Cuteness overload

Hogle Zoo Family Field Trip

Since we are spending 20 weeks learning about animals, it only seemed natural that we take a family field trip to SLC and visit the zoo. I think the last time we went was 4 years ago and we'll probably wait another 4 before we go again. Not because we don't like the zoo, but it is kind of pricey.

This was probably my best zoo experience ever. I have really only been to three I think, Point Defiance in Washington, Berlin in Germany, and Hogle in Salt Lake City. Hogle has a not exhibit called Rocky Shores where they keep their bald eagles, otters, seals, sea lions, polar bear, and grizzly bears. They also have some fish and sea life, but the big animals are the star attractions. The polar bear was doing circles, coming up against the glass and then standing up, pushing himself backward, and then coming around again to start all over. It was so cool to see and be so close to the huge bear! We also saw the Tiger fairly up close - closer than I've ever seen a tiger at least, and the elephants were also friendly. The rhinoceros had his nose right up to the glass where we could see him and we even saw the huge orangutan - at least for a 10 seconds before he ran away and hid. The gorillas were fun to see, and at the end we stopped by to visit one last time and found the big gorilla sleeping right next to the glass under his bed sheet. He wasn't getting out of his blanky for anything. It was neat to see. I had a good time, the kids had a great time, and Derek had a good time too. I'm glad we got there early because after about 11:30 the crowds started showing up and things got busy. It was nice to be at a zoo and not have to worry about losing your kids - at least for the first half.

The zoo is working on a new exhibit called African Savannah which will be awesome. They are going to put their zebras and giraffes and elephants and other savannah animals together in a big open area with lots of view points. The lions will be nearby, but just in a different area. makes sense. But because of the remodel, we didn't get to see any lions and their penguin area was gone. I don't remember what else used to be there. Still, the walking was enough for our little crew as it was, and we made out without any tantrums. They saved those for when we got home :)

This is my ONE photo of the huge orangutan and you can't even see his face or see that his is so big. I am disappointed, but still glad we got to see him. Joshua said, back we when were learning about them, that orangutans are his favorite animal.

This picture doesn't look clear because there were scratches on the glass - the only thing separating us from those two big horns!

Abigail is really in to posing for photos these days (this is not the only photo I have of her in the eagle's nest :)

Another photo opp

There is the polar bear from under the water about to pop up against the glass and them come back and circle around again.

And here he is again. He would swim against the glass until he got about to Joshua and then stand himself up and fall back onto his back.

The night before we tried to get Lukas excited about going to the zoo since this was his first trip. Derek mentioned there would be snakes, so all night long and the next morning Lukas kept telling me how he was going to bring his sword with him to the zoo and kill all the evil snakes. He just stared at this one... for a long, long time.

He also stared at this little tiny cat from South Africa. It really just looks like a little house cat, but I guess it belongs in a zoo. Lukas thought it was awesome.

But his favorite, by far, was this big cat! This tiger really put on a show for us, with swimming and scratching his head against the rocks and everything. It was really cool. This is NOT a really good photo, but I guess I still have the memory.

The Island Nation of Crete and Trees

Last week we moved away from Ancient Egypt (a post about 5 or 6 back if you missed it) and moved north up the Mediterranean to the island of Crete. In case you were wondering, yes, it is very hard to find children's books about ancient Crete. We ended up not spending so much time on the history of Crete itself, although we did look at the Palace at Knosses, their pottery, etc.  Instead, we read some Greek myths relating to Crete. One day we read about Daedalus and Icarus, which is maybe my favorite, despite the horrible ending. I checked out two different versions of the story at the library so we could compare and talk about why the stories differed. And on a different day we talk about King Minos and the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. The Daedalus story and the Theseus story are connected in the middle so that is fun to have the same characters and plots in each. The Minotaur story, however, is also really sad. But we did learn something interesting. In ancient Crete their frescoes have many images of bulls and a double axe. The double ax was called a Labyr - the plural of which is Labyrinth. Since the palace of Knosses was so extremely huge, much bigger than any other building travelers at the time would have seen, people probably often got lost inside. Also, the Minoan's (the people of Crete) had an interesting sport with highly training young men and women doing acrobatics on a raging bull. Put all of those facts together and mix in a couple of thousand years and you can see how you might end up with a story of a labyrinth under the Palace of Knosses that housed the Minotaur, a great bull headed beast to whom 14 young boys and girls were sacrificed every 7 years.  

Anyway.

It would have been fun to craft some wings on the Daedalus day or make a maze on the Minotaur day, but we didn't. We did, however, make our own frescoes, and that was difficult enough. The book we were reading said you could just use plaster of paris and water colors, but our paints continued to soak through the plaster even 3 days after and so the colors faded and now our frescoes just look kind of like a big blur of pastels. In any case, the kids have somewhat of an appreciation for how hard it would be to have to paint all the frescoes in that huge palace! No room for error at all and you have to work really fast before all the plaster dries.  Abigail made some smiley faces and Joshua painted Odysseus' ship. (Sidenote: Derek just finished reading "The Odyssey" to the kids and Joshua loved it! Now my task is to find a kid friendly version of the Illiad or the Aeneid. I don't think I've ever actually read either of those.) This first photo is Joshua waiting for his plaster to mostly dry. It has to be dry enough to paint on, but wet enough to still be damp. We may not have waited long enough, but it was taking FOREVER!

 The following is Odysseus's boat - Odysseus is poking his head from the right crying to his crew, "Row for your lives!!" as the Scylla, a six headed monster (only one head shown here) attacks.

We took a break from learning about an animal group this week to appreciate the fall colors and learn a little about trees. I have always thought it would be fun to be able to take the leaves from trees in your neighborhood and sit down and be able to identity and label them all... and I still think that would be fun if I only had 1 or 2 children instead of 4. Instead, we took a trip to Bridal Veil falls - see previous post - and admired the trees and picked a bunch of fall leaves. We read multiple books about trees and learned a lot of neat facts. The colors of the leaves change because the dry weather (and there has to be at least one other factor, I am sure) trigger the chlorophyll in the chloroplasts to die - The chlorophyll is the green part. The trees do this to conserve water in preparation for the dry/winter season. We made a box book of our favorite tree facts and chose five of our favorite fall leaves to glue to the back side. Also, while the middle kids (Abby and Lukas) were at music class on Wednesday, Joshua rode his bike around while I took Kaleb in the stroller and we looked at all the trees in our neighborhood. I quizzed Joshua on which ones were deciduous and which were coniferous and every now and then he would comment on the shape of the tree's crown. We are kind of nerdy - but efficient - P.E. and science at the same time. Woohoo homeschool!

Bridal Veil Falls, 2013

General Conference and other things keeping us busy

For the Saturday sessions of General Conference we stayed at home and tuned in on the radio. At first I tried to keep the kids quiet, but after the first session I realized THIS is one of the reasons they have the talks so readily available in so many formats; because parents with little kids just can't listen to all the talks and feel the spirit and get what they need to get out of them with all those kids running around.  So instead I focused on helping the kids enjoy the special time.  For session one I made lemon poppyseed muffins - they weren't very lemony so in my mind they weren't very good but that didn't stop the kids from eating them. And instead of coming up with big elaborate activities I printed off a 36 page packet I found online (The Ultimate LDS General Conference Packet - you can google it I'm sure) which Joshua totally loved and Abigail liked well enough. For Lukas I printed off all the coloring pages from the Nursery manual (you can download them all online) so that he could have a conference binder too, which is very important if you are two years old and you have older siblings. He wasn't terribly crazy about working in his, but was very proud to have one, so it was worth it.

For the Sunday sessions we drove up to my in-laws in Midway and watched on their TV. My MIL's sister Denise was there and that was fun. The kids really took to her right away. In fact, she and Lukas developed a special bond, I think. Joshua kept working on his conference binder, Abigail relaxed and half watched/half doodled, and Lukas was all about the toys. Later, My MIL's brother and his wife and two of their kids (from Switzerland) came over and we all had dinner and enjoyed each other's company. I don't actually think I have any pictures of Mark and Liz and the family, but I promise they were there.

And not to forget, my MIL's other sister, Doris, and her husband Mike out of England were down the week before for a visit and that was really fun. Doris and Denise were the last of my MIL's siblings I hadn't met yet. So now I know them all and when I send out my Christmas cards this year I'll know who I'm sending them too! :)

I Love to See the Temple

That is one of Lukas's favorite songs - that and the song about Tiny Tim, the turtle who drinks up all the bathwater.