Welcome to our Friendship Journal! We update this page often with news and pictures of "life on the road". Penelope, Olo, Coconuts and Conductor Jack all write journal entries here. Do you like writing in a journal? It's a lot of fun - I bet you're good at it!

Thanks for reading our Friendship Journal!

PS - If you click any image below, a larger picture will open.

Woof! Woof!

Hi - I'm Doolittle (the dog that helps out around the office), and I'm posting today's Friendship Journal entry.

The Zinghoppers have been busy recording a new CD that should be available in a few months. Olo is playing the guitar. Coconuts loves the drums. Penelope sings and plays the bass. Conductor Jack, drives the band to the recording studio everyday in the Happy Train. Sometimes, the Zinghoppers ask him to sing, or play his ukulele, or blow his train whistle on one of their songs! It's a lot of fun making music with your friends and recording songs so everyone can hear them!

It's also hard work but very enjoyable. Have you ever had a project that you worked on for a long time?

I bet it makes you happy when your hard work is done, and you can share your creation with the whole world, doesn't it?

My good friend Penelope The Possum asked me to post a picture of her working on the new Zinghoppers album. So here, you go! This was taken last week while Penelope was in the studio.

The Zinghoppers have been recording in Nashville where there are a lot good musicians and friendly people!

Thanks for reading my Friendship Journal - I hope you liked seeing the picture of Penelope. Now, I have a favor to ask: would you scratch behind my ears?

Woof! Woof! Just kidding!
Doolittle

Hello, everyone, hi!

Here are a few of the photos from our time in Australia. This is a picture of Coconuts, Olo, Conductor Jack - and of course me - having fun at a beach near Sydney, Australia.

We've been so busy with our spring tour and recording our new CD that I am sorry I didn't post these fun pix sooner! Thanks for being my friend and letting me share my journal with you...maybe soon I will post some pictures from my time in the recording studio!

Love,
your friend,
Penelope The Possum!

Today's friendship journal is from our friend Coconuts The Kangaroo! She loves getting the mail and she got a very special drawing recently. Here's a picture of Coconuts with these great pictures! It made her so happy to see such amazing, artistic talent!

Hi everyone!

Today was a very, very fun day - we were on TV this morning! That's right - Olo, Coconuts, Conductor Jack and I got to sing and dance and have lots of fun today. Here's a picture of me and my friends getting ready backstage...

I took a few pictures of my friends while we were practicing. Here's my friend Coconuts The Kangaroo playing the new drum set she got for Christmas! She gets so happy when she plays the drums!

My friend Olo The Donkey got a new hat and it sure makes him look handsome! Here he is wearing it...

My friend Conductor Jack drove us to the TV station in the Happy Train and he even took a picture of me singing and playing my beautiful pink bass!

Here's a picture of all of us during a commercial. We sang three songs today: "Hop, Hop, Hop!", "Stomp Your Feet" and "The Goodbye Song". It was lots of fun dancing and singing on TV!

Here's a picture of me saying goodbye to all of my friends watching us on TV!

Afterwards, we got our picture taken with the news anchor Olivia Fierro. She was very nice and so are our new friends Kelly, Mario and Big Ben - thanks for having us...it was a great time!

I sure had a lot of fun today - I hope you had a nice day too!

Your friend,
Penelope!

G'day everyone...and happy new year!

I wanted to share with you photos from our trip to Australia. I'm the first Zinghopper back, the others joining up with me soon. We've had so much fun! I'll post photos from the shows soon, but here's a few photos of us as "tourists"...

First here's a photo of the beautiful downtown Sydney and the Harbor Bridge:

We played a few small shows at parks and community centers...but someday I imagine Penelope The Possum will be singing here:

(That's the very beautiful opera house in Sydney). We celebrated new year's earlier then our friends and family back home in the US. What a great place to be on New Year's! Here's a photo of the lights on New Year's Eve!

Tim helped us get shows in Sydney as well as a beautiful rose garden park in Melbourne...here's a picture taken just behind the stage.

We had some time off in Melbourne and spent a lot of time walking the streets and taking in the sights. Kitty and I were joined by our friend Tim (who helped line up the shows and drove us as he was able), as well as Mic (who helped Olo The Donkey) and his wife Lucy (who helped Coconuts The Kangaroo). At our show in Melbourne, we were joined by a great guy named Lachlan Conway who played drums with us! Before the show, we saw a colorful street performer who is quite popular. He's called "The Hula Hoop Man" and he does amazing tricks...

We'll post some photos from the shows soon, in the meantime, thanks to all our new Aussie mates!

And to everyone reading this...Kitty and I want to thank you all for making 2007 such an amazing year for the Zinghoppers. From our family to yours we wish you a year full of love, peace and joy! Happy new year!

Toot! Toot!
Conductor Jack

Hi Friends!

We had a great time with our new friends at the Desert Foothills Library today! These pictures were taken by our friend Cynthia. Thanks to all the families who came to see us today!

Here's the star of the show - Penelope The Possum - working her magic on the crowd.

Her friend Coconuts The Kangaroo introduced a newly recorded version of "She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain" today...

Penelope sang a new song today that you may have heard before..."The Hokey Pokey"!

Another pic of hokey pokey time!

Here's Penelope and Coconuts singing "The Goodbye Song". We had a great time today in Cave Creek and Carefree!

Toot! Toot!
Conductor Jack

Hi everybody!

I hope you all are doing well and are having a happy halloween week! Last week, we performed a fun show at the Chandler Public Library. It was a costume dance party!

Olo dressed like a friendly pirate, Coconuts was a letter carrier, and Penelope - naturally - was dressed like a princess! I decided to go as a happy scarecrow.

A lot of our friends in the audience also dressed up...it was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from that show.

Here's Coconuts The Kangaroo dressed as a letter carrier...

It's Olo The Donkey, I mean, Olo The Pirate!

Penelope The Possum got to sing "Happy Birthday" to a girl who was turning four years old the day after our concert. Her mom celebrated her birthday on the same day. Happy birthday to both of you!

My wife says that I don't look like a very scary scarecrow...

These photos were taken by our friends at the Chandler Public Library. Thanks for having us back!

Olo The Donkey doing his pirate dance...

Lots of hugs for Penelope after the show! Everyone dressed up in great costumes...

Look! There's a celebrity at our show...it's Spiderman! And he's doing the donkey dance!

Penelope gets a hug from her friend Tinkerbell after the show.

I hope you have a very fun and very safe Halloween on Wednesday!

Toot! Toot!
Conductor Jack

Hello, everyone!

Sorry it's been so long since I've written in my Friendship Journal! We've been busy with a lot of fun shows, and last month we finished a new album! We had a lot of fun in the studio recording! Olo, Coconuts and I are very proud of our new CD!

Yesterday, we played a fun show at a library in Chandler, Arizona. Here's a few pictures of that fun show! First, here's one of Olo doing his song, "Dancing Like A Donkey".

My friend Coconuts The Kangroo loves dancing and giving the audience a big "thumbs up"!

The friendly and funny Conductor Jack brought his new instrument with him. Here's a picture of it!

Finally, here's a picture of me - I love making music!

Thanks for reading my journal, and for being my friend! I hope you have a fun weekend!

Penelope

Hi everybody!

We had a very fun time in Minnesota this past month. We had the opportunity to play at the Mall Of America, which is the largest shopping mall in the world. They have fun fishtanks, safe rides and nice things to see like dresses, books, flags and games. Here's a few pictures of our show at the Mall.

That's my friend "Smilin' Dan The Happy Cowboy" playing bass with us. He is a very friendly cowboy who is always happy and loves to smile. Here's a funny picture of Dan being surprised by Olo The Donkey:

We loved playing at the Mall. There was a very big crowd of people there and I had fun singing my song, "Thumbs Up!"

Thanks for being my friend and letting me share my journal with you!

Your pal,
Penelope!

Choo! Choo!

Hi friends! We made it up to Minnesota and have played a lot of shows in the past week. Last Friday, we played a very fun show for our friends at the beautiful and historic Buckham Memorial Library in Faribault, Minnesota. During our second show we met a new friend named Jennifer. She is a sign language interpreter. That means she uses her body - hands, arms, facial expressions and lip patterns (instead of sounds - like speaking) to convey meaning. It's a very beautiful language that helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing communicate. We loved working with her! She is pictured here on the right...

Earlier in the day, Penelope and I sang a birthday song together...

Penelope sang a brand new song with help from her little friend, Baby Olo! Isn't he cute?

Baby Olo is a lot smaller than our friend Big Olo! Here's Olo talking to Penelope in Spanish! He loves singing and dancing and has a new song that's very fun to do. It's called, "Dancing Like A Donkey"! Here he is teaching Penelope the dance steps...

Coconuts The Kangaroo loves to dance too. Here she is getting ready to "Hop Like A Kangaroo"...

The next day we went to Perham, Minnesota which is in the northern part of the state. They have a very nice new museum there which honors veterans. We did a show full of fun, Patriotic songs. We called the show, "Let Freedom Zing!". Here's a picture of Penelope and I singing "Yankee Doodle"!

We've had a lot of fun so far and are looking forward to our shows next week. We have a few days off right now so Olo, Coconuts and Penelope are all busy...sleeping! They take a lot of naps!

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Conductor Jack

Hi Friends!

We've had a very fun month in Arizona playing for libraries and meeting lots of new friends! Today we leave for Minnesota and Conductor Jack is helping Olo The Donkey load all our instruments and luggage in the Happy Train.

Here's some pictures from our show in Chandler yesterday!

Our friends Bill The Pig and Olito The Burro sing "Down At The Zoo" with Conductor Jack. That's Olo's baby brother!

I always like meeting new friends. We had fun singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" together!

Do you know all the hand motions for "Itsy Bitsy Spider"? I bet you are good at doing it!

Here we are singing "You Are My Sunshine" with all our friends in Chandler!

Thanks for reading today's friendship journal! We'll be in the Midwest soon and are looking forward to the next few weeks...I hope to see you at a show soon!

Bye! Bye!
Penelope

Toot! Toot!

Today we had a lot of fun driving the Happy Train to beautiful Sedona, Arizona. Which is very, very beautiful. We played a show at the Sedona Public Library to a great audience. On our way out of town we found a great store that sells puppets and we bought a very cute donkey puppet - it looks a lot like Olo when he was a baby!

Here's a picture of Penelope The Possum singing and dancing! Thanks for coming to the show today!

Have a nice night!
Conductor Jack

Hi friends! Hello!

I just got done performing a fun show at the Library in Chino Valley, Arizona! The crowd was great, singing and dancing and of course - hopping! Conductor Jack drove the Happy Train safely and we had a nice time seeing the town of Prescott afterwards which has a lot of history and is very beautiful. We went for a lovely walk downtown and all held hands!

Here's a picture of Conductor Jack singing a song called, "Open A Book At The Library"...we sing it every time we go to the library!

And here Conductor Jack is helping me count how old I am...1, 2, 3, 4...5! That's right I'm five years old, that's why I have five candles on my hat!

There is a beautiful quilt on the wall in this picture - it's so bright and sooooooo pretty!

Thanks to all the families in Chino Valley for coming to our show - we had a great time!

See you again soon!
Penelope

Hi everyone!

We're finishing our new CD today! I think it will be called, "Hop, Hop, Hop!" We are very excited!

We've had another fun week of shows in Arizona. Our friend Coconuts The Kangaroo had a great performance in Surprise, but he played his guitar so much it broke, oh no!

Olo has promised to help him fix it in time for our next show on Tuesday. It's o.k. because sometimes accidents can happen!

Here's a picture from that same show...we've been having a lot of fun in Arizona and look forward to going back to the Midwest in a few weeks!

Thanks for being our friend - have a fun and safe weekend!

Conductor Jack

Woof, woof! Bark! Bark!

I'm writing today's friendship journal entry because Jack and Kitty and the Zinghoppers are on the road right now. They left me with some pictures to post. Here's some pix from their performance at the Public Library in Show Low, AZ:

Conductor Jack gets the show started with, "I've Been Working On The Railroad"...

Here's Coconuts The Kangaroo getting ready to sing a song!

Penelope The Possum shows everyone how to do the "Thumbs Up" dance.

Conductor Jack and Penelope The Possum play "You Are My Sunshine" at the end of each show. Penelope's beautiful pink bass was made by our friend Smilin' Dan. She painted it herself, though (and made quite a mess!). She's a very good musician!

Penelope asked me to post a picture of the very colorful library in Aguila. Here's that picture. What nice colors!

Here's a picture that Olo The Donkey took of a windy day in the desert. Look at that big cloud of dust!

Thanks for reading today's friendship journal!

Doolittle

Hi everyone!

We had a fun time at our show at the Public Library in Aguila, a beautiful town in Arizona! It was the brightest colored library I have ever seen with beautiful colors painted outside. I will ask my friend Doolittle to post a picture for you soon. In the meantime here's some photos that Bill the Librarian took. Thanks, Bill!

This first picture is of me singing a birthday song to friends that were having a birthday this month. I look pretty in my fancy yellow dress!

And here's a photo of Conductor Jack singing. He's friendly and loves playing his guitar!

Tomorrow we have two more shows in Arizona then we go to California!

Bye my friends!
Penelope The Possum

Toot! Toot! I've been busy conducting the Happy Train and bringing my Zinghopper friends to shows!

We have been playing a lot of fun shows for libraries in the beautiful state of Arizona. It's fun going to the library, and singing about all the adventures you can have by reading a book. We love reading books - what are some of your favorite books to read?

I like mysteries. Penelope likes books about mermaids, fairytales and princesses. Coconuts likes books about the ocean. Olo likes reading about dinosaurs.

Coconuts took this picture of a funny car that a very creative and artistic person painted. This car was parked in downtown Bisbee, Arizona (a very beautiful and historic town in southern Arizona). Look at that big, gold lion on top of the car!

We drove to Douglas, Arizona this week and played a show less than a mile from the Mexico border. During the day we went for a walk across the border into Mexico, which is a big, wonderful country just south of the United States. Our friend Olo is from Mexico and he took this picture of me in downtown Agua Prieta which is in Sonora, Mexico:

We loved spending time together in Mexico!

I hope you are having a good day - and thanks for being our friend!

Adios, amigos!
Conductor Jack

Hello Friends!

Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Zinghoppers! We made our Las Vegas debut yesterday - and had lots of fun! We arrived early in the morning and Conductor Jack and I took a nice walk around downtown Las Vegas, a big city in the middle of the very hot desert! Walking is very healthy and I love getting to see new towns and places when the Zinghoppers are on tour. Because he is my friend, Conductor Jack always holds my hand when we cross the street and we always look both ways and never cross the street unless we have a lighted crosswalk sign. It's fun walking with friends! Do you like walking? It's fun exercise, isn't it?

Conductor Jack took this picture of me in front of this very famous sign:

Lots of cars were honking at us as we took this picture! Lots of people come to Las Vegas to play games, do you like playing games? I do too! My favorites are: pin the tail on the donkey, memory, and checkers!

We played two fun shows at an elementary school in North Las Vegas at a school that our friend Casey teaches at. The students were very fun to play for and being that Casey is their teacher, we thought it'd be fun if he sat in with the Zinghoppers. Here is a picture of him singing and playing his ukulele on a song called, "King of the Road" with Conductor Jack.

After the show Casey and his nice brother Dean took us all to a restaurant that serves food from Thailand! Thailand is a very beautiful country in Southeast Asia (which is pretty far from America!) - they have very healthy food that tastes very good and it was fun getting to have dinner with our friends from Nevada! Tomorrow we start several weeks of shows in Arizona...we love the Southwest, y'all!

Your pal,
Penelope The Possum

Hello Everyone!

Conductor Jack asked me to help him out by writing today's friendship journal. I love writing in my journal. I draw beautiful pictures, and write songs and talk about all the fun things I did each day! Do you keep a journal? It's a lot of fun!

We have been busy on the road. Last week we got caught in a snow storm just outside of Denver (which is in the beautiful state of Colorado). Being from Florida, I don't get to see snow much so I was excited to play in it - they had just about 2 feet of snow, which is a lot if you are a possum playing in it.

It made the trip a lot longer but that's o.k. - Conductor Jack drove the Happy Train safely. The Happy Train is what we ride in when we go to shows. Olo The Donkey was very brave and Coconuts The Kangaroo kept us laughing all day!

We leave on Sunday to go to Las Vegas, Nevada to play a show at an elementary school there - I am very excited to see Nevada!

Your friend,
Penelope The Possum

Toot! Toot!

Howdy friends, Conductor Jack here. I'm excited to be writing an online journal again, I hope to keep you updated on the exciting here at Zinghopper Land. So climb aboard the Happy Train and read on...

We have spent the past several months on the road seeing so many great states. Here's a list of everywhere we've been since January: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Nebraska, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee! Am I forgetting any? I hope not! We even got to play for our friends in Mexico through an education exchange program...I will have Doolittle post pictures of that fun time soon!

We were excited to spend some time back in the Midwest last week. Playing for our friends in Rochester again was especially fun because Kitty and I lived and went to school in Rochester so we have a lot of friends and family there. We played at an elementary school and did three shows in one morning. Olo and Coconuts were feeling especially friendly that day:

Our bass playing friend - that wonderful possum Penelope - had a beautiful new dress and she was excited to be helping the Zinghoppers perform such fun shows!

I will post more pictures and news as I'm able but right now Doolittle is scratching at the door to go outside...so I'm off to help him! Be well, friends, and have a very happy Easter...I mean a HOPPY Easter!

Cordially,
Conductor Jack

PS - Oh yes, more great news: I bought a new banjo in Minneapolis last week! It's a tenor which means it has 4 strings and it sounds verrrrrry loud!