I had a good day today visiting our middle school, booktalking a bunch of great teen books to 7th and 8th graders of varying degrees of enthusiasm and attentiveness. :-) This was the first of my new monthly visits to the school. Hoping to become a more regular presence there than my previous annual visits in spring for summer booktalks. It was gratifying to be greeted by several students during the course of the day, "Hey I know you!" or "You came here last year!" so at least I'm a semi-familiar face.

Last weekend my niece had her sixth birthday party: so cute! She's lost her first tooth, that is quite the big milestone.




I uploaded a bunch of photos from a trip I took last year to Breyerfest--I'd forgotten that I never uploaded the rest of them, nor blogged about the other cool things I saw and did on the trip. Argh argh, too many photos, not enough time. The Gypsy/circus stunt riders were amazing:

They did all kinds of riding tricks on horses that galloped around the ring, like moving themselves from one side of the horse to the other, from in the saddle, all the way under the horse and back up again in a circle--as the horse never faltered. It was incredibly exciting to watch. So were the demonstrations of various breeds at the Horse Park, such as this Friesian:

Click on the photo for more photos of gypsy riders upside down and all over the place.

And as I walked around the horse park I came across a lone Great Blue Heron, who was enjoying the pond life. I am just fascinated by these birds, and I always love a chance to get a close up of one.




That's it for now--looking forward to a visit by an out-of-state friend this weekend, and getting to see author Neil Gaiman in person! Woo-hoo!