U.S. Trivia App

 

 

Today I helped Mrs. Branch do some yard work.  I got a little distracted though.  She has a really nice garden area with a lot of flowers that attract butterflies.  While I was raking leaves several big butterflies were flying around the flowers.  Here are some pictures of the butterflies I saw. 

 

After a while I think Mrs. Branch caught on to the fact that I wasn't really doing any work, so she told me I could go inside and play with her IPad.  I found this free U.S. Trivia app which is a game that asks you to name the capital of all the states.  To make it a little bit easier it gives you four answers to choose from.  Since I plan on going all over the United States on my adventures, I thought I should brush up. 

 

Apparently I didn't know as much as I thought I did.  Guess I'll be playing this game a lot.



UAB Campus Tour

As promised I met the young ladies from UAB for lunch today.  We ate at the Commons.  This is like a cafeteria for college students.  They have an all you can eat menu unlike my school cafeteria.  I loaded up my plate with one of my favorite foods, pizza.  Then I got to eat as many chocolate chip cookies for dessert as I wanted.  They were so good.

After lunch they took me for a tour of the campus.  Here is a picture of me with the UAB mascot.

We walked around this big open area called the Campus Green in the middle of the campus.  This was an area where students could gather for events, walk around on the sidewalks, study or play games in the grassy areas.  Then they took me to the recreational center which was really cool.  They had all sorts of fitness equipment.  I tried to show off my muscles for the ladies, but they told me I was too young to use the equipment.  Instead I ended up playing a game of badminton which I lost.  It's not one of my strongest sports. 

They told me I couldn't leave without purchasing a souvenir of my visit, so our last stop was at Snoozy's.  I think I found the right fit.


             

At the Bass Pro Shop

 

We went to the Bass Pro Shop in Leeds today.  From the outside it looked like a giant log cabin.  When we got inside there were stuffed animals everywhere.  It was a little bit scary, but I just had to get used to the fact that they weren't alive.

 

There was a huge water tank with a cascading waterfall that had all kinds of fresh water fish. There were even arcade games upstairs that you could play. This was an interesting place with all kinds of outdoor equipment. 

I asked Mrs. Branch if she could buy a four wheeler, but she said "NO!"  Then I asked about a boat, again she said "NO!"  So I gave up on the big items.  I did find this cool camouflage chair.  Can you see me?  Mrs. Branch said this chair didn't really go with the décor in her house, so it was a big "NO!" on that too.

Today I found that the number one disadvantage to being flat is being put in an envelope and placed in the mouth of a bass mailbox. 

This was my Duck Dynasty encounter.  After hearing my story on how I became flat, this is all they had to say, "Hmmmm."

 

Virtual Field Trip

Today Mrs. Branch had a lot of housekeeping to do, so she told me I could play on the computer.  I decided I was going to take a virtual field trip.  My teacher last year took us on a virtual field trip of the White House in Washington DC.  A virtual field trip is a field trip you can take through your computer and it is almost like you were really there.  Because I love animals I decided to take a virtual field trip of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.  It is located in Washington DC.  Since I am currently in Alabama it is almost impossible for me to get to see this museum, so that is why virtual field trips are really cool.  You can sit in the comfort of your home and visit all kinds of places all over the world.

This field trip allowed me to visit all the rooms on three different levels.  I started out at the entrance of the museum where the elephant is displayed.  That is me starting my virtual tour in the picture above.  Using the arrow keys I could move about each room looking at everything on display.  I could move from room to room and even look up at things hanging from the ceiling.  On the first floor of the tour you can see a lot of animals such as mammals, dinosaurs, and ocean animals.  On the second floor there is an insect room and you can see the hope diamond in the geology, gems, and minerals room.  On the ground floor you can see birds from the Washington DC area as well as tour the museum gift store.  If you want to visit this museum and see all of these things and many more, you can click on this link: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

I spent several hours touring the museum.  Someday I hope to get to go to Washington DC with my family.  I will be able to serve as their tour guide since I've already been there on my computer.

At the Hospital

Today Mrs. Branch and I went to visit her friends at the hospital where she worked. The only time I have ever been in a hospital was when I was born.  Luckily I haven’t had any accidents or been sick enough to have to go to the hospital.  I always wear my helmet when I ride my bike, and I fasten my seat belt when I ride in the car.  I try to stay away from eating a lot of junk food and eat healthy foods instead.  It also helps that I go to the doctor for regular checkups. 

I don’t know what I was expecting when I walked in the front doors, but this place was like an indoor mall.  There was a coffee cart, a gift store, and a flower shop located in the lobby.  On the second floor was the cafeteria.  The patient rooms were located on the third floor all the way up to the eighth floor, but we didn’t go up there.

 As we were visiting, one of the nurses saw me and placed me on a rolling bed and rushed me right up to the Emergency Room.  As soon as we got to the Emergency Room I was surrounded by doctors and nurses all looking at me with funny looks on their faces.  One nurse was so shocked by my flatness that she tried to listen for my heart.  Then she hooked me up to a machine to see my heart beat.  Finally Mrs. Branch came into the room and explained everything.  They all thought it was a pretty funny story, and they apologized for over reacting.  I told them it was all right.  It was their job to help people when they are sick or hurt, and they didn’t know that I was really okay.

 

 

I’m glad I visited the hospital because I got to meet a lot of nice doctors and nurses.  They told me about how they help people all day long.  I think I might want to be a doctor when I grow up.

Author Book Signing

Tonight was a very special night.  Mrs. Branch and I attended a book signing.  Have you heard about or read the book The Watsons Go to Birmingham?  Well tonight I had the privilege of meeting the author of the book, Christopher Paul Curtis.  He has written several other books you may have read or heard about.  He wrote Elijah of Buxton, Bud, Not Buddy, and The Mighty Miss Malone.  Three of his books have received the Newberry Award.  His book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, has just been turned into a Hallmark Channel Original Movie.  Mr. Curtis signed a copy of one of his books for me.  I can't wait to show my brother.  He is going to be so jealous.

Mr. Curtis was really nice.  He asked me what grade I was in and what school I attended.  He also gave me writing pointers.  He said to develop my own style of writing and to always keep writing.  Good advice from a famous author.
  

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that is located right here in Birmingham, Mr. Curtis is in town for a special screening of the movie at the Alabama Theater.  Unfortunately Mrs. Branch and I will have to catch the movie on TV since we won't be able to make it to the screening.

At the Library

                                      

 

This morning Mrs. Branch took me to one of my favorite places in the world, the library.  Had I mentioned before how much I love to read?  I was so excited when I walked in.  This library had the biggest selection of children’s books I had ever seen.  They even had an area called the Kid Zone.  There were puppets and puzzles you could play with.  There were computers you could get on to play games or look for things on the internet.  I looked for some of my favorite picture books and read some to Mrs. Branch.  While I was browsing you won’t believe what I found.  This guy named Brown must have read my blogs because he wrote a book all about me.  In the book he wrote that a bulletin board had fallen on me while I slept and flattened me.  Now how silly is that!  Guess what else I found, chapter books he had also written about my adventures.  I read a few pages out of one of the books and it was pretty good.  I will definitely have to read some of those books to see what interesting places I go.

 

While I was looking around I found all sorts of books on tape.  I like to listen to books in the car, so Mrs. Branch let me check out a few to take on our road trips.  They also had lots of children’s movies.  I spotted a few of my favorites and recommended them to Mrs. Branch.  It was easy to find what we were looking for at this library because everything was so organized.  All of the beginning readers were in one section, chapter books in another, and informational books and picture books were shelved in their own areas.  I felt like I could spend an entire day here.  In fact Mrs. Branch had to declare time up on this adventure after a few hours.

A Day at the Parks

  

 

Today was such a beautiful day that Mrs. Branch took me not to just one but to two great parks in Birmingham.  The first one we went to was Railroad Park in downtown Birmingham.  This park has great walking and running trails.  On one side of the park you could watch the trains go by, hence the name Railroad Park.  The park has a great playground.  There was an exercise area and a place for skateboarders.  You can even bring your pets or ride a bike.  There was a lake full of these giant orange and white fish.  Mrs. Branch said they are called Koi fish.

As we were enjoying our walk, we ran into some really nice young ladies from a sorority at UAB passing out frozen popsicles as part of a community service project.  They were so nice I had my picture made with them.  They invited me for a tour of their school which was just down the street a few blocks.  I agreed to meet up with them next week.
 

The other park we visited was historic Avondale Park.  The first thing we did was feed the ducks on the lake.  Turns out the pigeons were just as hungry as the ducks.  There was a kickball game in progress which we watched for a while.  Then we walked around taking in the beauty of the park.  There was an amphitheater at the back of the park.  I pretended to be on stage and acted like a rock star.  Here is a video of me at Avondale park.

 

       

 

 

 

 

Out Shopping

Today Mrs. Branch took me shopping.  She said I needed some new outfits to take on my adventures, but I think she was just using that as an excuse to go shopping for herself.  We went to the Shops of Grand River which is an outlet mall in Leeds.  This mall was a lot different than the malls back home.  At this mall all the stores were outside rather than inside one big building.  The only down side would be going in and out of stores while it was raining or really cold outside.   We were lucky that today was such a nice, sunny day.  We walked and walked for hours.  There were 60 stores and a food court, so you can just imagine how much shopping we did.

 

We took a break during the afternoon and had some yogurt.  There were so many flavors to choose from.  For the toppings you could choose from fruits, candies, and syrups.  My favorite was the cake batter yogurt which I topped with white chocolate chips, peanut butter M&M’s, crushed Oreo cookies, and a little whipped cream.  It was delicious. 

 

                                                

 

After the yogurt break, Mrs. Branch took me to Learning Express.  I was in toy heaven.  They had books, games, and toys of all kinds.  They even had a train set that you could play with. 

 





I think that by the end of the day we had gone to all 60 stores.  I have to say I was a bit tired, but I think Mrs. Branch could have kept on going like the Energizer Bunny.  Once we got home she had me try on all my new outfits.  I still like my red shirt and blue pants the best.