Zoo Field Trip

The week before Spring Break Rachel's class had a field trip to go to the zoo. They got to go behind the scenes and see stuff they normally don't see. I went along as a chaperone, though there were so many volunteers that there were only two kids in my group.

After the behind the scenes tour where we got to pet a hedgehog, a ferret and a tortoise, and see the sun bear up close, the kids got to feed the giraffes, then we wandered around the zoo for an hour or so.

 After the zoo we went to the park for lunch and the kids played on the playground before heading back to school. Here's Rachel's class:

Ostrich Farm

 On our way back to Tucson we stopped at the Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Farm. They have way more than just ostriches there. We were given a cup full of alfalfa pellets, and a few other foods for the various animals we'd be feeding.

They had donkeys,

 deer,

 goats (yes, those are goats sticking their heads through the wall, not mounted dead goats),

 ostriches,

baby goats,

 prairie dogs, ducks, and lorikeets.

 The lorikeets were my favorite. We had a little cup of nectar and when we held out our hand they landed on our arm, pried off the lid, and started licking out the nectar.

 Some liked perching on heads more than arms.

 Annie was okay with it for a little while, and Ryan didn't mind, but did want to see what was on his head.

Family picture:

 We also got to go on a Monster Truck Tour, which was pretty fun. We piled onto the huge truck and learned about ostriches.

 We saw the female ostrich on the nest, rotating the eggs to keep the yolk from sticking to the side.

We got to hold an ostrich egg ourselves.

We did some off-roading in the monster truck, and got to go fishing for ostriches. We clipped oranges to the fishing poles and the ostriches snatched them off the string.

Definitely worth stopping, instead of driving past like we've done so many times before.

The Phoenix Children's Museum

The Children's Museum in Phoenix was a ton of fun. The first (and last) exhibit was this huge three-story-tall enclosed play structure. The kids (and Jacob) had lots of fun climbing up really high.

 The fort room. Also had a half a dozen two-way mailboxes that kept Ryan entertained for a while.

 Rachel met a new friend who built a fort with her. The friend followed us around for a while.

 We went and did a St. Patrick's Day craft. Which Ryan promptly destroyed.

Shopping. Annie stocked up.

 Ryan hiding in a tepee made of old pants.

 In the car area they had three different race tracks to race cars down. The cars were PVC pipes with roller skate wheels on them and they went pretty fast. The kids loved them.

Ryan would wait for Annie to bring more cars, and they'd send them down the tracks.  Over and over.

 They also got to ride on some cool stationary vehicles.

There were several other exhibits that the children enjoyed, including a maze that wasn't really a maze, just a forest of hanging pool noodles that was fun to get lost in, or try to find someone else in.

On our way out we had to stop at the big caged playset thing once more. Annie found this maze and went through it 5 or so times. She was so proud of herself.

Swimming at the hotel pool

The water in the pool was pretty dang cold. But the girls had fun anyway. They started swimming lessons a couple of weeks ago and Rachel has made good progress in just two weeks. I'm hoping that by the time summer comes around they'll both be good enough and comfortable enough to be in the pool without hanging on to me all the time.

Here's Rachel swimming:
Luckily there was also a hot tub so when the shivering started we went over there to warm up. And play.

We recently got a new camera, which just happens to be waterproof. It was fun to play around with a little. But it is amazingly difficult to have a regular face when taking an underwater picture.

I was done with the pool, but I was sure that Ryan was still asleep, so I told the girls we should dry off a little before we headed back inside.

 When we finally did go back inside, we woke Ryan up, but Jacob managed to get him back to sleep, then after a while we were ready to go back to the pool, but Ryan was still asleep and it was way past time for him to wake up.

I tried waking him up by talking to him, opening the curtains, taking his blanky, but he was out cold. Eventually we were able to wake him up and he was so happy to go swimming. He's our water baby.

 

Ryan is pretty smart, however, and much preferred the hot tub to the ice cold pool. So did I. Even if all I could do was hang my feet in there and take a dip every few minutes when I got too cold sitting on the side (there are some drawbacks to being pregnant).