Our favorite road between Los Angeles and Reno is 395. We never tire of the beauty. White-out blizzard conditions we’ll attempt to bypass but the dazzling white snowy landscapes are so beautiful afterwards! This last October we experienced beautiful colors! Most of all I love the first section of the road between Bridgeport and Mono Lake (Conway Summit) that I’m sharing with you – especially in the Fall. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do!
One more time the grandparents.com website has an interesting article about costumes called Why Costumes Are Good for Kids during this Halloween season and why role-playing is good…..
This is so cool! Watch this video of a kayaker getting an up close and personal view of a curious blue whale! Link – You may have seen this already as I think it went viral, but the whale really seems to be checking out the kayaker!
Grandpa Ron and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary all weekend long by revisiting places we went just before our wedding. On Sunday, 10/09/11, we went through the Aquarium of the Pacific. My favorite exhibit is the one containing the Leafy Seadragons. Here are a few photos:
After we finished touring the aquarium we boarded one of their Blue Whale Watching Tours. It was great! We saw many whales – mainly blues but a few others. The trip was great! The aquarium docent was excellent and I think everyone had a great time trying to spot whales first! Here are a few of our photos!
The Los Angeles Zoo will open their new Tom Mankiewicz Conservation Carousel to the pubic on October 27, 2011. Jerry Moss (A&M Records cofounder) and his wife Ann Moss are the carousel’s major donors. Here are some LA Times Carousel Photos. There are some common animals as well as the endangered ones – and a unicorn! All the animals have friendly faces on purpose. Some have funny stories about their inclusion – like the skunk because there are so many of them “freeloading” at the zoo. If you are looking for something-not-so-scary for the family to enjoy around this Halloween or any time, check out the new carousel from Oct 27 on!
When we were in the airport last weekend to catch a JetBlue plane to Chicago, a billboard caught my eye. It advertises a joint effort between JetBlue and PBS that has been developed to keep kids reading! You’ll find fun reading activities provided by PBS KIDS® and helpful reading tips for children of all reading levels. Check it out! Let’s Read is the main page. There are many activities on the Activities page. It is well worth your time to find some fun ways to get your children reading more enthusiastically!
Yesterday Grandpa Ron and I planted 4 rose bushes – two of them replaced bushes that died earlier this year and two are in new spots. Got the drip system working for them and gave new drips to the near-by roses as well. Today I planted about 20 daffodil bulbs….only have about a hundred left to go!!!! I only hope the critters leave them alone!! It sure would be more fun if we had Austin to help us! Too bad he lives so far away! Ah, well…. It would have been fun to have him throw the bulbs and then together we’d plant them where they landed…
Grandpa Ron and I have been traveling every weekend for almost two months! I hope it won’t be so long between posts from now on, but I’m not sure if the traveling is going to settle down soon or not! We experienced first-hand a wonderful family place for those of you in the Madison, Wisconsin area.
We discovered a fun and FREE zoo when we were in Madison two weekends ago for my niece’s wedding. It is called the Henry Vilas Zoo. We got some great pictures!
For the 5k/10k runners and walkers reading this – on Sunday, September 25th at 10 am, the 6th annual Zoo Run Run (a 5k/10k walk and run) will take place past the zoo and through the beautiful Vilas neighborhood.
Here are some videos on the zoo website. The first one is a tour of the zoo.
I’ll post some more photos below.
Seems like the polar bear is saying, ” I forget… Do I even like carrots?”
The promise of another train ride is what prompted us to visit the zoo. However, in our usual fashion, by the time we meandered around the zoo and found the train, the train was already being put to bed for the night. Oh, well, maybe we’ll get another chance some other day! This is a beautiful zoo and a wonderful outing for the famly!
Six brand new, quail-egg-sized baby quail huddled very close together under the bush last weekend. These individual babies are almost impossible to distinguish from the bark shavings and dirt and each other. Do you see them? Once you see the heads in the one picture, if you go back to the other pictures, you can tell head markings from wings and backs. Have some fun! Then there are a few pictures of older babies and their parents.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram article No Bullying by Kelly Puente got me thinking about how to get our preschoolers to behave nicely with other kids in their daycare classes and on the playground. The PeaceBuilders program sounds like a good way…. Here’s a Kansas study for Positive Behavior Support. I also have many more links from my post I wrote in 2009 on reducing toddler behavior problems.
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