We had a visitor today. . .

I think he (she?) heard that we were went to Carolina Wildlife yesterday, maybe he needed to get there too.  Poor guy.  I wonder what caused him to do this.  He wasn't breathing and he's been there all day so we think he has bought the farm.  Update: as of 10:00pm the bat has left!  I guess he was sleeping?

Carolina Wildlife Center, Irmo, SC

This place rocks!!  I had been interested in hosting an activity for our homeschool support group, REACH, and decided on Carolina Wildlife Care Center in Irmo, SC.  Turns out they don't do tours only school visits but they were having their annual Wildlife "Baby Shower" this weekend and so I organized a group to go to it yesterday, Sunday. They had a variety of animals, Wildlife demos and kid crafts. It was an exceptional experience.  I have never been so impressed with a place before. They are very well organized, they are very knowledgeable and the animals are varied and they are just so cute. 

We got to see many injured animals that have been rehabilitated. Some are eventually returned to the wild but if they are not able to feed themselves without help then they remain to be used as an educational tool. Several box turtles were there, one had not been given the special light it needed (note aquarium lights are NOT good lights for box turtles) and had been fed a diet of cat food! Ack!  As a result his shell had not formed properly and was unable to grow normally.  You can see him here:

Because the shell was deformed, the turtle is not able to close up inside the shell, so he needs to remain in captivity in order to survive.  Another turtle was chewed on by a dog and about 1/3 of the shell was missing resulting in the poor turtle not being able to hide inside his shell as well. 

We saw some abandoned baby raccoons, baby opossums, snakes, birds, and a donor rabbit named Trixie. Trixie the rabbit is the only domesticated animal there, she provides cecotropes for baby rabbits to be able to survive, as its filled with tons of nutrients. Trixie:

Here is a baby rabbit that was just fed with a tiny syringe and was born only 2 days ago:

They also have a beautiful red tailed hawk; his name is Monroe:

and they have this GORGEOUS Barred Owl, named Luna that I want to take home and adopt, she is beautiful.  Luna lost her eye in a car accident and was sent to Carolina Wildlife to remain in captivity because she won't hunt live mice, or just can't seem to do it. They had tested her out in NC to see if she would hunt live mice but she was unable to. So they sent her to Carolina Wildlife Center.  Isn't she just exquisite?

We also met Georgie, a 3 legged Opossum.  He had his front left arm amputated due to a bone infection.  He was one of several babies found in the pouch of his mama who had been hit by a police officer's car.  But he is doing well and he is so friendly.  I have a new respect for Opossum's now I know about them.  They are not dangerous, they don't carry diseases, most of the time they are immune to many diseases that infect other animals such as cats and dogs and humans. They very rarely get rabies. They think its due to their low body temperature. The opossum can't see very well so he/she relies on its nose to smell for food.  They are also the only marsupial animal in North America and they are one of the few mammals to have opposable thumbs like us and the Great Apes. they eat rodents and are beneficial to gardeners! So don't hurt opossums!

After we toured the center and listened to the presentations we did some crafts.  They have stations where you could make a pine-cone bird feeder, do face paints, and also cut out birds and decorate them with feathers, sequins etc.  

Face Painting, Squirrels!

Overall it was a blast and I recommend this event to everyone.  They have summer camps and even though they don't do tours they do need volunteers and donations as they are a non-profit organization.  Go to their website to learn more!  http://www.carolinawildlife.org/

There is also a wildlife organization near Charleston too: http://www.keeperofthewild.org/

You can see more pictures below on the slideshow.

From Cousin L!

Abelle and Av's 8 year old cousin from Pennsylvania sent us some hand painted pictures!  We love them!! What great art! I had the kids hold them up so I could take a picture.  They are beautiful L. !!!!  Thanks for sending them.  Me and Uncle Adam and the kids miss you and love you soooo much.  xoxoxo (click on the photos for larger versions)

Cousin L. 

Wrapping things up this week

Next week is the last week of my semester and Adam's.  I will be done on Wednesday and I think Adam is done on Thursday.  I think this was one of the toughest semesters yet.  I had 6 tests in the span of 1o days, it was crazy.

The kids will be wrapping up their homeschooling co-op in  week or so, and then they both are participating in the Palmetto Figure Skating Club's Spring show. They are doing a program to the song Little Grass Shack from the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack. We are fans of a couple of the vintage versions but this one is fun and peppy and the kids like it.  We hope to have a grass shack built for them to take on the ice as a prop and set up like its a beach and Mr. Av will sit in a chair and play his ukele while Abelle skates.  Av will do a little skating but not much since he is still working on that. That is in the middle of May. 

We hope the kids will do some gymnastics as well as continue with ice skating this summer.  We hope to enroll Mr. Av in soccer or flag football or tball. 

We are planting a garden soon, and hopefully its not too late to get some vegetables and lettuce.  It will be nice not to have to use the tap water to water the garden, we now have a rain barrel and we will use that to water the garden! The one in the picture, you can see the hose but what you can't see is that its hooked up to the downspout, so its basically collecting water from the roof when it rains. Ours is black and while we will build the next one this one we got on sale! 

Pictures. . . I am trying to build a portfolio in the hopes that one day I will be able to charge for taking photos.  Here is one I took of my cutie this week:

PSA: Go to the Dentist!

Public Service Announcement!

Go to the dentist the minute you find a problem, never, ever wait. 

Thats' all for today.

Ka Pow!

I snapped this the other day during our homeschool co-op.  Mr. Av was pretty miserable until I brought him outside and started chasing him.  I ended up catching his KaPow! mid air. 

Balloons, flour, water + newspaper = Solar System Project

I've been wanting to make a solar system project with the kids for a while.  I just wanted to go get the non environmentally friendly sytrofoam balls and paint them ( I know, I know styrofoam is evil), but A insisted that we do paper mache, "just like on Max and Ruby" so I agreed to do the paper mache. I have to admit, I am a bit of a kid inside when it comes to crafts and art and the idea of creating with paper mache was fun to me, despite my practical side yelling and screaming and begging me not to because it would be too messy.  My kid side won over and we began the paper mache today!  We got some balloons and I went online to get a visual of the planets lined up to scale so I could see which ones were huge and which ones were smaller etc.  I used this site when I was blowing up the balloons to different sizes.  Daddy helped Miss A and I helped Mr. Av, despite the flour making my arms itch (I am mildly allergic to gluten so I don't eat it much these days).  I thought it would take hours to do this but surprising it only took about 30 minutes and then poof! the kids were done.  We have to let them dry and then we will do another layer and hopefully that will make them strong and then we will paint them and hang them from a box that will be painted block.  I will be sure to post pics of that when its all done.  For now here are the first round pictures of the paper mache. Mr. Av did help but he was done by the time I got the camera out.

Catch up

I am playing catch up! We have so many things to share.  I will try to make a post that encapsulates a variety of activities and events since the beginning of this year.  For more photos scroll down below to see a slideshow. Enjoy!

January 2009

We went snow tubing for the first time ever! 

This was the first time the kids saw a lot of snow.  They wanted to make snow angels so bad, but the snow was not too soft. 

We also gave our kitchen a much needed makeover. High style for a low price!

We also had Avery's first real discernable art in December, but I have to share it now.  He just one day drew it! It was amazing to see how development can happen in a flash.

We also had snow in SC! (not much sadly!)

February 2009

In February we held a pizza cooking class!

I joke that when I brush Aybelle's hair, I then have my own American Girl doll. 

March 2009

In March we took an overnight trip to Edisto Island, SC. We had never been to Edisto and our good friends had just returned from a vacation there with these *gorgeous* shells. I couldn't believe how beautiful and whole the shells were that they collected. Any shell I ever got, even growing up in Philadelphia, PA visiting the Jersey shore, were never whole or beautiful like these were. So we took a trip down and ended up not only at Edisto but we drove over to Beaufort and then to our fav beach spot Hilton Head Island.  In HHI we went to our favorite beach spot, Coligny Beach, we played mini golf at Pirates Cove and ate at our fav restaurant, Guiseppe's.  It was a great time, very relaxing. I love being so close to the beach we can go almost anytime we want. This path is what you first have to walk through to get to the secluded beach, Botany Bay.

Then you come upon the beach where the conservationists (and adults) have placed huge conch type shells onto the logs and wood on the beach.  The beach is open to the public but they have a policy that only child under 17 years old can remove 1 quart of shells each.  Adults with no children with them are out of luck!

The beach had so-many-shells!

Later in HHI

First Art Show!!

As part of the University's art ed program, college students host and teach art classes to a group of children for about 6 weeks each semester.  At the end they display the children's artwork at an art show.  Aybelle participated (it was for kids ages 6 and up) and we went to the Art show on April 10.  A was so proud of her work, I was excited she got to participate in it.  She is my little artist, loves to be painting, coloring, drawing, writing, all of the time. I want to cultivate that love so she can do it whenever she wants. 

Pictures!

Title: Me and Freya

 

Self Portrait Storybook

Mickey Mouse Sculpture

Self-Portrait

Caterpillar to Butterfly!

For one of our homeschool co-op classes the children were given caterpillars to raise into butterflies.  We did this a couple of years ago but lost one of the caterpillars (it died and never emerged from the chrysalis).  But this year both caterpillars made it and turned into beautiful butterflies. We are keeping them for the weekend then releasing them.  The kids were ecstatic!

this one emerged on Thursday:

And this one emerged on Friday, you can see it still in the now thin chrysalis in the first picture:

Two Full Cups

You are probably wondering what in the world does that mean. Well it means that I have Two Full Cups... more specifically it means that I have at least Two Cups that I need to keep filling in order to stay full. Not in a literal way (although 2 cups of coffee is something I do have to have on a daily basis, ok hourly basis).  

If you'd like to know what I really mean see this website. Scroll down to the part that says "Filling My Cup." I've tried to link directly that that specific part but I can't figure that out!

We live so far away from family that I thought they'd want to keep up with us by reading our blog.  One of my friends blogs about her family and I've been wanting to do this for more than a year. I want to have this record for my children to see and for family to be able to follow.  My goal is to blog every single day about something. 

So come join Adam and I and our two sweet babies, as well as the the 3 cats, 1 hamster, 3 chickens, 2 butterflies and 1 baby praying-mantis as we share with you all of the exciting and not so exciting things going on in our lives!

When the cups are filled you have harmony.