Swim Party

We were delighted to head to the pool to celebrate one of our playgroup friend's birthdays! We rarely (to never) make it to the pool and have had far too few opportunities to see our friends this summer, so this was the perfect afternoon! The kids had a blast swimming, splashing and roughhousing with the daddies in the water. The mommies kept our feet cool and enjoyed the shade & conversation! It is hard to believe that most of our friends will be starting school in the next few weeks. We are wrapping up our summer activities and getting ready for fall... Labor Day is just around the corner!

Kyrie with her BFF Isabelle

My handsome husband!

Degen who covered himself up in the sun and fell asleep while everyone else finished swimming!

Zoo Hike

 Last Friday, we were lucky enough to go on a family night hike at the zoo. After weeks of heat, we were enjoying a cool down and headed to the zoo in pants & sweatshirts!The beautiful weather was just a bonus! We were the only family participating in the evening's hike, so it was like we had our own private tour of the zoo. The zoo was practically empty as we headed to the aquarium and then made stops at the manatees, tortoises, penguins & alligators. We learned lots of information about the animals, and the kids got to do some fun activities throughout the evening.

Manatees are one of my favorite animals, and the Columbus Zoo is one of only three facilities outside of Florida that can have them. We spent a lot of time watching this "little" (at just 200 lbs) gal named Pixie. The docent said that her handlers were still bottle-feeding her because they had never seen her eating lettuce. Well, we watched her gobble down a whole head of Romaine happily! She stayed right up close to the glass the entire time we were there, which was a special treat.

Love this photo of Darren!

Everyone is excited to get a closer look at Pixie!

I am not sure what Kyrie is doing in this picture, but it was too funny not to include!

The tortoises were sleeping by the time we got to their exhibit. Night was coming fast, and the kids ran & jumped & climbed on the walk over. We all learned some interesting facts about the animals!

The cool evening brought most of the penguins out around their pool, so we had a great opportunity to see them up close. After learning about penguins, they got to dress-up and pretend to be penguins. They also played a fishing game that taught us about sustainable fishing by introducing us to fish populations that are over-fished.

Kyrie, the penguin!

Our last stop of the night was the Conservation Building where we learned more about alligators and had the opportunity to pet a baby one. The entire evening was very informative and just a really special time for our family to spend together enjoying the zoo.

Kyrie a L'Ecole Francaise

The last week of July, Kyrie spent at French day camp at L'Ecole Francaise. This was Kyrie's first all-day 'school' experience. I was just the teensiest bit nervous about leaving her for the whole day, but she did very well and had a great time! She was in the elementary kids' class, which means that she did not have a rest time in the afternoon and she got to go to a nearby public pool to swim on Tuesday & Thursday.

I think that the hardest part about French Camp was getting up to get Kyrie to school by 9:00. The above picture shows Degen's opinion on the early morning drive... a boy after my own heart! In spite of being a night owl herself, Kyrie handled the earlier mornings quite well. Mostly because she was excited for day camp. However, towards the end of the week she told me that she had experienced some pangs of homesickness during the days' quiet times and missed Degen & me. (I am so grateful that we homeschool, and she doesn't have to be anxious about things like that on a daily basis.)

As most of you know, I teach Kyrie vocabulary-based lessons in French as part of our homeschool curriculum. She also attends the Ohio German Language School on Saturdays during the school year. I have a degree in French, and Darren has a degree in German... I took the picture above just to sort of remind Darren how "superior" the French language is compared to German! (Of course, I am kidding!) One of the things we love about German school is that it has given Kyrie a cultural and real-world reference for the German language. It was our hope that day camp at L'Ecole Francaise would help do the same for her experience with the French language. Kyrie LOVES nearly all things international, and we were very happy to have her come home excited to want to try French foods and visit France! Her experience at L'Ecole Francaise was a wonderful support to the work we do at home all year long! Below are pictures of a few of her activities from during the week:

This is the back of the 'postcard' from the photo above. Kyrie is fairly obsessed with the idea of visiting the Eiffel tower.

Ah, money well spent! Of course, eating lunch was Kyrie's favorite part of day camp! Sigh...

Zoo Visit

In a word, this summer has been BUSY! The kitchen remodel, the garden, canning and the kids have kept us hopping and any spare time we might find we have used to cool down & rest up for whatever is coming up next. So, we were extra-happy about having my BFF Jess and her fiance, Jack, come for a visit. It was the perfect excuse to slow down (kinda) and enjoy good food, conversation and a sunny afternoon at the zoo!

We are lucky to have the Columbus Zoo to share with visiting family & friends. This summer, the zoo added Stingray Bay: a giant touch tank filled with friendly stingrays! Jack treated us all to our first trip! The kids were nervous at first, but soon we all had our arms reaching into the water to touch the fast-swimming stingrays!

Spending time in the Animal Encounters area of the zoo is a very cool experience. Kids & adults alike took turns touching all sorts of reptiles. My favorite was the baby gray kangaroo who was super-duper fuzzy!

Our afternoon was pretty laid back. We didn't even try to see the whole zoo (we maybe saw 25%), but we enjoyed a simple picnic in the shade, had fun on the carousel, the boat ride and watching an animal show. We grabbed some chilly treats before sitting down to watch a wild cat show before heading home. The wild cat show is amazing! It is just awesome to be so close to these animals, including a baby snow leopard.

We haven't gotten out to the zoo (or anywhere, really) hardly at all this summer, and I am so happy that we could spend the afternoon there with such good friends!

The Cheetah

Baby Snow Leopard