Eid Mubarak!

I am so excited about the Eid holiday! Tonight I am flying to the USA! I am flying to Minneapolis, the city where my sister Jen lives. I'm staying with her, but we are also planning to drive to my parents house, which is about 250 kilometers from her house. It's going to be a great holiday because my two older sisters are flying in from Seattle, and my younger sister is flying in from Milwaukee. It is going to be wonderful to see everyone, and to be together. We are planning to go to a nice restaurant one night, and we're also going to just hang around, relax, and catch up on each other's news. I can't wait! I feel a little bit nervous because it's going to be pretty cold - for example tomorrow's high for Minneapolis is about 5 degrees! But I am really looking forward to seeing the fall colours!

Treasure Chest Cake

Our little friend Jesse celebrated his first birthday two weeks ago. In America, when a child has a birthday party, he often chooses a theme for the party. Some children choose a popular movie, like Star Wars for example. Then the cake, the decorations, the games, etc. are all connected to Star Wars. Sometimes the children even wear Star Wars costumes! Other popular themes are a popular cartoon, like the Rug Rats or Tom and Jerry, or a story, like Cinderella. I remember going to a cowboy party when I was little. Everybody dressed like cowboys and cowgirls and we played cowboy games. It was fun!

Jesse's parents decided to have a "pirate" theme for their party. Do you know what a pirate is? Did you see the movie Pirates of the Caribbean with Johnny Depp?

Everybody came dressed like pirates, and we played silly pirate games. I baked this cake for Jesse for his birthday. All of the hungry pirates loved this treasure!

Alligator Soup

Some of you asked me if my dad and brothers hunt for anything besides duck. Well, they hunt for many things including deer, rabbit and sometimes moose! My brother Mark tried alligator hunting for the first time this year. In this photo he is removing the skin from the alligator. I think this is probably the most disgusting picture I have ever seen! He lives in Florida, where there are a lot of alligators.

How exactly did he get this alligator? First of all, you hunt for alligators at night, and look for them in lakes. You can shine a spotlight into the water, like my brother did. He saw hundreds of alligator eyes staring out of the water! Eek! He was in a boat and he used a harpoon with a 25 foot tether. After he shot the harpoon into alligator, the alligator swam away. Luckily, there was a float with a light at the end of the tether, so they chased the light for about 45 minutes, until the alligator slowed down. Then they harpooned it again, shot it, and pulled it into the boat. My brother described what he did then:

"I carefully grabbed his snout with my hands and we taped his mouth shut. Back at the landing he measured 8 feet and his weight was estimated at 200-225 pounds (100kg)".

Would you ever eat alligator?