Fried Triops anyone?

They are getting bigger... Another couple weeks and they'll be big enough to eat!! hahaha!!

They are like a cross between catfish and shrimp. They have little whiskers, but they also have shells. I guess when they evolved, they couldn't decide what to be.
And here you can see all 4. There were all these molted shells floating around in there. Kinda gross till I cleaned the water.

Goin' fishin'

I have the triops on my desk, and I get so distracted watching them play. Here's one of them (the cannibal). Can you believe how cool he looks? Gotta catch me one of them critters.

Entertaining the old folks...

The boys did really great today at the nursing home. They had to put the "show" on twice for two different groups of people. Kyle's yo-yoing might've been a little hard for some of them to follow, but they really loved having the boys there. They gave the boys many kind comments afterwards. Praise the Lord for good Christian kids who desire to serve God with their talents.

They mostly sang hymns, but Ryan also sang a few of his own songs. I tried to put some more videos up, but blogger is being a pain in the butt. I did get one put up on myspace of Ryan singing You Are The Light, so that was good.


Kyle was glad when it was over


My God

MySpace

Like my daughter said, never thought the day would come when I made a myspace page. But I finally did it.

It took me forever to figure out how to do ANYthing on there. But I think I am finally seeing the light now. Here it is in it's current state: http://www.myspace.com/dpphan
(dpphan = David Phelps Phan)

Another new adventure to work on before school starts. (Yeah, when I should be reading Craig MacDonald's book)

Tomorrow we are going to visit a nursing home and sing for them. Oh yeah, Kyle is going to be doing yo-yo tricks...

I'll let you know how it goes. (I'm going to take videos)


Our triops are getting bigger. In fact the big guy that eats the most ate one of the smaller ones yesterday. It was pretty gross to see him going after it like he was a shark or something! What an animal! The poor little carcass was just floating there partially eaten. The big guy came back later and finished him off. It was truly disgusting. I have learned that I need to feed them more than I have been. I have one very small one in there, and he has been hiding for his life!!

Celebrating Life

Happy Birthday, Kyle!

We love you very much!!

Unveiling of the "chunks o' cholocate" cake

Kyle is 15 years old today, and all he got was this lousy T-shirt!!

You have to be a geek to get it.

They're alive!!

Much to our surprise and delight, our 3-eyed crustaceans have life! I know, it is amazing, but it is absolutely true. There are about 4 of them in there if I am counting right. They are really neat looking in person!! We are going to name them after people on my forum.

Hahaha!!!


Our next video will be when they are bigger and I will try to hold one in my hand!

Houghton, NY

Here are some shots from Houghton College in upper New York state. It was really nice visiting up here. It's a great area, very peaceful and lovely. Ryan also has his eye on Grace Bible College in Michigan. Maybe we can take a trip out there in December when we go visit family. Check out these videos from Subway! When Tommee Profitt was in Houghton last summer he found the town quite boring, but he loved this Subway.

Here are 2 videos that we made at Subway.

Ryan played a little tune he made up....

At the hotel we enjoyed watcing more of Tommee's silly videos about bread, fishes....and uh... dead puppies.

Growing TRIASSIC TRIOPS!

Desktop Monsters Older than Dinosaurs

It's true. Triops have been around for a bajillion years. They have survived unchanged due to a very special adaptation called “diapause.” When their ponds dried up, the Triops' eggs went into a state of suspended animation until the ponds filled again.

Triops look like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a facehugger (look out Sigourney!), and can grow to be up to 2” long. Oh yeah, and THEY HAVE 3 EYES!!

Wow! Sounds exciting!

Ok, so I am gullible. What else is new? The advertisement says, "Just Add Water." And "Guaranteed to hatch in 24 hours." Haha... we'll see.

We put off doing this for months, so after we went to the movies yesterday we figured we'd better get this done before school starts again. It was more than just adding water. We had to bring them in the house to put the eggs in so they wouldn't blow away. I will report back and let you know if any of these ancient 3-eyed creatures have life in 24 hours.

Check this out. It's awesome!!

Our day at Seaside

Went down the shore this weekend so Ryan could see his friends from church. We had a great time! The weather was perfect. The water was wonderful. The waves were delightful. Can't wait to do it again!

An ER first

A funny thing happened today when Kyle was using one of his new yo-yo's from NY. Of course it had to be the hardest, thickest metal yo-yo he has! (The Grind Machine) It flung back and caught him right in the eyebrow.

We ended up taking him to the hospital because we thought he might need stitches.
Decided if we all had to go, we might as well make an adventure out of it and embarrass our son by taking pictures of it.

Our doctor was wonderful! He was able to use super glue on the cut instead of sewing it shut! Yay Doc! He also told us he has never handled a yo-yoing accident before! A true ER first!

Thankfully, he didn't get a tetanus shot.

Just kidding, Kyle. It wasn't really super glue...it was Dermabond Skin Adhesive

The worst part about it is that he can't get it wet for the next 3 days so he can't take a shower!

Stopped at Cliff's on the way home for ice cream! And a good time was had by all.

Yoyo Nation International Competition

Went to South Street Seaport in NYC this morning. It was very nice there by the water. But it was so hot in the sun!! When Kyle went to finish registration he found out that the event he had signed up for was held yesterday!! So, he didn't get to compete today. :( But he did get to meet Andre' Boulay, Captain of the Yoyo Jam team. Andre' placed 3rd in the World competition and was one of the judges. Kyle was very happy to get some new yo-yo's!! Here's Andre' showing some of his stuff. These are the judges. They are all masters or champions. The guy wearing all black... his name is BLACK. He's a World Champion. And here's Yuuki Spencer on the left, 2 time World Champ. And here's Kyle's free T-shirt for registering. Maybe next time, Kyle. You would've done great!!

Here's Yuuki Spencer doing his 1A stuff.

This is Paul Haan, another world champ.

Tales from Pastor Karl

I saw this image online, thought it was funny....

Sorry, these pictures will be meaningless to anyone else, but to us, they are a reminder of the wonderful Sunday morning we had at Pastor Karl’s church. We don’t get to go there too often, so it was VERY special. I took my camera with me, and I was planning to use it! But I decided not to make a scene. lol He’s lucky I didn’t take a video camera with me or I might have been tempted to capture the whole thing LIVE! hehe... Maybe next time.

All the excitement and great preaching made us hungry, so we went to Olive Garden for lunch.

Beautiful faces...

Hopefully we are learning the importance of Pauline Dispensationalism - what things were said directly to us from Paul through Jesus Christ, and which things were directed towards the Jewish nation.