A Trip to the Zoo

Monday our family and our friend, Jessica, visited the Memphis Zoo.  Even though it is July, we are having a "cool spell" here in Mississippi, and the weather was really nice.

We spent our time in one side of the zoo, and so I plan to take the children back soon to visit the other side.

We began by watching the sea lions show, and then we ate lunch.

 Lunch at the "Cat House"

 Seeing the elephants.

Olivia reminded us of the difference between African and Asian elephants.

(I can't remember which kind these were!)

After lunch and the elephants, we watched the grizzly bears being fed.  There were three bears, and right before feeding time, there they were, heads up, waiting for the food to be dropped!

 "I'm hungry!"

After being fed various fresh fruits and then a hunk of frozen fruit in some sort of popsicle, these bears were ready to play!  I think we stood and watched these two bears interact, chase, and play for at least twenty minutes.  It was quite entertaining.

We visited some more animals, and then posed the children for a picture.

 Sam, Clay, Leah, Olivia, and Julie

Our last stop before heading back to the car (well, the next to last stop……Leah and Sam wanted to visit the huge gift shop first) was to wade in the stream.

After leaving the zoo, we went to Target.  Because of course if we go to Memphis, we have to visit Target!  We all had an afternoon snack of Starbuck's coffee (and Icees for Leah and Sam) while we looked all around Target.  We were able to get a few things that Olivia needed to take back to school, so that was productive.

Yesterday I canned more tomatoes!  Actually I made 9 pints of spaghetti sauce out of that batch of tomatoes.  Tomorrow I am canning black beans, and probably on Saturday I'll have more tomatoes ready to can.  And that will be it for a while.  I plan to put all my canning paraphernalia back in the basement---it's all on my dining room table right now.  We start school next Monday, and I don't think I will have time to can anymore.

I'll post homeschool planning links and tips beginning tomorrow---at least that's my plan!