This is a very important household rule. It is to be followed at all times.

Unfortunately, the chickens do not seem to understand this.

They want to come in anyway.

It's actually kinda funny. I keep having to run up the front steps and slip through the door while herding off about, oh, 24 chickens?

We have 32, I think, total, but the babies are still too small to go out into the hen house. They'd get eaten. And we got four Guinea hens on Friday. They're the lavender breed, and they actually are striped with purple-y gray. They're adorable, and very tiny. Much smaller than chicks. All four of them can fit in the palm of my hand, which shows you how small they are. And they squeak!

And I still have kitten envy. *sigh*

Anyway, we went down and visited our Dad for four days, leaving Tuesday and getting back late Saturday. Bits of it were boring, bits of it weren't, and bits of it were abjectly hilarious.

Tuesday was boring. We went on the train, we got off, we went home. End of day one.

Wednesday we tried to go to the Modern Art Museum, but it was closed. Everything except the Asian Art Museum was closed, actually. Strange time of week to be closed.

But the Asian Art Museum was nice. They had a fascinating exhibit about the samurai, and this little interactive room that was a lot of fun. I helped a little girl with her kimono, put on one myself, and pretended to have tea with her. And then helped her write haiku. I wrote mine in French, as a contrast to all the Japanese/Chinese/Korean. Wish I could remember what it was, though. And then we (me, my sister, and our grandmother) went and had ice-cream. Which made me happy. And then we wandered around for a while, and looked in the windows of the closed museums.

And then we collected Dad and our grandfather, and saw Up! which was very, very cute. I liked Kevin the best. Seriously, how much better can it get? It's got a dog, and a bird, and an over-enthusiastic kid!

Yeah. I'm just a bit nuts, alright?

Thursday we went and visited our cousins, Jasper, Hannah, and Marion. Jasper was still asleep when we got there, so we jumped on him until he woke up. Grabbing someone's pillow and whacking him with it while yelling 'Get up!' works like a charm. Well, that and poking at his feet. He squeaks, you know, though he'd probably kill me if he ever found out I said that.

So we played Apples to Apples (I got the Michael Jackson and the Captain Kirk card, I so win!), and ate mints and marshmallows and some sort of ramen, and then I got to play Twilight Princess for a while, which was oodles of fun. Even when I threw myself off the edge of the world multiple times. I got the first fused shadow thing, and then I had to stop.

*sigh*

I made Jasper fight the bosses for me, and throw the bombs. I kept blowing myself up. And then we walked downtown and got ice-cream. (What can I say? Ice-cream is good for the soul.) We were all wearing funny hats, which made people stare. I accidently stuck my elbow in my sister's cup, and ended up with chocolate all over my arm. So we went outside to eat our ice-cream, and for a while, before we figured out we could fit all five of us on a three person bench, I sat on Jasper. I was the last person out, and he was the biggest. I probably would have squashed any of the girls. People looked at us funny, probably because we were acting like four-year-olds and embarrassing the girls horribly. And we were super cheerful about it, too.

At one point, Hannah's best friend walked by, and I was trying to put chocolate from my elbow on Jasper's nose. He was trying to get the chocolate off my arm so I couldn't. And she was startled, and kinda weirded out, and so I said hello and waved at her with my spoon. Hannah turned scarlet. She was the only one not wearing a ridiculous hat, and the only one that refused to hold hands. So later, when we figured out we could get all five of us on the bench, I force fed her her ice-cream.

Then we walked to the park, and went on the play structure. Jasper and I took a nap on the grass. He makes a surprisingly good pillow. Marion was there for a while, also napping, but then she went off with the other two girls for some reason. I don't know what they did. I was sleeping.

Polly, when Jasper comes over this summer, he says he's perfectly willing to have you use him as your Jasper, if you want. And dump glitter on him, too.

I think I would pay good money to see that. *snickers*

Thursday we went to Santa Cruz, to visit our Aunt and Uncle, and to go to the Boardwalk. It was a good deal of fun. We went on almost all of the rides, and had deep fried twinkies, didn't see my cousin, who used to work the booth, like we did last time, and went miniature golfing. Which was lots and lots of fun, even if I had the worst luck ever.

And I do mean the worst luck ever. For example, I made the one-in-a-million shot that says you're going to get a hole-in-one, and my ball bounces out of the hole. Now repeat by about 12. It was ridiculous!

I think the funniest thing that happened was the Haunted Castle ride, which was spoooooky... Well, not really. It was actually pretty lame. The only part that made my sister scream was the door to the outside, which banged against the wall and scared her. Which made me laugh.

And that's really all that happened, other than me driving into a ditch.

I'm going to go pin stuff now.