Horse Isle 2

Hi people.

Guess what? We have started playing a new online game. It's called Horse Isle 2: Legend of the Esrohs. It comes in a life cycle version where horses age and can breed, as well as the eternal version we chose where horses live forever and aren't breed-able. Horse Isle 2 is way better than Horse Isle 1 graphics-wise. (We never could get past the wonky-looking avatar horses of HI1 to consider playing it, lol.) 

Horse Isle 1. Yikes.

Horse Isle 2
That's our avatar on Galileo checking out a wild horse :)

We all share one HI2 account, taking turns playing as an avatar person that looks like Mom just for chuckles. With just one account, we progress way faster, and if we want to subscribe, we'll only have to buy one subscription rather than four.

The setting of the game is a huge complex of varied islands. You explore the islands from horseback, searching for and capturing wild horses, going on quests, playing mini-games, meeting other players, harvesting and selling items... I could go on and on.

The best part of the game is of course the beautiful horses. Every horse is unique, what with the seemingly endless combinations of breed, color, markings, height, abilities, and personality type. Each player can have up to 5 horses (to get more you have to subscribe, buy a ranch isle, and buy barns). We've each gotten to pick one horse to be ours, which leaves us with one extra slot for captured wild horses. Here are our keepers:

My (Bethany's) pick:
Ophelia the light dapple grey Dales - our first equine, a lovely but socially challenged pony

Felicity's pick:
Galileo the black chestnut sabino Calabrese - the first wild horse we lassoed, and a very handsome one at that

Julie's pick:

Ravine the primitive dun Nokota - a wild-looking softie who was lassoed by Julie

Lily's pick:
"Wild Horse" the grulla tobiano Warlander (Name pending. Don't rush her) - Lily found her in a forest hiding behind a tree so that only her white tail was visible

We can't wait until we and our horses gain enough experience so that we can ride around bareback! We also hope to meet some of the mysterious Esrohs eventually, but we've got lots of saving up and improving to do before we can seriously think about that!

April 21 :^D

GUESS WHAT, WORLD? IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

I have been too busy to post until now, but rest assured that my day has been spectacular. 

Unfortunately, downtown Grand Rapids has not been having a good day at all. West Michigan has been experiencing the worst flooding it's had in 80+ years. Our house is fine, though. We live on high ground and are far enough away from any bodies of water. The water level in the Grand River by downtown GR was expected to crest this evening. The news website tells me it is now holding steady at 21.8 feet, whatever that means. It sounds impressive. 

Here's a pic of what the river looked like this evening:

And here's what it normally looks like:

Amazing what too much rain can do! For the record, my birthday was the first precipitation-free day we've had for 14 days. Hooray for April 21!

Mom says it's time for bed. I get to sleep in her room tonight. ;^) Peace out!

Not A Good Day

Hi, all. Lily here. I wanted to post today about the Titanic because of the date and because Mom recently visited the Titanic artifact exhibit at the museum. However, not only is April 15, 2013 the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, but now it is also the day that two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Horrific, just horrific. I don't want to talk any more about that right now. The news is doing plenty, so back to the Titanic. 

At this Titanic Artifact Exhibit, each person who enters it is given a boarding pass. On it is the name and brief information about one of the Titanic's real passengers. Mom was Mrs. Leila Meyer, a first class passenger. Here is her boarding pass (I took a photo of both sides). You can click on each to see it full-size.

Mom got to see all kinds of Titanic artifacts. It's amazing how good some of the artifacts look after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for years and years. Below are a few photos taken from here, since Mom wasn't allowed to take any of her own while she was there. The artifacts were in glass cases with sensitive alarms that would sound if they were disturbed. These alarms went off several times while Mom was there (not ever her doing).

In-tact dishes. The plates still have beautiful designs on them.

Porthole.
The info said that passengers were not allowed to mess with them,
since they were very heavy and could easily crush fingers.

These dishes were neatly stacked in a wooden cabinet.
The cabinet disintegrated, leaving these dishes aligned like this on the ocean floor.

A replica of a first class cabin.

A replica of a third class cabin.
Often 4 total strangers would share this tiny space!

Close-up of an "iceberg" we were allowed to touch.
Some yahoos have apparently had contests to see who can keep their hands on it the longest,
eventually forming these handprints.

Some of the souvenirs sold in the gift shop.
On the far right, you can see a necklace containing a small piece of coal from the Titanic.

At the end of the exhibit, an entire wall was devoted to huge lists of who did and didn't survive, separated by first, second, and third class. The proportion of survivors to those lost could be seen quite vividly. A little over 60% of the first class passengers survived, a little over 40% of the second class passengers survived, and only about 25% of the third class passengers survived.

Mom found Mrs. Meyer's name among the first class survivors - Mom later read online that she was rescued in lifeboat 6. However, her husband, Mr. Edgar Joseph Meyer, did not survive. Since Mrs. Meyer was traveling to New York for her father's funeral, I guess she had to have a double funeral when she finally arrived. How terrible. According to other online information, Mrs. Meyer eventually re-married to Louis Ranger and lived to be 71 years old. She did not speak of the Titanic disaster. I wouldn't have either, had it been me.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Here are some photos of us in our Easter finest:

Aren't we lovely?

 

We did not wear these dresses outside for our Easter egg hunt outside, though. It was a cold, cloudy day here, but luckily the rain cleared out in the early morning. Instead of hiding tons of eggs and having an egg hunt free-for-all, this year we each had a dozen eggs of a specific color to find. Felicity looked for green eggs, Bethany for purple, Lily for yellow, and me for blue. Felicity was looking the longest because her eggs blended in so well with the grass and trees.

 

I polled my sisters on which Easter candy was their favorite. Here's what each of us said:

Bethany's favorites are Peeps, but only when they're not stale. She thinks the chicks and the bunnies are equally cute.

Felicity likes milk chocolate bunnies. She always eats them from the ears down.

Lily likes Starburst jellybeans. Her favorite flavors are watermelon and orange.

My favorite Easter candy is the Snickers peanut butter egg. They are bigger than Reese's peanut butter eggs and just as yummy.

This is Spring?

Great Grandma flew back home from Florida yesterday. Guess what was waiting to greet her?

That's right: snow! And lots of it. It continues to fall today, and there is no significant weather warm up in sight.

It's been meteorological spring since March 1, and today is the spring equinox, which marks the first day of spring on the calendar. You'd never know it by looking outside here. Some places in the world are already enjoying spring-like weather. China's cherry blossoms are apparently blooming beautifully. But...

Okay, so this is an exaggeration. Mom wishes they'd plowed the roads this nicely yesterday, though. It took our snowplow service until the overnight hours to finally come and plow out our driveway. Not cool.

Somebody Mom knows on Facebook posted this gem this morning. Ha ha.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody.

Since my last name is of Irish origin, I figured I might as well post today.

Did you know that we have the Irish to thank for 4 equine breeds? Well, we do! Here they are:

Connemara Pony

Kerry Bog Pony

Irish Draft Horse

Irish Sport Horse

My favorite is the Connemara Pony. =)

Okay, enough education for the day. I will conclude this post with two cute photos of some green-hooved drafties. They were in some St. Patrick's Day parade a few years back.

Daylight Saving Time Sucks

The Princess Bride: a classic. Sidenote, though. Websites seem to agree that the correct term is "daylight saving time" with no "s." Who knew?

What is the deal with switching back and forth between daylight saving time and... um... non daylight saving time? I understand that if we didn't do the DST thing, we'd have less light in the evenings. So, DST is good because it saves $$ on lights, makes people feel like they can go out and do things after work, etc. 

What I want to know is why we don't just stay on DST all year round. It gets dark ridiculously early in the evening without it. Who really gives a rip about when the sun rises in the dead of winter? Newsflash: it's going to be depressingly late no matter what. 

The sleep disruption and general confusion of the bi-annual switching doesn't seem worth it to me, especially since whoever's in charge seems to make the non DST window smaller and smaller every year. Let's just make the permanent switch to DST and be done with it.

In other news, Mom drove our great grandma to the airport today. She's headed for a week-long vacation in Florida. I asked Mom if I could come along for the ride to the airport, thinking maybe I'd be able to sneak into great grandma's suitcase while no one was looking. No such luck. It's a school day. Ugh.

Right now Grandma's in the air over Tennessee about to cross the border to Georgia. Check it out.

I wonder if there was any turbulence over that band of rain. I wish I was going on a trip. Maybe I have a shot if the family goes somewhere over spring break... Come quickly, April.