Hippo Thanksgiving!

Just a few of the many, many things I am thankful for:

Warm bed and a remote


Warm friends


Road Trips!


Hats (especially my 2 sombreros!)


Hot Chocolate


Being a hippo!


and, of course, hippo-lovers, hippo caretakers, and my adoring hippo fans!

Happy Hippo Thanksgiving!

Holly

Hippo's new friend Holly sent holiday greetings from snowy Ann Arbor, Michigan.

She wanted to show Hippo what the University of Michigan campus looks like in cold weather. There's a definite lack of salsa dancing hippopotamuses on the plaza.

But Triton and the kids are still playing in the fountain.

Holly tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Then she warmed up with a fresh Mexican lunch.

Holly nuzzled a puma on the way into the Exhibit Museum of Natural History.

There she learned how hippopotamuses are related to whales. An animal called Artiodactyl began adapting to an aquatic habitat 55 million years ago. Some of its descendants evolved into swimming hunters which later became whales and dolphins. Others evolved into wading grazers like the hippopotamus.

Holly is a beautiful example of Hippopotamus amphibius.

She left an impression on Ann Arbor by making hippo prints in the snow.

Lucky Baby Hippo

I was reading the news, and I came across this article about a very lucky and adorable baby Pygmy Hippo!



Monifa, whose name means "I am lucky" in Nigerian, was born after a very difficult breach birth, and might have died if the dedicated staff at the Taronga Zoo in Australia hadn't stepped in. They stayed with her around the clock keeping her from getting lonely and scared, keeping her safe, teaching her to eat (very important for a growing hippo!), and teaching her to walk--all the things good Hippo parents do for their Hippo kids.

She is still tiny, but she is now double her birth size and playful. She really seems to enjoy bathtime, and even does somersaults in the water!



She is really cute, but I bet she'll be embarrassed by those baby bathtime pictures when she is older. You can see more cute baby pictures here

I'm just glad nobody took pictures of me taking a bath! ...or maybe they did!



How humiliating.

Dinnertime

This is what dinnertime looks like at my house whenever I serve Hippo's favorite meal: melon ball salad, spaghetti with meatballs, peas, and malted milk balls.

Four Presidents

One of Hippo's favorite activities is to go on trips and learn about history. So in late September we drove down to three historic sites in southern Virginia: Montpelier, Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg.

Montpelier was the home of President James Madison, Father of the Constitution.

A short, scenic drive away is the University of Virginia which was founded by President Thomas Jefferson.

We spent the night in the city of Fredericksburg. A young George Washington lived nearby and later his mother moved to the city. They even named a school after her – the University of Mary Washington. Today they have pretty horses.

All the touring made Hippo thirsty, so he double-pawed some historic soda.

The sky turned dark and stormy while Hippo was strolling around Fredericksburg looking for old houses and statues. Just as he started skedaddling to dinner to avoid the downpour he heard a massive cheer and a familiar voice in the distance.

It was a campaign rally for Barack Obama at Mary Washington and The Big Picture shared what Hippo was too far away to see. It was very exciting to encounter four presidents on one trip!

Googly Tiny

Hippo heard a rustling from his sack of Halloween candy. His first thought was that maybe someone dropped a pet in his sack while he was out trick-or-treating. A penguin?! Then he thought that it was more probable that he had accidently attracted our house hippo with peanut butter cups.

When he opened the sack he found the real explanation. Tiny had crawled in to snack on Nerds and Crunches. He came zooming out, spreading a confetti of wrapper fragments, chocolate crumbs, and brightly colored sugar pellets across the room.