What is it with Spain and bulls?

You’ve got to give kudos to Michael’s, the art & craft supply store, for keeping kids busy and creative in the summer. Once again, they’re inviting them to come over and make things out of their own hands with the”passport to imagination”.

Michael’s passport to imagination 2012

Each week you can visit the store and create crafts representing various countries of the world. For example you can make a gecko lizard and a monarch butterfly for Mexico, the Chilean flag and an alpaca puppet for Chili, etc. 

And then there’s Spain. 

You can’t blame Michael’s for mentioning bullfighting as a “popular pastime” in Spain. After all, the passport tells me Spain’s national animal is the bull and bullfighting is still a legal activity over there. Still, someone should tell Spain it’s 2012.

Oh well, at least it makes for a cute craft activity, since you can create your own terra cotta bull, nose ring included. Toro, toro!

Michael’s passport to imagination – terra cotta bull

Are you ready to see Lady Gaga milking a cow?

I read a news article last week but the photo included with it didn’t show the whole picture so I wanted to find out more. Did you read about this elementary school principal in Massachusetts who challenged his students to read 10,000 books in a school year?

To encourage the whole school to read more books, this principal made a bet with his students. If they didn’t read the 10,000 books he would… have to dress up as Lady Gaga and milk a cow. It’s what the kids happened to choose. I wonder how they came up with the two ideas together but I love it!

Well, this principal got exactly what he asked for and last week, he lost the bet. Aw, look how cute he is.

School principal dresses as Lady Gaga

And here he is as Lady Gaga milking a cow. Now this is a sight I’ll never be able to erase from my mind!

School principal dressed as Lady Gaga milks a cow

A picture is worth a thousand words but a movie is worth a thousand more, so you can watch the video of this school principal dressed as Lady Gaga and milking a cow.

Is that a cool school principal, or what?

Oh my, today’s cow is squirting milk

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know I’ve observed  many times that at least half of all children’s books seem to feature cows in them. And that’s even when there’s no hint of a cow on the front cover. Here’s an example to prove my point: would you think this book called My Little Sister Hugged An Ape by Bill Grossman has a cow in it? Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

My little sister hugged an ape by Bill Grossman

This very funny rhyming book shows a little sister hugging animals one after the other as a way to teach the alphabet using animal names. A for ape, B for bug and C for… cow!

And what a special cow it is. This little sister is hugging it a little too tight and it’s squirting milk! Warning: the image below is not for the faint-hearted… Poor cow, its eyes are about to pop out too.

My little sister hugged a cow that squirted milk

How about some Midnight Moo?

I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday and there are always plenty of cows waiting for me there. I just have to be careful taking pictures of them since Trader Joe’s has a no-picture policy and I’ve been warned before. Of course, it doesn’t help that my phone camera makes a very loud shutter sound every time I snap a picture. If I want to turn it off, I have to turn all sounds off and then I have no idea if someone is calling me. Thank you, LG. You really know how help your phone users be sneaky…

I managed to see a new cow during my latest Trader Joe’s visit. I’m sure it’s not a new product but since I don’t buy chocolate syrup, I’ve never noticed it before. I did yesterday though, as a whole bunch of bottles were sitting on an aisle’s end cap.

I present you Trader Joe’s organic Midnight Moo chocolate syrup. Doesn’t this make you want to buy some? You know you can’t go wrong when the cow is jumping over the moon.

Trader Joe’s Midnight Moo chocolate syrup

The many cows of Old Town San Diego – Part 2

If you missed The many cows of Old Town San Diego – Part 1, it’s worth taking a look, just for that fancy chair made out of cow horns.

I felt I won the jackpot at San Diego’s Old Town - at least when it comes to cow sightings – when we entered a store selling a whole bunch of indoor and outdoor home decorations. Many of them were made in Mexico (not China!) so you get a taste of the local flavor.

Are you ready to see them all? Well, I’m sure they were more but this is what I managed to see while making sure my kids weren’t breaking anything in the store… Here we go!

Looks, it’s a cow with wings. Now I really believe the slogan, Red Bull gives you wings! It really does, even for cows.

Cow with wings!

Here are some really cute cow clay sculptures, with their pig friends.

Cow clay sculptures at a San Diego’s Old Town store

And here’s a nice cow skull decoration made out of wood. Pretty neat.

Of course, it wouldn’t be right without the common Holstein cow sighting.