Zoo trip

This year it took me a long time to recover from day camp.  I'm used to a week of dragging around with no energy, but this year it took me two weeks to recover.  Part of the problem was a virus that ran through our family, we we all pretty wiped out for a while.  I finally started feeling better after two weeks and was ready to stop skipping summer fun that was on the calendar and start doing the things I'd planned!

Thursday I took the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo.  We got a late start, 10:00, but I knew we had the full day to enjoy our adventure.  When we arrived at the zoo, we had to weave through the crowd of about 200 children who had just arrived at a boys and girls club field trip.  Our first order of business was to put a bit of distance between the crowd and us.  We passed up the African Savannah area and went straight to the elephants.

There was a zoo keeper talking about the elephants so we stayed a while to listen.  Our next destination was the Northwest Trail where you can sit and see the bears and otters swimming in large tanks on either side of the viewing area.

But before we could get there, we got sidetracked at the raptors where a show was just beginning.  In this photo the presenter is swinging a piece of meat around for a peregrine falcon to grab in flight.

Elizabeth loves birds and enjoyed the show a lot.  The presenter encouraged people to build nesting boxes for owls and she's ready to get to work on one right away.

We made it to the bears and otters where we ate lunch while watching the animals move around and play.

We stopped in at the porcupine who was sitting right by the fence eating lettuce.  He looked so cute, I could see why they'd put up a sign, "Please don't touch the porcupine."  Later, Miriam said watching the porcupine was her favorite part of the zoo.  While we were there, he decided to see us so he started crawling up the net separating him from us.  She loved that!

After the porcupine, we each got a $1 seed stick to feed the cockatoos and parakeets.  We've been enjoying that part of the zoo for years.  When it first opened, it was filled with parakeets and a few cockatoos and parrots.  The only birds that ever were interested in eating off the sticks were the parakeets.  This time when we went, I noticed that there were less than 10 parakeets and they were all sleeping in the high branches.  I asked one of the employees what happened to all the parakeets.  She told me they had over 100 when the exhibit opened but they have a life span of 7-8 years.  The exhibit has been open for 7 years and there are six left.  I wondered to myself why they aren't replacing them.  Cockatoos and parrots can live close to 100 years.  The exhibit isn't as fun without the parakeets.

We were able to coax a few cockatoos to eat off our sticks.  Elizabeth liked it so much she decided to buy a stick with her own money.  The rest of us waited outside.

Sharing music while they wait for Elizabeth to do her second stick.  It's the first use for our new collapsable wagon we got at Costco.  It worked great!

Still waiting!  Isaac loves carrying around that tiger backpack which he's named Hobbes.

After a while she came out and said she couldn't find any birds to eat off her stick.  I went back inside with her.  There were about 30 children holding sticks in the air trying to coax sleeping birds to eat.  It looked like every bird in there decided it was time for a siesta.  We tried and tried but never got a bird to eat her stick.  We left the exhibit with a very disapointed girl.  Anastaya said, "I'm sorry you wasted your money" which Elizabeth took to be an insult and subtle dig so she had to cry for a while.

After visiting a bunch of our other favorite animals, our last stop of the zoo was the play area where Miriam, William, and Elizabeth burned off their extra energy while Anastaya, Isaac and I rested our feet.

Leaving the zoo, we wandered through the rose garden next door.

Elizabeth loved going around taking photos of the different roses.

Someone was having a wedding rehearsal in the gazebo.

I wanted to buy Mighty-O donuts which we'd sampled at Vegfest in the spring.  I knew they were somewhere around Green Lake (about one mile from the zoo) and figured I could just drive around and find them.  No such luck!  I did find a Vegan bakery where I bought a slice of caramel cheesecake and asked for directions.  She gave me directions but after driving around in circles a few times, we had to give up.  The kids were pretty disappointed.

Once we got home, I checked on google maps and saw that we'd been less than 1/2 mile from the donut shop.  I would have had to drive through a residential area to another commercial area I didn't know about.  I promised that the next time we go to the zoo, we will get some donuts.  They sell all vegan donuts and have been rated as some of the best donuts, vegan or not, in the nation.  I had to refrigerate my cheesecake before I could eat it because it had softened up so much on the way home.  Once I took a bite, I realized that although I really liked one bite, a whole slice was too much.  It was way too sweet for me, not enough rich.

It just wasn't my day to indulge my cravings.  I have a bunch of beets in the fridge and have been craving a cold beet salad with walnuts and blue cheese crumbles.  But I did not have any vegan blue cheese, so I'd looked online and saw that Seattle's only vegan grocery store, Sidecar for Pigs Peace, sells imported Scottish cheese called Sheese which supposedly makes a wonderful blue cheese alternative.  Although they carried Sheese, they didn't have blue cheese version so I left without it.  I did pick up some soy curls I've been wanting to try so the side trip to Sidecar wasn't a total loss!

A trip to the fair

We have a friend who couldn't attend his union's employee appreciation day so he gave the tickets to us.  It was the Saturday after day camp ended so I wasn't sure I'd have the energy to go.  When day camp is over, I'd prefer to sit on the couch for a few days and alternate some light reading with naps.  I forced myself to do it (I was already awake since the produce was delivered at 5:00 am!) and am glad we went.  You can't beat free!

The event was held at the Monroe fairgrounds.  The voucher for the event gave us free entry as well as wrist bands that got us on all the rides for free.  We took full advantage of the opportunity and got right to the serious business of playing on rides.

It usually costs $8 each to "walk on water".  Free!

Walking on Water was one of the first things we did at the fair.  The lines were short, in fact our family took up much of it. (It would not be that way later in the day when the wait was over 45 minutes long.  We should have gone twice in a row while the lines were short!)  Soon everyone was in their plastic bubble and rolling around on the water.

Crawling around is easy, trying to stay upright is much more challenging.

See Anastaya in the pink shirt in the upper right?  She was up for just a minute and then...

splash down!  You can see William on the right upside down.

Even Dode got in on the action.  You can see Anastaya taking a fall in the #3 ball.  It looked like a lot of work to me so I was the photographer.

Go cart rides were free too.  The track was tiny, the kids never got to go straight.  Miriam thought it was a lot of fun to drive the electric cars.  One little boy had a terrible time steering.   Every time he crashed, they would shut down everyone's car with a kill switch.  It made for a lot of sitting around.

It would cost $10 each to do this zip line on a normal fair day.  Free!  The suiting up for the ride took a several minutes,

getting ready to go

The actual zip took less than 5 seconds.  Maybe we should charge $10 a ride for our zip line!  We offer a longer ride.

Enjoying her free pony ride.

After enjoying the rides that would normally cost extra at the fair, we explored the carnival.  Miriam and William loved the fun house.

The slide at the end of one of the kiddie rides looked impressive but ended up being disappointing.  The kids had to push themselves along to get down the slide.

 

They had a mini drop ride.  William, Elizabeth, Anastaya and I went on it while Miriam did her pony ride.  It dropped us six times.  After the first time, William said, "I hate this ride!"  After the sixth ride he said, "I'm never going on that ride again!"  I thought it was fun and reminded me of the Tower of Terror without the long wait and all the Disney decorations.

On the drive there, the kids wanted to know what I was most excited about doing at the fair.  They thought I was joking when I said, "The food!"  I love unhealthy fair food: kettle corn, elephant ears, hand dipped corn dogs. Bring it on, I'm game!

$8 for a bag of popcorn almost as tall as she is!

Once the lines started getting long, Dode took Miriam to the mini golf course and the rest of us went in to play Bingo.

Within 30 minutes, both William and Anastaya had each won prizes, Evergreen State Fair branded apparel.  Along with winning apparel, you got to enter your name into a drawing to win a $25 gift certificate to the fair.  A few days later I received a call.  Anastaya had won.  They would send the tickets to our local union hall, which one did I want them to send it to?  I told our friend who gave us the tickets that he was welcome to claim the prize, we'd done our fair experience for the year!

One thing the fair does very well is hide access to drinking water.  I'd brought a one liter water bottle and I can't guess how many trips I made to the bathroom to refill it for our thirsty family.  I was sure wishing I'd thought to bring more water bottles.  I guess I figured there'd be drinking fountains for the kids to drink from and Dode and I would share the bottle.  They don't offer water anywhere, even the fountains were turned off.  The only way to get free water (they sell bottled water at the vendors), was to use the lukewarm water at the bathroom sink.  It was wet but not very refreshing.

Six hours after arriving, the lines at all the attractions were extremely long.  The warm sun had done it's job well heating up the asphalt so we were getting baked from above and below.  But, the worst part was they started blaring heavy metal music.  All the screaming in the music pushed us right out of the fair to our car, where we could relax and instead enjoy the bickering of tired siblings.  You can imagine what the music was like when that was a relief!

It wasn't a full fair, more like a carnival, so we didn't get to oogle the animals and the handicrafts (my 2nd favorite thing to do at the fair after the food).  But, I'm counting it as our trip to the fair this year and the kids better be as well!  Just with the little bit of food we bought and shared, it cost us $50.

Creating an Outdoor Sink

With life on a septic tank, it's difficult to accommodate the kind of parties we like to have at our house.  We've started renting a port-a-pottie for large gatherings but people still want to wash their hands.  It was time for an outdoor sink.

People give us things they don't want anymore, all the time.  A few years ago, a friend gave us an old sink when they remodeled their kitchen.  I thought we were getting a sink with a garbage disposal in it and having lived my entire life without ever having a garbage disposal, I was ready to upgrade!  Well, the sink came with a nice hole where the disposal used to be mounted.  Since there was no garbage disposal, the sink got stuck in the back of the woodshed where it sat collecting dirt and dust.  One of those, "Someday we'll take off the faucet and use it in the kitchen, but not now" kind of things.  Because it still had a faucet on it, getting it ready to be used outside was really easy.

Dode screwed a piece of wood between two saw horses and set the sink down in the opening.  

I went to the hardware store and got an adapter that would allow me to attach the hose to the faucet ($5).  It went on easily and I was in business!  Then I realized that the hot water pipe on the faucet was spraying water everywhere so back to the hardware I went for a $1.50 cap.

With some scrubbing, the sink was soon nice and clean.

I stuck a plastic bin under the sink to catch the water that drains out and keep it from splashing on people's feet.  I worried that the bucket would be too heavy and ungainly to move when it filled up so I drilled a small hole near the bottom where the water can drain out the back.  

Everything is disguised with a piece of festive Hawaiian fabric and we now have a working outdoor sink.  Let the parties begin!

Jungle Day Camp 2012- Days 3 & 4

We have 24 station rotations at camp that 12 dens rotate through.  It takes two days to rotate the entire camp through a station.   Some of the classes we offer at camp last the entire four days.   A four day class is one the boys get to go to twice.  Two of those are BB Guns and Archery.  Those are the favorite activities for most of the boys so we make sure to give them as much time there as possible.  I think a lot of children go home from camp asking for a BB Gun.  Our sport of the year is always a two day class as well.  They learn skills the first time through and play an actual game the 2nd time.  That allows them to earn a belt loop for that sport.

Not pictured below are two classes we do every year, a simple orienteering course and a nature walk.

Insect Study
theme class
The cubs decorated a bug jar, painted a plaster beetle, and studied insects up close and personal.

checking out some crickets

on a bug hunt with his collecting jar

Painting wooden animal banks we assembled on days 1 and 2
every year class tailored to the theme

metal bowl making
theme class
This was a (loud) hit with the boys.  I bought aluminum disks from Paul's Supplies.  I'm able to purchase wholesale through the BSA account so each bowl was only $1.15 each.    

a metal bowl, just the right size for a piece of banana bread

Making the bowls didn't take the whole time so I brought out the laundry baskets for some free form building.  

pool noodle games
theme class
We called this class "Snakes" and used pool noodles for our snakes.  I found lots of ideas for pool noodle games with google.

Using a pool noodle as a javelin.

cooking
every year class

"spider" hot dogs and foil wrapped S'more ice cream cones grilling

The ice cream cone really contains the sticky marshmallow mess!

rubber band boats
theme class

boats racing in the gutter

who's going to win?