Last week the family toured the Linnaeus Teaching Garden at Woodward Park here in Tulsa. The gardens are not very large in area but it is packed with features including a nice pond.
Above is wife Sweetie, and son, SuperPizzaBoy.
Please check out Watery Wednesday.
SuperPizzaBoy is doing something new. Hippotherapy, defined in this article as:
“…using the horse as a treatment tool to accomplish therapeutic objectives such as improving balance, strength and motor coordination in providing autism teaching strategies to develop motor and other skills in students with autism. Unlike therapeutic riding, therapists do not focus on teaching riding skills…”
He is taking it at the Rogers State University “Bit by Bit” program. Read more about it here.
Last night was his third class and the only the first I attended. There were about five kids of varying age in the class. Each child had a horse and was attended to by two to four volunteers. The class was led by a therapist who had the kids do various exercises and maneuvers on their horses.
Let me just say, there were lots of smiles.
I’m a fan of Bit by Bit.
The following is a news report that aired recently about SuperPizzaBoy’s school here in Tulsa.
SPB has Asperger’s Syndrome a type of autism. The school almost literally saved SPB. He was not flourishing at Union Public Schools. His teachers labored mightily to help him as did the Special Education teachers. The Administration though was totally indifferent.
Anyway, he is a happy bright kid who loves learning and he loves the school where he is doing great. The school is expensive and we are not eligible for the scholarships discussed in the video but that is OK. I don’t know of a better use of our money than getting our child educated.
Today’s verse is from Proverbs 2:6
“The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” (KJV)
Check out my friend Baloney for more photographs (and videos) and text.
I work a 9/80 schedule. In other words I work 80 hours in 9 days over two weeks. So I get every other Friday off. I love it!!!! Sweetie and I generally spend it together and we spend it doing fun stuff.
This Friday, after I took SuperPizzaBoy to school, we had breakfast and puttered around the grocery store for a little while. Then we loaded up the bicycles and headed off for the Arkansas River trails.
The River Parks in Tulsa are beautiful. They are one of the great features of the city.
It was a perfect day, warm, dry, sunny.
I just love cranes, don’t you??? A new restaurant is being built over the river. It is going to be way cool when completed.
Sights on the River.
Old Route 66 marks the north end of the River Trails.
I always like to go by the “Bear Fountain.”
Afterwards we refueled on Diet Doctor Pepper, dropped the bikes off, picked up our Pomeranian, Rascal, and went to pick SuperPizzaBoy up.
Hey Bud, if you had a better day than we did, you had a great day!
Nope, we are not at the end yet. Sorry, I know that I need to get my story told in 5 seconds, but you have stuck around this long, stick around a little longer. I promised an Adoption Story and that is coming up!
SPB is having his friend Nick over for a sleepover so we went to pick up Nick. I love picking up Nick, he and his family are very nice and they also have critters.
They also have dogs, cats, chickens, peacocks, and Guineafowl. I posted about the helmeted guineafowl last week.
Well, today I got to talking to Nick’s Dad. He said one of the peacocks had laid some eggs but they never hatched so he want to a farm supply store and got some guinea eggs and substituted them for the peacock eggs.
Well, the eggs hatched and the peacock acts like the mother of the guinea chicks and the chicks think the peacock is mom. It is hilarious. I got a little close to the chicks and Mom was hollering at me, she was not happy at all. Sorry about the blurry photo. It was the best I could do without totally stressing her out.
What do you like to do on your days off?
SuperPizzaBoy and I went geocaching in the suburbs. We went to a park in Owasso to look for four caches.
The first one was in a brushy area. Previous finders and the owner of the cache had talked about a huge black snake that had been found laying right on top of the container. I’m not just terrified of snakes but I like to find them before they find me. So I was trying to check all the nooks and crannies for both snakes and containers. I finally found the container. Do you see it? Never did see the snake.
The next cache was tough. I finally cheated and stuck and my camera with the flash activated into a small hole in dead tree took a picture. There it was, big as life. Hard to retrieve, even harder to put back. Some of these cachers are evil! I don’t know what I’d a done if there was a snake or other critter looking back.
Here is an action shot of SPB, and what I thought was the container adjacent to a disk golf coure. Cache wasn’t there, I looked high and low and all over the place. Finally logged a shameful DNF (“Did Not Find”). I felt better though when a subsequent cacher also reported a DNF and the cache owner had to replace the cache. It’ll be there when we go back.
Speaking of Disk Golf, SPB tried that out the next day. Tulsa has lots and lots of disk golf courses. I see them while running on the river and while geocaching. So we bought a couple of disks and off we went to Haikey Creek Park.
Look at that form! He and I both threw them back handed like you would playing frisbee in the back yard. Almost all disk golfers I see throw them like a baseball and can really make those disks fly incredible distances. I’m going to have to learn that. But hey we are newbies. You know being a newbie is incredibly liberating. I tell our new college hires at work that if they don’t understand something just say so. That is how you learn!!
Its like “OK son, I’m going to get a shot of you putting her in the basket,” and he throws a bean ball. He thought it was hilarious.
Here, lets try it again, I’ll get off to the side.
We quit after 7 holes. It was fun, but it was hot. Time to go get refreshed. I’m going to learn some more about this disk golf thing. I like regular golf but I just cannot see telling the family sayonara for five hours or so on the weekend. I’d do it if I thought son was interested and we could do it together. He may be eventually but not now. Disk golf is free, the equipment is reasonably priced and hey and its an outside activity. We’ll be doing it some more I think.
On our way to get some sodas I just had to find a geocache right close to the park. It is a P&G (“Park and Grab”, no hike necessary)
Nope, not it, I thought it was. Here it is. See it?
Have you been knocking about lately? Tell me about it.
I’m going into MommyBlogger mode today. Son, SuperPizzaBoy came home with a paper last week where he had to create a story. It had me in it so of course I thought it brilliant.
Am I right or what?
Son on the beach near Carlsbad, California. It’s always interesting to me how the reflective beaches can be after a wave washes out and a very thin film of water remains. Also, since we were at the beach I didn’t bring my “good” cameras. I used an old out of date disposable camera. I was pretty happy with the results. Something to be said about the ultimate in point and click.
Check out Weekend Reflections
Son, SuperPizzaBoy, in the Pacific Ocean surf at Carlsbad, California having the time of his life. The water was cold, clear, and invigorating.
I took the photograph with a four year old disposable camera way past due.
Check out Watery Wednesday for damp pictures from everywhere.
Are you familiar with this building? I hope not! If you serve community service time in Tulsa this is one of the places you used to report t in order to repay your debt to society. Can you imagine the criminals who have gone through those doors? Jaywalkers, Democrats, Liberals, Universal Health Care and Gun Control Advocates, and the like. Oh, it makes me shiver just to think of them. Such criminals allowed to run loose amongst us. Those gun control nuts, I’ll tell you what the Okie method of gun control is. Its keeping two hands on the weapon at all times. Sarah Palin knows what I’m talking about!
Oh, I’m sorry I digress. And the criminals have to report somewhere else now. Now you safely visit the Children’s Garden right behind this building. It is very cool.
The Tulsa Garden Center has a Li’l Green Thumb Program for gardeners aged 4 to 11. This Saturday, July 17 from 9 am to 11:30 am is their next event. Check the Tulsa Garden Center web site for details. Pre-registration is required. Sweetie is going to be there helping with the program. Come down and say Hi.
