New Orleans/ Audubon Zoo

We recently made a trip back to the New Orleans area to visit with my husband's family, and the kids wanted to go to one of their favorite places- Audubon Zoo!  Actually, I should say they wanted to go to Monkey Hill, which is located in the zoo...  Monkey Hill is the best place to cool off on a hot summer day, and boy was it hot when we were there!

The Audubon Zoo is beautiful, lush and full of neat things to see!  Above, on the left, is the entrance to the elephant exhibit and, to the right, is the top of Monkey Hill- the highest point of elevation in all of New Orleans!  That's Noah, sitting on a large carved tiger. :)

Elena didn't want to go in the water, so she opted to walk on the lush green grass of the rolling hill. 

 

Leave it to my little ones to try out the wettest part of Monkey Hill!  Gabe wasn't going to get all wet, but he couldn't resist the waterfall. :)  As you can see in the second picture, he is soaked to the bone!!

 Elena finally waded in the shallow pool to cool her feet off...

This is the kid web on the back side of Monkey Hill.  If you look closely, you can see Noah and Gabe racing to the top!  Annalee is on her way up.

Time for a snack at the Cypress Bayou part of the zoo... there was a very tame squirrel that would have eaten out of Gabe's hand if I hadn't told him "no!"

There is also a part of Audubon Zoo that is dedicated to Central American animals and the Maya civilization .  Even the entrance to this section of the zoo is modeled after Chichinitza.  Very neat stuff!

 

The Maya sculptures are good for climbing, too! :)

 

Goodbye Audubon Zoo, until next time!  

4-H

We hosted the kids 4H meeting this month!  They have to turn in their project books in June, so they gave short presentations to discuss their project topics.  Elena did her project on poultry this year, and Noah did his on electricity.  They also started a cooking project that they'll finish next year...

Noah was in charge of leading the meeting because the president of the club has moved out of state.  He did a great job, although he was a bit reluctant at first :)

Elena was the first to present her project.  She made a poster with the various stages of chickens, including pictures of the eggs/chicks that our hen Treestump hatched for her!  She even had pictures of the chicks mommas at the top of the board.

Here's Elena showing the group our chicken coop and the waterer that she made for her chicks.

Here's Noah leading the meeting- and making everyone smile!  He's good at that :)

The activity for the meeting was building structures with marshmallows and spaghetti!  Elena and her teammates did a great job!

Noah and his teammates ended up winning.  Their sweet, crunchy structure was the tallest!  (I think more marshmallows were eaten than were used in construction.) 



Blueberries!

This morning, we went with our homeschool group on a blueberry picking trip!  Patty's Patch, a local U-Pick in Muse, Fl, was a sea of blueberry bushes.  Even though the season only lasts for a couple more weeks, there were plenty of fat, juicy blueberries waiting to be plucked!  We ate our fill as we filled up our buckets and ended up buying over 6 lbs of the best berries I've ever tasted. 

 The sky was a bit threatening when we started, but the kids weren't too concerned.

Gabe helped his friend to fill his bucket...

and I caught him throwing some of the berries at his sisters, too. :)

Elena was focused on berries- none of her friends came to pick with us, so she wasn't distracted!

Taking a break from picking...

The sky finally let loose and poured on us for a short while.  Luckily for Annalee, her friend brought an umbrella. :)

The boys refused to run for shelter!  Here's Gabe and his buddies, soaked to the bone.  We had a great time and got lots of berries for jam, cobbler, muffins and more!

**After picking blueberries, we went to a very neat little honey store (yes, they just sold honey products) in La Belle, Fl.  It has been run by the same family since 1921!  Check it out here!**