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Sunday, April 29, 2012

we went to a zoo (but never bought it)

The day before we went to see Oma and Opa (that was a long time ago already) Cade had a zoo field trip.  Cade hasn't had a whole lot of field trips, so he really really wanted to go..... and it was pretty darn fun.
By the way, all the photos - save the ones that Cade is in - were taken by the man himself.  Yup, Cade the photographer!  The other parents couldn't get over that I let him use my camera.  Later on in the day they couldn't get over that he was responsible with the camera.  That whole theme continued on for the rest of the day - the parents were so impressed with how well he treated it and how careful he was.  I was a proud momma.
The first half of the field trip was exploring the bosque seco - literally translated the dry forest.  We learned about several plants and how they survived in such a dry area.  One of the things that I found the most fascinating was how many climate variations there are in such close proximity - we get rain so often, yet only half an hour away is this dessert type area.  Crazy.


This was Cade's favorite part of the the bosque seco tour:
These orange flowers are a favorite with hummingbirds, and no wonder.  The guide had us all pick one petal (tube shaped) and suck on it.  You could suck out quite a lot of sweet nectar.  Cade would have picked the place bare if I'd have let him!
At the end was a building with some games and other "discovery" type stuff for the kids.
Cade loved the microscope.



Then it was lunch time.  It was a good picnic lunch and all, but I was most fascinated by the people watching.  I discovered a new way to make some fat cash here.  Look at these pictures and see if you can figure out my new money-making scheme.....


All of the schools have their kids holding on to the shirt of the kid in front of them (yes, pretty much every school in Ecuador, save the international ones, have uniforms).  So I'm thinking I should introduce those rope type deals with all the handles coming off that preschools use in North America.  The teacher holds the front of the rope and each child holds onto a handle thingy.  Brilliant!  Think of all the shirts that will be saved, not to mention much less friction between the kids - getting irritated with each other - and less tripping over each other.
Yes, there is money to be made here.  Unfortunately I am not at all motivated to make money in this fashion.  I prefer to do things that take much more time, energy and money to make a smaller amount of cash.
The zoo.  Cade took about three thousand photos (yes, I am prone to exaggeration) but I will only feature a small smattering.  I'd comment on more of them but I either don't remember or can't recognize the animal featured.  It is a great presentation of the types of enclosures (not cages - this I learned from the title movie).

My favorite:  the blurry llama butt.
Cade's favorite: Gael's t-shirt


There is some creature in that top right whole.....





And that pretty much sums up the field trip.  Okay, not really.  Really there was so much more and lots of good times with my boy.  It isn't very often that I get this much time with just him and I reveled in it. He's a great kid to be with - I love that boy.
You will notice in the following group photo that Cade is not present.  He expired and decided to no longer allow photos to be taken with him present.  But the rest of 2nd grade is represented.....
I think a photo at the beginning of the day would have been a little better.  Their attentiveness was long gone.

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