Park After Dark

Once a year the Tohono Chul Park puts on a Park After Dark.  As you can see, there were so many docents holding live reptiles, birds, insects, mammals and anything else found in the Sonoran Desert.

Here is a docent holding a Mountain King Snake.

This little snake eats rattlesnakes.

Our friend, Tommy, came with us.  (the boy, not the tortoise.)

Here is Luke with his idol, “Karl the Bugman.”  Karl was holding and playing with a scorpion!  Ack!

This Great Horned Owl is missing an eye 😦

Elf Owl!  I want to keep him in my pocket!

Bat Lady.

Poor little docile brain damaged bobcat.  The docent was opened for questions and one kid kept asking, “would it eat us because we are meat?” and “could it kill humans?” ….no and no.

Hazel was there touching all of the animals too but I never got a good non blurry picture of her, so here she is eating some animal crackers from earlier that day.

Taking Apart a Vacuum

Anything old or broken, Luke, Isabel and Sylvia get to take apart.  Vacuums never last more than two years in this house.

Isabel got bored pretty quickly, but Luke was determined and Sylvia was determined to be his helper and apprentice.

They are pointing to where they found FISH HOOKS!  What?  Was I not supposed to vacuum up fish hooks?  Then what good is a vacuum!?

Here they are studying where the “electrical stuff” moves the gear and rotator brush.

Now Hazel thinks that a vacuum is for sticking screwdrivers in.

Quotes from a Future Entomologist

I usually have quotes from Sylvia to share.  Today I have a few from Luke….

  • After he caught a small bee/fly? in his bug jar he said, “It just feels so good to have something in my jar, no matter how common the species.”
  • While in the pet store, all of the huge parrots and cockatoos started squawking.  Luke, “It’s like a store full of Sylvias!”
  • Staring off into space.  Luke, “I have about a million things going on in my head right now.”
  • While exploring under the ocean on Google Earth (by the way, did you know you can go under the ocean on Google Earth?)  Luke said, “I wonder if I am the first person to ever be at this exact spot in the ocean on Google Earth!”  Oh my little virtual explorer.

We’ve started reading the book, The Witches by Roald Dahl.  A very good book for Halloween!

Pet Store Field Trips

Today school included piano lessons for Luke and Isabel while the little girls and I visited the library, then our pet store field trip, now some read out loud time, and then some math.  We used to do pet store field trips more often, but we hadn’t been in quite a while.

On the drive home from the pet store I told them a joke about a boy who bought a turtle and kept having to bring the turtle back to the store to exchange him since his legs kept “falling off.”  Punchline is that come to find out, the boy was playing with his turtle like a car.  “VROOM VROOOOM!”  While I was laughing at my own joke like an idiot, in the rear view mirror I saw that my kids were horrified.  There were then questions and comments like, “Why didn’t he just buy a fish?”  “That joke was weird.”  and Sylvia’s “Mom, did that really happen?!”

Sylvia saying she wants three kitties.

Sylvia telling me that a bird peed on her.

Pima Air and Space Museum

We visited the Pima Air and Space Museum a few months ago.  Yesterday we went again, but this time with the grandparents.  I should have taken a picture of my dad in front of his favorite airplane there, but I mostly just took pictures of the kids playing.

Sylvia made a best friend there, as she does everywhere we go, but of course, didn’t know her name.

This exhibited an airplane that had been at the bottom of the ocean for fifty five years, was recovered and found various items in the cockpit.  Isabel’s favorite is the handkerchief.

Our children love the space building the best.  A museum volunteer is showing Luke the sound recordings of the first man in space, on the moon, woman in space, etc.  Speaking of the volunteers, some of them are historians, some were actually in World War II and some are just interested in airplanes.  They are all very friendly and excited to share stories and information.  (I want a moon globe.)

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is amazing.  Today makes it three times that we have been there are we still haven’t seen everything there is to see.  This indoor and mostly outdoor museum exhibits plants, animals and minerals of the Sonoran Desert.  In the heat today we were only able to explore for a couple of hours.  The restrooms are equipped with sunblock dispensers!

Here is a view from one of the paths.

Nature boy.

There are so many different kinds of animals int his desert.

My favorite part of this museum is that along the paths there are volunteers at a little set up table showing an animal to talk about, fossils to show, etc.  Here we were learning about the “boots” in the Saguaros.  Gila woodpeckers build their homes in the cactus and years after the cactus has died and rotted away, the boot, or little woodpecker home, is left.

We also learned from a “table person” about the Mountain King Snakes, Pack Rats, Fish Fossils, and here were are learning about “eyes in front, ready to hunt” and “eyes on the side, run and hide.”  Meaning, if an animals’ eyes are in front of their skull, they are predators if their eyes are on the sides they are prey.

It is truly a whole other world here.  And speaking of different versions of classic stories, The Three Little Javelinas is a Three Little Pigs story with a Sonoran Desert setting.

The heat was great because there weren’t very many people there, but I think we will wait until the weather is cooler before we visit again so that we can stay all day.

Homeschooling with Grandparents

When grandparents visit, we throw any kind of schedule we have out the window and spend our time playing games, going fun places, and reading.  Around the house we’ve been doing puzzles, lots of read a loud books and Luke and grandpa played a game of chess.

We have been to see the bats come out at sunset, the Mini Time Machine Museum, and here we are at the Botanical Gardens.  Tomorrow we are off to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Super Luke: The Treacherous Plant of Destruction!

Like so many boys, Luke idolized Superman when he was three and four.  Here he is in his Superman cape he wore everywhere.

Once he was five, he decided that the only thing that would be better than the man of steel would be a boy of steel, so he created Super Luke.  Here is just one stack of Super comic books.  I think I have another stack packed away in a box somewhere.

Believe me, there have been Super Luke mazes, board games, and even trading cards.  Here is a Swot Bot trading card (I hear it’s a pretty valuable collector’s edition).

I also found these little cut out characters in a bag in his room.

This is the newest comic book, created just this morning.

I love my bug catching, comic book writing boy.