25-JUL - Banding Hummingbirds

Today we went with the Audubon society to the Perk Floyd residence south of Little Rock (Lakeside Country Club) to band hummingbirds. Perk has been banding hummers since 1988 and has banded over 7000 hummers. We first had to trap the hummers in a home built cage surrounding a hummingbird feeder. Next, Perk would reach in and remove the tiny hummer by hand. The next job was to check and see if the bird needed banding. Many of the birds have already been banded. However, these are also measured and compared to previous results. Below is picture of the Floyds banding a hummer.

After banding, the bird needs to be measured and weighed. First, the wings and tail are measured.
Next, the beak is measured. It was interesting that the females typically have longer beaks than the males -- to feed babies -- not to tweeter.
Finally, the hummers are put into a piece of stocking and weighed. Most of our birds weighed a little over 3 grams. For reference, 1 ounce is 28 grams. Put another way, you could mail about 8 birds with a single 42 cent stamp! That would be an interesting letter.
After measuring, it takes the hummers a few minutes to recover from the "trauma" of being captured. Here's Rosie holding a hummer before it flies away.

Here's an up close view of Bob's hummer relaxing in his hand. This is a girl hummer and it's simply "swooning". He could feel her little heart beating.

Visiting An Old Part of Tokyo

Today we took a train into a part of Tokyo that wasn't destroyed during the World War II bombing. A lot of history remains. Chris, Amy, Adam and Lottie are standing in front of a Meiji era wall. Lottie really seems to enjoy riding with Mom. She always seemed to go to sleep quickly in this arrangement.


During our trek through the city, we stopped at a great noodle shop for lunch. Adam is having a great time with his soba noodles. Adam also got to feed the fish in the small pool inside the restaurant. This was great fun.

Climbing Mt. Fuji

On Saturday, July 12, Chris, Rosie and Bob climbed Mt. Fuji. The day started by catching a 4 am bus from Camp Zama headed for the 5th station at Mt. Fuji. The bus ride was a little over 2 hours. We started climbing at about 6:30 am. Here we are before we start the climb - notice the smiles. They'll be replaced by tiredness at the end of the day.

We all made it to the top in the allotted time. We needed to reach the top before 1 pm in order to make it back to the bus by 6 pm. Here are shots of Chris, Bob and Rosie at the top. Chris is next to the crater of the volcano. Note: Mt. Fuji's summit is 12,395 feet high. The temperature was considerably cooler at the top. A light jacket felt nice.
Here's Bob by the marker pointing to the trail back down the mountain. Since he's tired already, he's not really looking forward to the climb back down. Is there an escalator or maybe a toboggan ride down? At least the Great Wall had a toboggan ride.
Here's Rosie at the tori gate entrance to the top of Mt. Fuji. She's giving a great bonsai shout - or maybe singing opera - who knows about that woman.The climb down lasted about 3.5 hours. We got back to the 5th station at about 4:30 - plenty of time to catch the 6 pm bus. The bus ended up leaving at about 6:30; we waited 30 minutes for one of our members. She never showed and the bus finally left without her. We arrived back at Camp Zama at about 9:30 pm. Most of us were tired and slept a good part of the way back. However, we had a great sense of accomplishment! I do know I slept well that night.

Visiting the Chris Callicott Family in Japan

We arrived in Tokyo, Japan, on July 3, 2008 to visit Chris, Amy, Adam and Lottie (the newest arrival). Here's a family shot taken at Sagamihara Park.

While we were there, we got to go to a Japanese baseball game in Tokyo. We were yelling for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows: "Go! Go! Swallows! Go! Go! Swallows!" We had a great time and even got the chance to eat some yakisoba with pieces of sliced hot dog in it. Yep - we go all out for baseball. For those who have never been to a Japanese baseball game, it's a lot different than US baseball. There's a lot more yelling, cheering and even a team pepband playing throughout the game. Overall, it's much more entertaining. The girl selling beer from the beer keg on her back was rather entertaining.

Obviously for grandparents, one big part of the trip is getting to hold (and help spoil) grandchildren. Gram wasted no time getting her hands on Ms. Lottie - who is such a cutie. She has the neatest looking hair and smile.
And Adam is a great big brother. He really enjoys giving Lottie kisses. Lottie also seems to enjoy Adam and often smiles at him.

Mini-Reunion at Outback

We flew out of DFW on our way to Japan. We got to visit with Rosie's sister and husband (Julie and Dale Stonecipher) and Rosie's brother and wife (Jim and Marylynn Adams) while we were in Ft. Worth. Jim and Marylynn flew in the evening before we left. So, we had a mini-family reunion at Outback Steakhouse near DFW. Here's a shot of the Adams' kids: Julie, Rosie and Jim.

Here's a photo of Julie, Marylynn and Jim.

Aren't they a great looking group?

Visiting the Flachman family in Dickinson, TX

On 17-JUN-2008, we traveled to Dickinson, TX to visit our daughter, Karen, and husband, Shane, and son, Logan. The first day we went to Galveston beach. Even though it was hot, the temperature was fairly comfortable at the beach. Yes, here are the grandparents (complete with dorky hats) holding onto Logan.

Here's the Flachman family. Aren't they a great looking crew? We love those shades. While we were at the beach, Rosie (Gram) let Logan play on the beach. Not paying attention to the waves, a big wave came in and knocked him over. Logan got fairly soaked, but didn't complain much - a real trooper.

The next day we (i.e. Karen and Shane) went wake boarding near their house. They have a great boat and are really close to the water. As you can tell from the photos, both Karen and Shane make wake boarding look easy. Well, Bob can tell you from experience that's it's not that easy. We won't post any pictures of Bob's wake boarding experience. It's not a pretty sight.

We also left Sam in Houston as we were leaving for a two-week trip to Japan to visit our son, Chris, and his family at camp Zama near Tokyo. Sam enjoyed getting to hang with Bug and Zoe - the two Flachman dogs. As long as Sam has food to eat and a floor to sleep on (plus a few scratches now and then), he's pretty happy.

Living in Hot Springs Village

We're Bob and Rosie Callicott. We live in Hot Springs Village with our golden retriever, Sam. We moved to HSV in October, 2007. Before moving to HSV, Bob worked for Procter & Gamble (making soap) for 32 years. During this time we lived in Cincinnati, Manila (Philippines), Kobe (Japan) and Beijing (China). Rosie was a great homemaker and raised 3 children: Chris, Karen and Doug. We also have 3 very cute grandchildren.