Our WAY Big Adventure

Amber started out the day extra early in order to “attend” her English class via “Skype.” She loved seeing her friends as much as they loved seeing her on the “Smart Board” at school. After a number of “Hello’s” and letting the novelty wear off slightly, Mr. Prescott jumped right into the lesson and later paired the kids up to complete a challenge; coming up with as many unique collective nouns as possible with a partner. She found more collective nouns today at the zoo. Can you find them?

Since we got such an early start on school for the day we were finished earlier than usual. After one more round of double elimination air hockey… and Tyler proving to us that he really is the family champ, we set off for the Iowa Discovery Center and the Boise Zoo. The Discovery Center was completely “hands-on” and each of walked away with dirty hands and full brains.

Tyler’s favorite exhibit was the Whisper Dish.  While he was sitting in front of one dish, Amber walked completely across the building to another. Sitting back to back, they were able to speak to each other, even whisper, as if they were very close. As we walked away Tyler said “Mom, you know we could make one of these pretty easy at home!”

Tyler also loved the robots they had on exhibit.  Amber,  on the other hand was completely intrigued by the powerful microscope, and spent a good 30 minutes looking at all the slides. Animal lover, tender heart, naturalist, scientist! Fits her perfectly.

  After lunch we headed to the Boise zoo.  Amber (who speaks cat…really) played hide and seek with a snow leopard. We were all amazed at the enourmous size of the Siberian Tigers, the playfulness, grace and speed with which the Whited Handed Monkeys swing from rope, to branch, to bar… They were Tyler’s favorite, and I enjoyed them too until he explained, and Amber verified, that they sometimes throw poo at each other. While I didn’t witness that (thank God), we saw plenty of it flying and I did leave with monkey poo in my shoe…….(no photos for that one!) And though we have seen lions,  zebras and giraffes before, they are always intriguing,  beautiful creatures.