zoo camp

The kids attended zoo camp last week and had a great time.  These pictures are from the last day of camp.  I had a chance to see Campbell's small group presentation.  They had set up a station in front of the elephant exhibit and were available to answer questions any zoo patrons had about elephant facts and to share their group's ideas on how the habitat could be improved.

This bear is smiling because he has been gnawing on a huge bone for the past few minutes (cow femur?).  It was fun to watch but a little creepy to hear the bone crack when his jaws snapped through it.


All parents were invited to watch the wildlife show at the end of the day, which concluded with the kids singing songs about animals and what they had learned during the week.  This camp was right up Helene's alley.  She can tell you all about how animals communicate using scent, patterns, sounds, etc.  




Anytime Helene spots me across a distance, she gives me the "I love you" sign.  :)  Can you see her here?



Campbell was hiding in the back row of his group.  He doesn't like to sing much.  But he was proud of the tie-dyed doo-rag he made.

Garden Preparations

John has been doing some tremendous preparation work on our gardens.  I am so excited for the harvest we will have this summer!

This is what the bed along the side of the house looked like when we first moved in.  There was a big, bushy tree next to the evergreen that got scragglier looking every year, and this last year, about half of it died.  Then there was a small bush next to it, and then the remainder of the bed up the side of the house was just rocks and weeds.

I took out the tree about a month ago, and John began making these terraced beds for our fruit plants.
This is the end product.  We have a raspberry bush to the right (just out of the picture), and John has planted strawberries, rhubarb, blueberries, blackberries, and pumpkins in this bed.
These are the two beds we had last summer.  John has turned them, added in some great compost, and rearranged the drip lines.
Here they are now, fully planted.
These three terraced beds are brand new.  John just built them.

I think they look so pretty, and he did a great job of building them into the hillside.

Here's what we'll be eating all summer: sweet corn, tomatoes (several varieties), onions, lots of lettuces and spinach, green beans, black eyed peas, sugar snap peas, 7 varieties of squash/zucchini, radishes (I'm not overly fond of radishes, but Helene grew them from seed in her Kindergarten class and brought them home, so we added them in.), carrots, and I'm sure there's more.  What am I forgetting, John?

Science Fair

I am so proud of Campbell and Helene!  They worked hard on their science fair projects, and it paid off.  Campbell got a medal for third place amongst all the third graders, and Helene got a medal for third place amongst all the Kindergartners.  John and I tried to be there to give them examples of good projects and attractive displays, to teach them about the scientific method, and to offer advice.  But other than that, we tried to be hands off and let the kids do their own projects.

The students were given a list of topics from which to choose.  Their school is a core knowledge school, so the topics were concepts that fit in with that curriculum according to grade level.  Campbell did his on gravity.  I think you can click on the picture to see a larger version, on which you can read his hypothesis, etc.  John taught him how to use Microsoft Excel to calculate P-values and other statistical stuff I don't know anything about.  But Campbell gets it!

Helene did her experiment on magnetism.  She found household objects and tried picking them up with a magnet.  On her display, some of the metal objects are displayed on the left and some other objects are on the right.  She attached magnets to ribbons to create an interactive display. 

This project was by another member of Campbell's class.  Campbell liked it because of the scientific name for a dwarf hamster.

Tandem Bikes

On Day 3, we rented two tandem bikes and rode up the Glenwood Canyon.  I am not a cyclist, so parts of me were bruised and sore after 11 miles on a bicycle seat, but I enjoyed the adventure anyway.  It was beautiful scenery, a nice day to be outside, and quite an experience to ride tandem.  

The kids rode on the front of the bikes.  They could help pedal or just let their feet go along for the ride.  They could not steer, so all steering was done by the adult in the back.  When we got towards the tops of hills like this, we would ask the kids for a "turbo boost," and they would pedal as hard as they could to help us over the hump.

We spent most afternoons and the morning of the last day in the hot springs pool.  I think swimming was the best part of the vacation for the kids.  I enjoyed all of it.  It was a very relaxed vacation, with not much planned ahead of time, but with plenty to do once we got there.  I highly recommend the train ride, as well as all the other adventures we had this last week.

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park

One of the best parts of our first day in Glenwood Springs was having dinner with Corey and Amy and family.  I brought the camera along, but we were so busy visiting that we forgot to take any pictures.  Corey and Amy were our neighbors when we first moved here, and we hit it off immediately.  They moved about 6 months after we arrived, but at least they're still in state, and we get to see them sometimes.

On our second day, we took the tram up Adventure Mountain.

This is Helene's Adventure Face:

We explored the caverns at the top of the mountain.  They were much cooler and somewhat drier than the caves we've visited in Texas.






I don't remember the names of all the formations we saw, but most were named after foods.  One of Helene's favorites is "bacon":
The guy who owned these caves originally blasted out a passageway to the side of the mountain and added a scenic overlook, which he called "Exclamation Point":

Walking About Town

Hotel Colorado and Glenwood Hot Springs

This is the train station in Glenwood Springs where we arrived:

There's a footbridge crossing the Interstate from the train station that leads to our hotel and the hot springs pool.

The Hotel Colorado was built in 1893.  Here are the kids in the lobby:


And the upstairs hallway leading to our room:
The hot springs pool is just a short walk from our hotel.  The large pool is about 90 degrees, and the hot tub pool is 104.

Morning, Day 2

We had breakfast in our hotel.  Beautiful setting and delicious food.
View of the hot springs pool as we walked past in the coolness of the early morning: