Topsey Exotic Ranch

I absolutely loved Play Day at UMHB when I was a student, but I may have loved it more this year, since it meant that my husband didn't have any classes this Thursday and got to spend the whole day with us. We took the girls to the park for a couple of hours in the morning and then after a healthy lunch at Subway, we drove out past Copperas Cove to Topsey, TX.

There is a place out there that has exotic animals and you can drive through and feed the animals. Then there is a petting zoo at the entrance with more fun animals. We heard about it a long time ago, but finally went. It was a blast! Plus since it is spring, there were lots of little baby animals. We saw many, many baby goats, deer, antelopes, a miniature horse, and a zebra. Talk about ADORABLE!!!

If you live anywhere close to central Texas, this is worth an afternoon trip. Check out the website for more info... http://www.topseyexoticranch.com/

All but one HUNGRY goat were super gentle. They ate out of your hand and were so careful not to bite you. The one crazy goat jumped up on our door several times and scratched the paint off as he slid down. We had to contact our insurance company :( I still say to go though...still a lot of fun!

The zebras were very sweet and let you rub their noses while nuzzling you.
Maybe the cutest baby zebra ever...
I took LOTS of pictures of the babies. :)
Mommy and Lexi
The camel who ate the ENTIRE bag of food out of Eric's lap in one giant bite...

He swallowed the paper bag and the food.
I loved these two.
Eric and Lilly feeding a deer.
The girls were thrilled that they could get out of their car seats and climb up front with us.



The petting zoo had tons of new baby goats. The girls warmed up quickly and pet them for at least half an hour. Lexi would tell them how soft they were and how sweet she thought they were. She just talked away and they all listened intently.
This pregnant one reminded me of myself when I was pregnant. Something about being too large to walk and the way she waddled uncomfortably while being really lop-sided...

Lexi and Daddy with the goats...

Eric made some new friends...

My twins with some goat twins that loved us...
This is "Knock-Knock". He talked and it was super cute!
This little man was adorable...

Well that was a lot of pictures, but it was worth it. Enjoy and maybe check it out sometime.

Wordless Wednesday

NASA

I wanted this to come from Eric himself. So here you have it:

Hello, my name is Eric. I am Sarah's husband, and she has asked me to write to explain what happened during my trip over the last few days. You see, I am using my VA benefits to go back to college, where I am about the enter my Senior year as a Computer Science major. Last summer, I worked an internship in Beaumont, TX, in which I ended up writing a research paper that was published in the International Journal of Information Technology. Based on this research paper, I was recruited to attend an engineering skills competition at Johnson Space Center, where I spent the past few days competing.

The program is called the College Aerospace Scholars program. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, and I thought it at first too......Can a Computer Science major attend an engineering skills competition? The answer is yes, because the definition of an "engineering program" has changed recently. Now, as long as you are a STEM (stands for Science of Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) major, and your program is accredited by an association called ABET, then you are considered to be an engineering major. In my case, I qualified because my school holds the accreditation, and Computer Science is a Science of Technology field.

Anyway, when we got to the competition, we were broken into teams. There were seven teams, each with six members, for a total of 42 competitors. NASA chose seven people to act as the lead Project Engineers for each team, placing that person in charge of the team. These seven people, myself being one, were the seven who NASA recruited to attend the program (everyone else had to go through an application and acceptance process).

We were told that our teams were competing for a fictional contract to build the next Mars rover. Each team spent a couple of days trying to build a robot that could run through an obstacle course simulating a martian environment, and analyze and collect rock and water samples. Naturally, it is not easy to accomplish such a task in two days worth of time. I had to give everyone on my team specific tasks, monitor their work, and help them solve engineering problems that came up along the way. Naturally, everything that could have gone wrong did, and I was running around like crazy trying to get this thing planned and built in time.

Somehow or another, the robot that my team built happened to perform slightly better than any other team on the obstacle course. So, the only thing we had left to do was make a proposal to actual NASA engineers about why our robot was the best and should be considered for our hypothetical mission to Mars. This was not an easy proposal to give. We had to give the technical details of our robot, a look at what the budget would have to be in order to conduct an actual mission to Mars using our robot design, and answer questions from a field of NASA engineers who were looking for an excuse to discredit our design. To make it worse, we had to present this orally in front of all of the other competitors, the judges, and a large group of other NASA engineers who took the time out of their day to see what sort of ideas we had come up with. In all, we gave our presentation in front of about 150 people.

Those of you who know me well know that I am an extremely good presenter and public speaker. So I gave our team's presentation personally, and we completely blew the competition away. In the end, my team was judged to have won the contract for the fictional mission to Mars. This means that we won! And since I was the Program Engineer for the team, I was the overall winner of the competition.

Since this was a state wide competition for the seven of us who were recruited, NASA officially considers me to be the top undergraduate engineering student in the State of Texas. I talked to them briefly about working an internship with them right after I graduate, but I really don't think I will do it. There would be no guarantee of a job when the internship is over, and quite frankly, I don't qualify for the super cool aerospace engineering jobs at NASA anyway.

But I can now live the rest of my life knowing that NASA once considered me to be the top undergraduate engineering major in the State of Texas, and that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Austin Trip

Last weekend we ran down to Austin really quick to have dinner with some of my family. My step-brother Jeremy announced that he got into vet school. Congratulations again, Jeremy! We're proud of you and hope you have a blast!

On the way there, Lilly enjoyed protecting her eyes with my sunglasses.

Even though they are cell phone pictures, I just love these pictures of the 5 cousins. Cute kids, huh? :) From left to right, Tanner, Tristan holding Teague, Lilly and Lexi...
I'm not too sure Lilly knew what to do when Teague started crying.
And my personal favorite...

Prayers

Lilly's bedtime prayer tonight...

"Dear God, please help me listen to Mommy and the angels. The End. Praise the Lord!! And Amen!"