More field trips

We went on two daytrips this week. One was to a wavepool on the southside of town. It felt like a field trip because it was so far away. We might as well have driven out of town. It was loads of fun though. We've broken through some sort of fear barrier and all three girls were allowed in the deep end and down the waterslide. And no one was afraid of the big waves, even after drinking a lot of the water.

The other trip was to the Valley Zoo. It's celebrating it's 50th anniversary.

I remember coming here as a child, probably 35 years ago. The trees have gotten bigger and the theme is no longer fairytale, but otherwise it hasn't changed much. I have a picture somewhere of our family and our cousins on this same train.

It still has an awful lot of "exotic" local animals.

This is our provincial bird, the Great Horned Owl. I did not know that, so even with the lack of real exotic animals I can still learn something. Beth of course knew that already.

The petting zoo is always a favourite spot to visit.

Everytime I see chickens I start googling easy chicken coops and city bylaws. Still no change here; I'm still not allowed to have them in my backyard.

In Australia, we did have some of this parrot's relatives in our backyard though.

Bob Barker (from The Price is Right) is trying to get our poor Lucy the Elephant out of the zoo. I don't get involved in stuff like that, but I do know that Lucy is very popular here. She used to paint and the zoo would sell her paintings. She goes for daily walks in the river valley to keep her arthritis and her weight in check and she seeems pretty interactive with the crowds.

Anyway it was a fun day and we spent many hours in the warm sun. I'm hoping that it's not the last of summer. We could see our breath this morning!