that way.  The bread was called a beagle, or a bugle, or something like that.  


It tasted good, but I still don’t know why all of the sandwich insides didn’t fall out of the hole in the middle of my bread.  I like un-holy bread better.  Is that right?  Well, you know what I mean.

When we finally got on the airplane, I fell asleep in Mr. Guy’s lap.  I didn’t wake up until we were almost back in Dallas and the flight attendant starting talking to me.  

She wanted to know my name and where I had been.  I got excited because I thought that maybe I could have my picture taken with her and I would be up to person #26, but nope.  She said that she was not allowed to have her picture taken while in her working clothes, something about 7-eleven, or costing nine dollars and eleven cents, or something.  I didn’t want to get her in trouble, so I will have to find another person #26.

Finally we were back in Dallas.  We waited for our suitcase to come around the racetrack.


Once we had our bag, we headed home and I started writing.  And that is my story about Seattle.

THE END!



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England Bound!

This post was written on Friday July 22. We had trouble with getting the pictures to my blog. So Mr Guy and the Lady are helping me catch up.   I have so many pictures and so many things to share!  It is going to take this little blue and orange furry monster lots of minutes to write all of these words!  Please be patient with me!
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Wow I’m a little confused. I think it has been three days since we left home. It was Wednesday, but now it is Friday! The Lady says we lost six hours on the plane. Disappearing time is too much for a little blue and orange monster to understand. 

You may wonder why we are going to London. Actually we are only going to the London airport and then traveling by bus to another part of Great Britain. Mr Guy told me London is a city in Great Britain. The Lady sings with her church choir and they are singing at churches in Great Britain.

The last few days have been a go go go time. We got on the plane in Dallas on Thursday, Wednesday, I looked at the sign and it said we were going to London. 


The Lady and Mr Guy had told me that we would be going on a long trip some time ago. We had even looked it up in the Atlas at Mr Guys school before he retried retired. Until I helped Mr. Guy and The Lady pack a whole bunch of stuff at home, it did not seem real.   

They let me put a few shirts in their bags.  I did not take too many because I knew I would find some new shirts in England.  I was afraid that if I took any more shirts, there would not be enough room to bring any new ones home.


The Lady had to take lots of special singing clothes that took up a lot of room in her bag.  She packed something that she called vest mints or investments or something.  They looked like a long black dress and a short white bib or something.


We got to the airport very early and then waited a while before we got on the biggest plane I have ever seen. The Lady and Mr Guy said they had never seen one that big either.   I wish we had taken a picture!


We were in a section called “business class”. I wasn’t sure this was good because I thought Mr Guy had retired and The Lady was off for the summer; I did not think they would be busy in classes while we were on the airplane. Mr Guy explained that class is a word with a lot of meanings. In this case it means a type of space you get on the plane. The Lady said that this was like first class we had flown before, but maybe even better. 

It think business class really was better! There were lots of buttons for me and Mr. Guy to push and we got lots of space and the seat folded out into a bed! 


They gave us great food for dinner. 


Mr Guy and I watched a movie.  Our TV also showed us where in the world our airplane was flying.

This map didn’t look quite like the atlas that Mr. Guy had shown me.


These screens had lots of numbers on them!  All of this made my eyes tired so I took a nap.  Or maybe I went to bed.


The Lady worked on her pictures and on her own blog. When Mr Guy and I woke up it was time for breakfast! And it was already Thursday morning. I thought it should be Wednesday night still because we didn’t sleep that long. Mr Guy tried to explain time zones and the lost six hours to me, but I just did not understand. 


When we finally got to London and got off of the plane, we went through this place called imagination, or something like that. There we told the Great Britain person (Mr Guy says people from Great Britain are called “British”) why we were in Great Britain. The Lady and Mr Guy had to show their passports. These are little books with terrible pictures of The Lady and Mr. Guy that say that they came from the United States and that they are allowed to travel to other countries. Mr Guy said I did not need a passport because everyone wants visits from blue and orange monsters. 



Once we got our bags, everyone from the singing people group got on a bus. Most of these people had not met me so there were a lot of introductions. I will tell you more about the bus another time. The most important thing about getting on the bus was that everyone was excited because Mr Simon is our guide and Mr Martin is driving our bus. These two did the same things for the singing people three years ago when they came to Great Britain. The Lady and Mr Guy had not adopted me yet so I wasn’t on that trip.  It was BBB – Before Blueper B.

Mr Martin is a good bus driver. He took us all to a city called Cambridge. 


First we had lunch…or breakfast…or a midnight snack and then had a tour of Cambridge. 

The singing people had special blue shirts so that they could find each other.  I like that their shirts were blue!  I did not have one of their special shirts, but by accident, I wore a blue shirt that was the same color as theirs.  That’s good.  I didn’t want to get lost in this city that was way far away from home.


It was fun to see this very old city even though we were very tired because we lost our nighttime, which meant we lost our sleep time!  

After our tour, we finally went to our hotel, ate dinner and went to sleep.  We woke up and the it was Friday.


That is what we have done so far. Today (Friday, really) we are going to a place called Ely Cathedral where The Lady and the rest of the singing people will make music together for the first time in England. I hope I get to go. Then we will go back to Cambridge and have the afternoon to look around.
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My Trip to Virginia!

Friday was the day!  Mr. Guy is not tired anymore.  He is officially retired!  To celebrate, we went on a trip Norfolk, Virginia to meet some of The Lady’s picture taking friends.  Well, I’m not sure that Mr. Guy thought of it that way, but I was excited to get to go on a trip and I think that Mr. Guy had fun once we got there.  He met The Lady’s picture taking friends and their Guys.  

When we fly on trips, we usually leave very early in the morning.  This time, because Mr. Guy had to go to school one more time, we left at night.  When we got to the airport, they were glad to see me. The computer told me that!


This is where we got our tickets.  There was one for Mr. Guy and one for The Lady.  They called me a lap baby so I didn’t get my own ticket.  I guess they know that I prefer to sit in Mr. Guy’s lap when I’m on the airplane.

Everything went smoothly until it didn’t!  Our plane was delayed because there was lots of rain.


We waited.  


And then we waited some more.  Then they changed our gate so we moved.  Then we waited some more.  


I’m glad that Mr. Guy always carries me in the airport.  There are lots of things with wheels in the airport and they don’t always watch out for people, let alone little blue and orange furry monsters.   It is kind of scary.  People pull and push and roll boxes with their clothes in them and they don’t watch where they are going.  Then there are these wagons that drive inside, right down the middle of the sidewalk; there isn’t a street.  They make lots of noise.  “Beep,  Beep,  BEEP.  BEEP!!!’  They always seem to be in a hurry but they are full of only empty seats.  They never seem to stop to let poeple on.  They just beep their way through the airport nearly running over people and their boxes of clothes!

I was getting to be a hungry and tired little monster.  The good thing about the new gate was that it was right next to a pretzel store.  The Lady went and got me a cinnamon sugar pretzel, but just as she got back with it, they called us to board the plane.  FINALLY!  But then I had to wait to eat my pretzel.


Just as we were about to step on the plane, we had to wait again because something spilled on the airplane and they had to bring a special truck and a special person to come suck it up.  While we waited, I got more hungry and more tired.

Then finally we got on the plane!


And I ate my (cold) pretzel.

The good thing about being an hour late leaving Dallas was that the storms all passed and it was time for sunset.  Sunset above the clouds is so pretty!!!  The Lady let me borrow her phone so that I could take some pictures.


Look at all that beautiful blue and orange!!!  My monster belly was full and my monster eyes were full of pretty sky.  In the end, everything was good!  Then I went to sleep and slept through the rest of our flight.

We got to our hotel very late and all of us went to bed because The Lady told me we had a very exciting day the next day.  Well actually, it was that day because it was 1:30 in the morning!!!

We met The Lady’s picture taking friends at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.  I remebered The Lady telling me last week that I was going to have a chance to see lots more pretty flowers. I could tell exactly who the picture taking ladies were because they all had cameras around their necks and carried boxes of stuff, but not like the boxes with wheels that people pulled around in the airport.  They carried them on their shoulders.

The Picture Taking Ladies were full of smiles and laughter and headed off together to take pictures.  Fortunately, one of The Picture Taking Ladies, Ms. Sherri, brought her Mr. Guy with her.  So, my Mr. Guy, Ms. Sherri’s Mr. Guy, and I spent a lot of time sitting on benches talking and watching The Picture Taking Ladies run around pointing their cameras at anything and everything…including us!  At least they didn’t forget we were there!



The Lady thought the flower was prettier than us, but there we are in that blurred background!


We were happy on our bench talking to Mr. Ray  Well, really we sat on lots of benches; this is just one of them.

We also walked around and saw lots of green stuff.

The Picture Taking Ladies saw lots of things.  The Mr. Guys and I sat on our benches and enjoyed fresh air, the fragrant flowers, and conversation with each other.


I did see a funny looking water monster!


We had lunch under a tree.  We got our lunch from a truck.  The food guy piled a bunch of ingredients on a long paddle and stuck it in a big box on wheels.  This box on wheels was much bigger than the boxes on wheels that people had in the airport.  It would not fit in the airplane’s overhead bin and it wasn’t full of peoples’ dirty clothes.  It was a magic box!  


The food guy put the pile of ingredients in it and when he pulled it out, it was pizza!!  He cut his pizza into nice even pieces.  I liked that.

After we ate our magically made pizza, we went to look at the roses.  These are the flowers like we have in the gardens in our town.  The Norfolk Botanical Garden had rose rows of rowses roses.  That was hard to write!  I don’t like all of these phonehomes or homephones or whatever these words are called!  


I saw pretty colors that weren’t roses, too!


And I found this funny dead flower.

Mr. Guy said it was a pine comb.  A pine comb??  I asked Mr. Guy how I was supposed to use this to comb my fur.  It didn’t look to me like it would work very well.  

“Pine CONE!”, he said, “Not comb.”

I was so glad that I didn’t have to use it to brush my fur, but I still didn’t know what it was for.

The Lady told me that is the female, or seed bearing part, of a pine tree and…

I told her to stop.  This seemed like more information that I really needed.  The most important thing is that I don’t have to use this female seed thing to comb my blue boy fur!

I had a super fun day at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens and I think all of The Picture Taking Ladies did too!

Ms. Sherri, the lady that goes with the guy, Mr. Ray, asked to have her picture taken with me.  That reminded me that I have not done well with my 100 People Project.  Almost a year ago, on my “birthday” I decided that I would try to have my picture taken with one hundred people before my next birthday, which is next week.  That isn’t going to happen.  I got sad and disappointed about that.  Mr. Guy and The Lady said that it was okay and reminded me about our conversation about disappoinment a few months ago.  They said that we could just continue from where we are and eventually we will get to a hundred people.  That made me smile!

So, Ms. Sherri is #24 in my 100 People Project and I am on a roll again!  Thank you Ms. Sherri for helping me get back on track!


Sunday morning while we were at the hotel, someone knoecked on our door and gave us food, already cooked!  It was another magic food moment.  


I wish the mailman in Dallas would bring our food to the door already cooked!  Then The Lady would not have to make meals when she is tired.  Oh wait…Mr. Guy is not tired anymore so he can fix the meals and the mailman doesn’t have to bring them.  

Another thing that was not a disappointment on this trip was that Starbucks in the Norfolk airport is open 24 hours, unlike the one in the Dallas airport.  When we got to the airport at 4:40 in the morning to come home, Mr. Guy got us all a cup of coffee!


Oh, and if you want to see more of The Lady’s photos from her visit to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, check out her blog!  Give her a day or two, though.  She has been busy sorting through her photos and she is not retired and had to go back to work this week.


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The Big D

It has been a long time since I have written a post.  I feel like a bear, a blue and orange bear, who went into hibernation for the winter.   Now that it springtime, I am venturing back into the world.  I think Mr. Guy and The Lady have been hibernating at school!  They always seem to be busy.

Last weekend, The Lady had to be in Chicago for a meeting.  Mr. Guy went along and he said that I could go too.  Yay!  It has been a long time since I have been on a trip.  When The Captain was sick, we went on trips a lot.  Now we don’t go as much.  Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I don’t.  Anyway, I was excited to get to go this time.  I thought Mr. Guy and I would have a great time doing stuff while The Lady was stuck in her meeting.  The weekend didn’t go quite as I had hoped.  I learned another one of those “life lessons” as Mr. Guy calls them.  I learned about disappointment.

Big D is not for Dallas, where we live.  It is for Big Disappointment.

Out flight was very early.  We got up at 2:30 am to be at the airport at 4.  Well, Mr. Guy and The Lady got up.  Not me.  They just scooped me out of my bed half awake to leavet.  I didn’t really wake up until it was time to go through security and Mr. Guy had to send me, all by myself, through that dark tunnel where those TSA guys take pictures of my insides.  I have had to do that lots of times, but it is still scary for a little blue and orange monster!  They saw that my insides were empty!  I had had no breakfast.  Mr. Guy said that we would have breakfast on the plane but he would get us some coffee to share while we waited in the airport.

Disappointment #1
At 4am, nothing is open in the Dallas airport.  Not even Starbucks!!  


Mr. Guy and I had to wait until we got on the plane for our coffee.  This made for two grouchy monsters!  Mr. Guy and I grumbled together in our chair until it was time to get on the airplane.  The Lady ignored us both.  She knows that is the best thing to do when we have been awake, well sort of awake, for over an hour and have not had any coffee.  Fortunately, we were not in gym class with the coaches on this flight, we were in the first grade class.  In first grade, you get coffee before the airplane leaves the ground.  Phew!  Mr. Guy and I were happy about that.


I was so not awake when we left my house, that I forgot to put a shirt on.  I was a little embarrassed, but Mr. Guy held me tight so no one would stare at my orange belly fur and he told me that we had some time when we landed in Chicago before we had to head to our hotel; we would find a Chicago shirt for me in the airport.

Disappointment #2
Mr. Guy and The Lady walked all over the terminal, into every store they saw, trying to find a new shirt for me.  There were no shirts sized for little blue and orange monsters anywhere.  This seemed strange to me.  I have gotten lots of my shirts in airport shops.  Oh well, we still had Saturday to find a new shirt somewhere.

Disappointment #3
As it turned out, we did not get to see anything the whole time that we were in Chicago except our hotel.  


The Lady was busy with her meeting, and Mr. Guy found out that he was being given a whole bunch of extra work at school so he had to stay in the hotel room and work, work, work all day long!!  I was sad that I wouldn’t get to see any new places, but I was happy to get to spend the whole day with Mr. Guy.  We got to have breakfast and lunch together and I got to help him make some videos for his monsters at school.  


The day could have been better, but it also could have been worse.  Mr. Guy explained to me that there are times when things don’t go like you want or hope they will.  He told me I just had to look for something positive.  He said that if you look for stuff to make you unhappy, you can always find it.  But, if you look for something to make you happy, you can always find that too.  


I was happy that I got to go with The Lady and Mr. Guy.  I was happy that Mr. Guy and I shared lots of coffee and breakfast and lunch.  And, I was happy that Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that when we went back to the airport to fly home, we could try again to find a new shirt for me.  Oh, and I was happy that I got to nap and watch HGTV while Mr. Guy worked!  


At least I got to look at pictures of Chicago in a book.


Disappointment #4
Still no shirt to be found at the airport.

While we tried again to fins a shirt for me, Mr. Guy found a coloring book for himself and The Lady got a bracelet.  It made me smile that we found something for them. They also got a nice blue bag that I got to ride in.  

I learned that I am just as happy when I help to find a nice surprise for other people as I am when they find them for me!  


While we were waiting for our flight, I saw this strange toy hanging on the wall.  I asked The Lady if we could go play with it.  She said that it was not a toy; it was a pay phone.  


Hmmm…it didn’t look like any phone I had ever seen.  Why did someone hang their phone on the wall?  Silly question.  Because that phone was too big to put in their pocket.  And, it had too many cords and buttons and couldn’t even take pictures!  It looked like some kind of science fiction thing to me!  That was the newest thing, at least to me, that I saw all weekend!!

Then it was time to get on the plane and come home.


Even though I tried to smile and be a big blue and orange furry monster, The Lady knew that I was disappointed.  To make me feel better, she told me that during the month of May, she would include me in all of her daily photos.  That means that we will get to do something fun every single day!    The Lady said that we can post her photos to my blog every day too.  Now I am one happy and excited little monster!  I will have to spend all month brushing my fur so that I look my very best.  Oh, and she said that maybe there will be a new shirt somewhere along the way!  

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Cars, Trucks, and Airplanes

Hi everyone!   It’s me, and I’m back!  Have you missed me?  Life for Mister Guy, The Lady, and me has been crazy busy since I last posted.  Mr Guy and The Lady spend way too much time teaching and not enough time helping me with my blog.  That’s just my opinion.  But I do love them and they take very good care of me!

Today I was going to write about our Christmas, but I had a very special day today so my Christmas stories, which aren’t very exciting except that I got some new T-shirts, will just have to wait.

Mr. Guy and The Lady decided to end the old year…or is it begin the new year…by buying a new car.  They actually bought it in New Year’s Eve.  Does that make it the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016?  Are beginnings and endings the same thing?  Do they always happen together?  Can you have a beginning without an ending?  2015 had to end for 2016 to begin.  2016 had to begin for 2015 to end.  This is way too complicated for a little blue and orange furry monster to figure out!  Maybe The Lady can explain it to me.  But, not now because right now I am going to tell you about my exciting morning.

Because it was so late on New Year’s eve when Mr. Guy and The Lady finished all the paperwork on their new car, the dealership did not have time to clean it and make it pretty for them before they closed so the salesman very nicely said to bring it back today and they would do all of that stuff.  I’m not sure why Mr. Guy and The Lady decided to take me with them this morning, but they did and I am really, really glad!

When we walked in, I saw a great big blue truck with blue and orange balloons.  I was sure that that was the new car we were getting because I love blue and orange and Mr. Guy and The Lady know that.  

I asked Mr. Guy if this was our new car and he said, “NO!..”  It is way too big.  I would be like I was driving an airplane if we got that truck.”  I have been on lots of airplanes, and it didn’t look THAT big, but since Mr. Guy is the driver, I guess he knows.  If we are going to ride in an airplane, I don’t want Mr. Guy to be driving; I want him to hold me on his lap like he always does so that I can look out the window!

Almost as soon as we walked in the door, a really nice man starting talking to us.  His name was Mr. Edwin.  Mr. Edwin asked Mr. Guy and The Lady all about me.  After hearing our story, he volunteered to have his picture taken with me.  Yay!  It has been awhile since I have added anyone to my 100 People project.  I am going to have to get busy in the next six months to get to 100 before my “birthday.”

Meet Mr. Edwin!

At the car store, he is a salesman, but he did not sell us our new car.  Mr. Edwin has another job too.  He hosts a radio show called, Juicy Talk.  It was exciting enough to meet a radio personality.  But even more exciting than that is that Mr. Edwin said that maybe, just maybe, that we–me, Mr. Guy, and The Lady–someday could come to talk to him and his show and share our story with other people.  That would be so much fun for this little blue and orange furry monster!!!  The Lady gave Mr. Edwin our card and he gave her his information so this could happen if Mr. Edwin doesn’t get too busy selling cars and Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t get too busy teaching.  I hope this works out because I am a very happy and lucky little monster and I would love to share those things with the world.

I don’t watch TV or read the newspaper because I know that a lot of the news is sad and scary.  I am too little to want to know all of the terrible details of many of the things going on in the world.  Fortunately, my family takes good care of me and takes me places where I meet lots of nice people who are very nice and are also willing to be part of my 100 People Project.  Today I am grateful for having met Mr. Edwin!  I hope I get to see him again…or maybe I’ll just get to hear him on the radio.

And back to the now less exciting news…our new car.  We didn’t get the airplane-like big blue truck, but I did take a minute to pretend to be the co-pilot.    

What do you think?  Would I make a good co-pilot?  I guess that first I have to find a pilot since Mr. Guy won’t do it.

After all of my pictures, I got to play while the service department finished “detailing” (what a funny word) our car.



Our new car is much smaller than the blue truck.  Mr. Guy showed me pictures and told me all about it.


I guess it is kind of like the little tiny airplanes we flew on between Philadelphia and Salisbury all those times, and the big blue truck is like the jets.   Hmm…no drinks or snacks on those little airplanes. I’m not so sure about this new little car.  The blue truck was so big I bet it had a refrigerator and microwave!!!  I suspect what I’ll get in our car is only my lunchbox.  Oh well, that is better than nothing.

I like our new airplane car.  It is quite comfortable.  Mr. Guy even let me sit in the pilot’s seat before it was time to buckle up and head home.  


Thank you to Mr. Edwin and all of the folks at Freeman Buick GMC in Grapevine, Texas for making my whole family happy!

Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I all wish you and those you love and happy and blessed 2016!