Week At Zoo Camp, Part 2

On Wednesday Laura was excited about visiting the zoo after we dropped the boys at camp. After waiting eagerly for an hour, Laura, Grandma and Mommy were ready to charge into an exciting zoo adventure. From seals and sea lions to kangaroos, gorillas and tapirs, Laura was excited to see the animals and socialize with other children. We made it to the bird show at 11:30 where we ran into both Joshua and Benjamin. After the bird show, we went home to relax a bit before I picked up the boys. Benjamin studied fur and skin during camp and enjoyed seeing orangutans, among other animals. Joshua brought home an egg that he decorated and saw the rock hyrax with 4 babies.

In the evening, we saw Joanie Bartels at the Levitt Pavillion in Pasadena. The kids enjoyed dancing to the Mexican Hat Dance among other songs and playing in the playground. Joshua enjoyed climbing the rock pile on one end of the playground, and Benjamin loves pretending to be the conductor on the train. The bathrooms were decent, but a little dirty and lacking toilet paper (but this was at 8:00pm).

Thursday Laura was eager to visit the zoo again, but today's activity was Griffith Observatory. On the way, we took a short hike through the bird sanctuary, which is just a short hiking trail surrounded by trees. We were disappointed to find out that the observatory doesn't open until noon on weekdays (10am on weekends), but we enjoyed the views. Then I took Laura to the Audubon Center at Debs Park where she was happy to join a pile of other kids playing in the trees and playhouse. Though Laura had fun, I remember more things to play with 5 years ago, including a tent site and plastic animals. We did see quite a few real lizards and Laura is always excited about ants. She was thrilled to borrow her own pair of binoculars to hang around her neck and to use to examine some wildlife.

Joshua was excited to have lost a tooth during camp today and couldn't wait to put the tooth under his pillow. Benjamin learned about ears, mouth, teeth and tongue today during camp. Joshua brought home a bird puppet. After camp, we stopped at the Eagle Rock branch library for a space-themed storytime in honor of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, and they enjoyed making kaleidoscopes.

After dropping Joshua and Benjamin off for their last day of camp, we went to see Brand Park and Library. The Japanese Garden was closed, but Laura enjoyed the playground for a while. It is a decent size playground with a playhouse, a huge sandbox, and a shallow wading pool which is only open limited hours. When we entered the playground, someone pointed out some deer across the road. Then we checked out the Brand library and art gallery. Grandma liked a huge white sculpture that looked like a birds nest. Our next stop was to see the free rehearsal of Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. We arrived partway through the first half--the parking lot was packed with cars of people eager to see a free show. It was definitely worth while, and we were able to sit fairly close to the stage, but if we had been more experienced at this sort of activity, we would have come earlier and scoped out shaded seats or brought an umbrella. Finally, we made a stop at Travel Town in Griffith Park where Laura insisted on going on the train ride.

Joshua and Benjamin enjoyed their last day of zoo camp. Benjamin decorated a "real tooth" on a necklace that says "made in China" and said that he saw all the animals in the zoo except the Indian Rhino because it was sick. Joshua said that he saw the tapir, a snake, and an owl. In the evening all the kids played a wild game of Skip-Bo with Grandma and Joshua won with Benjamin coming in a close second. Grandma and Daddy went for a walk and were excited to see a gated estate called Chateau Emanual right on our street.