Dinosaurs!!

After Big Rock Park, Mom took Ivy and I to Subway for some lunch, then we kept driving. We headed out of town and wandered along a back road, and finally ended up at a state park.
Which was cool, but we were a little disappointed. The big rocks seemed like a much cooler spot to play... Until we turned a corner and saw:


Dinosaurs!? At a state park? What was going on here?
Turns out Mom had taken us to Dinosaur Valley State Park. It's called that because, according to wikipedia which can't be wrong, a loooong time ago this part of Texas was a big beach on the edge of a pretty shallow ocean, and dinosaurs lived here! We know that (the dinosaurs part, anyway) because they left tracks behind, and some of those tracks got preserved.

Unfortunately, Mom hadn't ever been here before, and didn't realize that the reason they're so well preserved is because they're in the river bed, under water a lot of the time, and that the river is high enough that they're under water right now. When we paid to get in, the park ranger said they weren't visible at all, and we were pretty disappointed, but Mom said we should find where they were anyway, so when we came back we'd be prepared.

We had to do a ton of climbing and hiking. At first there were nice, stone steps and it was pretty easy going, but the terrain kept changing.

After the steps came some deep sand. If it weren't so horribly cold, I'd want to stop and play in it and pretend I was at the beach! But it was freezing, so we didn't.

After the sand came more sand mixed with big rocks. It was tough going; we had to climb over a lot of them. We were glad we wore our hiking boots, but we kept having to stop and shake sand out of them!

After a ton of climbing, we finally found the river. Now to see if we could see some tracks!
Fortunately, the water was a lot clearer than we thought it'd be, but it was really deep near here. We were by a place in the park called the Blue Hole, and it wasn't very blue, but we could tell it was deeeeeep. We avoided the edge of the water near there. We really didn't want to fall in, and the banks were dirt and looked kind of fragile and crumbly.

We kept on going, and reached the edge of the river where it looked reasonably safe to walk.
Finally, we spotted something in the water next to us. Could it be...?


It was!! A dinosaur footprint! This was as close as Mom would let us get... The print was under water about a foot; way over our heads! We hope you can see it... Ivy is pointing at it. We were all so excited to have found one! It was almost like finding buried treasure or something. We took a ton of pictures, and Mom suggested moving on to see if we could spot any others.

We hiked a little farther up the river, and found some more:

This is sort of a bad photo, but you can kind of see two or three tracks in the shallow rock behind us. We really felt like adventurers now. It was so much fun to sit here and think about what this place would have looked like back then, and what these creatures would have acted like.
They'd probably be pretty smelly.

All too soon, we had to hike back to the car. It was so cold that water was dripping out of the rocks around us and freezing into icicles!

We were so exhausted and cold by this point, we didn't think we'd make it to the top. It was pretty slow going, but we made it back, and promptly did this:


But our nap didn't last too long. Mom left us alone to sleep while she went exploring another place along the river with tracks, then woke us up to ask us if we wanted to stop by the gift shop on the way out for a souvenir.
We did, and we each got to pick out something cool. I got a pressed penny and a badge with the name of the park to put on my hoodie, and Ivy picked out a dinosaur statue and a dinosaur hunting license. For fifty cents, she's officially able to hunt dinosaurs and remove their carcasses from the State Park!

We gathered up our purchases and headed outside for one more photo with the dinosaur statues while Mom stayed behind and chatted with the employees about the history of the park.

Before we could do anything though, this little guy popped out from under one of the feet of the dinosaurs:

I'm from the country, and was so afraid we were going to get sprayed and jumped back, but he ran right over to Ivy and acted like he wanted to cuddle, who of course scooped him up and gave him some cuddles like she didn't know what he was or what he was capable of.

"Ivy! What do you think you're doing!!" I yelped at her. "That's a skunk!!"

"I know! And he's so cute and friendly! Quick, your mom's still inside, let's take him home with us. I really want a pet so bad, and my moms haven't had time to help me get one. He's perfect!"

My mom is totally going to kill me when she finds out about this...



Oh, PS: If you want more info on Dinosaur Valley and see some photos of the tracks above ground, we liked this page: http://paleo.cc/paluxy/dvsp.htm
If you're in the area, it's definitely worth the trip. Just don't let your bestie talk you into bringing home a wild animal.

Off to Big Rocks Park!

This weekend, one of my best friends, Ivy, came to stay with Denise and me. The three of us had a great time spending Saturday hanging out, watching movies (We all just saw Gnomeo and Juliet, by the way. Ivy and I love it!) and playing on the computer. It was nice to just relax and not do much of anything, but when Sunday rolled around, my mom came in and asked us if we wanted to go on an adventure instead of just being lazy.
Ivy and I jumped at the chance, but Denise didn't want to go with us. I know she has been through a lot, but it's hurting my feelings a little that she never wants to go anywhere with me and Mom. This is the third time Mom has thought up something special to do that she hasn't wanted to join in. I don't understand what's wrong, and I wish I knew what to do to help her, but I just don't. Denise has made a new friend at school, though, and she went over to her house to stay while we were gone.

Before we headed out ourselves, Ivy and I looked at the temperature gauge. It was just above freezing, and the weather website that we checked said it wasn't going to get any warmer! Ivy said she wasn't sure if she wanted to go out after all, but I told her that it was probably warm to Canadians, and we should go anyway. Even though we're actually Texans, and it's freaking freezing!

So go we did.
We drove for a long time, but Mom had packed some books and puzzles for us to play in the car and we had a good time. We're reading my mom's childhood Trixie Belden books together, they're mysteries about a bunch of kids our age and they're pretty awesome.
Anyway, Mom wouldn't tell us where we were going, so our destination was a surprise. When we finally climbed out of the car, we were here:


In Glen Rose, Texas. It's next to the Brazos river, and there is a state park here that is supposed to have dinosaur tracks. Mom has been here a bunch of times, but this is our first visit.
Boy, they weren't kidding when they named it Big Rocks park! These rocks are huge!


Ivy and I had a ton of fun climbing them, even though it was so cold our teeth were chattering the whole time. We pretended we were explorers and rock climbers, and some of the rocks were big enough that we could pretend the cracks between them were giant caves.


Down below the big rocks, we found this pile of smaller rocks, and decided it would be fun to pick out one to take home as a souvenir. We picked one each, then picked a third for Avalanche. She wanted to stay the weekend with us, too, but her mom wouldn't let her... She took her to do something with their coven, and they weren't coming home until Monday morning. Avalanche is so lucky, getting to miss a whole day of school! Ivy and I are jealous.


We decided we needed to find something special to take home to Denise, and I found this cool piece of wood. I thought all the layers in it made it look super old, even though it isn't.
I really hope she likes it!

We piled our finds intp the car and took a few minutes to warm up, then headed back out to play on the rocks some more. The rocks are next to an offshoot of the Brazos River, and we sat and watched the water flow by for a little while, too.


We had tons of fun here, but after about an hour Mom told us it was time to move on. I wonder where we're off to next?

We'll let you know tomorrow!

Aquarium Time!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't written in a while.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Mine was pretty decent. Money around here is still kind of tight, so my mom made Denise and I a deal: A couple of gifts, or a couple of trips to cool places that we normally couldn't afford to go to. She didn't specify the cool places, but I trusted her judgement, and took the trips option! Denise really wanted a couple of games for her xBox, so it was just me and my mom. It was nice having a little alone time with her; she's been spending a lot of time trying to help Denise adjust to living with us. It's been pretty hard on all of us.

But anyway, I bet you're wondering where we ended up:

The aquarium! Mom said she was sorry we didn't get to take our yearly adventure to the beach, and promised to make it up to me next year. We always go to the aquarium down there, so Mom found us one to come to here!


I love fish and marine life, and it was neat to explore a new place. I really liked this turtle, he kept swimming over and trying to bump me through the glass.


This is a tidal pool. It had lots of really pretty little blue fish in it, and on top of the rocks on the other side, it had an iguana (I think... I forgot what the sign said)!

Whatever he is, isn't he massive? My mom asked if I'd like one for a pet, and I said no way! I'll stick with the fish!

More fish! I really like these little guys; I'd like to get some for our aquarium at home!

After we got done in the main building, we headed for stingray bay!


The stingrays are so cool! They swim right up to the top of the tank, and the aquarium lets you pet them. I love exhibits like that, I got to pet two!

Mom and I had a great day, and I can't wait to see what else she has in store for me!

A note from Syd

I just want to interrupt Edie's babbling for a quick note: Edie's human's friend and her daughter are only characters that I've created for Edie's world. I've been wanting to give Edie a 'sister' for a while, and I didn't want her to just appear out of thin air with no explanation, hence the creation of Denise and her mother.

While I am admittedly the human in Edie's life right now, I'm trying really hard to get away from that, because I've recently realized that only using my experiences has really limited Edie's character development. I'm working on getting away from her even having a human and writing her as an actual kid, but it's taking me some time to wrap my brain around that concept, for whatever reason.

I'm very sorry for any and all confusion!!

Big Changes!

I'm really scared and nervous right now... I think there are some big changes headed my way, and I don't know what to think about it all.

My human has a really good friend that she met when she was in art school, Kendall. She doesn't see her very often, because Kendall moved to Tulsa right after graduation, but they talk on the phone and email a lot. Kendall has a daughter named Denise who is my age, but I've never met her.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago, the human got a phone call from the Tulsa police station, and they told her that there had been a fire at her Kendall's house.
The fire was too bad for the firefighters to get into the house, and Kendall... didn't make it.
The human has been so upset about it all, and I can't blame her. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to Ivy or Avalanche.

But here's where the changes come in: Denise has a dog named Jip, and he was sleeping in the room with her. Apparently, he smelled the smoke and started barking, so she woke up. She threw her desk chair through a window and she and Jip climbed out that way because the smoke was too thick to leave any other way.
Denise doesn't have any family but an elderly aunt in North Carolina, and the human said that Kendall had gotten a will drawn up only a few months ago and wanted Denise to come live with us if something ever happened to her. The human left yesterday to go get her and help Kendall's friends in Tulsa arrange a memorial service.

Denise lost everything in the fire except Jip, and I don't really know what to say to her. I want to help her and be her friend when she gets here, but I don't totally know how.
The human mentioned a long time ago that Denise likes American Girl dolls like I do, so I decided to give her my new Marie-Grace.
Only now I feel really silly because she lost her mom and her whole life, and all I can think to do is give her a doll? But I don't know what else I can do.

Has anyone else been in this situation? I want to ask the human for advice, but she isn't here.

To the Park we go!

I really haven't had a chance to do anything fun lately. The human has been busy with her job, and hasn't had time for us to go anywhere exciting.
But, she did take me, Ivy and Avalanche to the park a few evenings ago!

I brought my rollerblades to play with, and offered to loan Ivy and Avalanche my skateboard and bike so they could have wheels, too, but they decided they'd rather walk and take pictures of me falling on my butt so they could post them all over the internet. Some friends, right?

Fortunately, that didn't happen, but it has been a long time since I've gotten to skate and I was really rusty, so I had to hold on to the bridge for a while while I got used to them.

I finally got the hang of it, and started skating circles around everyone. They said I was being obnoxious, so I finally took them off and put on my sneakers.

Even though I really love skating, I decided it would be better if the human and I came back by ourselves so I wouldn't annoy anyone.

Even though it was around 7 in the evening, it was still really hot outside. We didn't want to walk very far. We mostly stayed on the bridge and watched the water underneath it.
It was a lot different that streams in the country, though. Out there, if there's junk at the bottom it's usually a random tractor part or an old fence post. Here, the bottom of the stream had hubcaps and an old shopping cart that Avalanche wanted to take home. She got upset when the human wouldn't let her.

Finally, we got tired of the water, and walked a little ways up the path, where we found the perfect climbing tree!
We spent the rest of our time at the park climbing on it.

We definitely don't have those where I used to live (all of our trees at home were too scrawny, or thorny), and that was totally awesome! I discovered I really like climbing trees!

I just wished I'd brought Rocket. He would have loved the park.

New friends

Sorry it's been so long since my last post.
I have some cool updates! My human knew how lonely I was, so she sent me to a day camp near our apartment for a week!
At first, I didn't want to go, but the human forced me out the door because she'd already paid for me to go. It turned out to be a ton of fun, I got to do a ton of neat crafts, go swimming, and most importantly, meet some new friends! I really clicked with two girls in particular, Ivy and Avalanche.

Avalanche just moved here too, from Africa! She even lives in the same apartment complex that I do. Her dad is an archaeologist, and he's working on a dig there. Avalanche had to move here with her mom because her grandfather is really sick and her mom needed to be closer to him.
Her mom sent her to the camp to meet new people, too. She hates it here and she's kind of strange, but in an awesome sort of way.
She taught me and Ivy how to pitch a tent and start a campfire at camp without any matches or lighter fluid. It rocked, but we got into trouble because campfires weren't actually allowed.

Ivy is way different from Avalanche. She doesn't live that far from me and Avalanche, but her family is a lot wealthier than mine and Avalanche's. She goes to a fancy private school and lives in a big house a few blocks away from us. She says she actually does her homework and turns it in on time, mostly because her moms are pushing her to be either a doctor or a lawyer when she grows up and she needs to have great grades to get into a good school. It makes sense, I guess... one of her moms is a doctor, and the other is a lawyer, but Ivy says she's not really interested in either career and gets tired of having to work so hard at her school work. She doesn't want to disappoint her family, though.

We were all sorry to see camp end, but the three of us get together a lot now. The human let Avalanche pitch a tent in our living room as long as she promised not to start any fires, and we stayed up late, talking, playing games and telling ghost stories. I'm really bad at making up ghost stories, but Avalanche is brilliant at it. I don't think Ivy and I slept a wink!

All right, it's getting late and I need to get off the computer.
Has anyone else been to camp and made some awesome friends?