Focht Family Blog

My mom and I took the kids to the zoo today. This is the zoo that Jack Hanna is with. It was one of the nicest zoos I have been to. They had everything set with scenery so that it wasn’t just looking at the animals. Unfortunately because of the heat, we saw lots of animals that were asleep. We started out in the North America section where there was a petting zoo. The kids enjoyed brushing the goats.

They had lots of statues of animals throughout the park and the kids were enjoying climbing on them. I liked this picture because it looks like Josh is screaming at the bears.

One of the most amazing animals we saw was the tiger in Asia. I have never seen a tiger that close. The kids were literally nose to nose with the tiger with just a sheet of plexiglass between them.

We had the same opportunity with the orangutans. The female orangutan was named Tara and she was enjoying being by the people at the glass. She liked the little children especially. She was checking out Joshua here.

One of the other statues that they had was one of the world’s stinkiest flower. Timmy wanted to sit in the flower so we got a picture with all of them on it.

One of the last places we walked through was the African jungle. This was one of my favorite parts of the day. It was a bit warm today and after pushing 90 lbs around in a stroller all day I was hot. They had a spot on the path where mist was showered over you. We stayed under the mist for awhile and got soaked.

I forgot to say that Timmy had his birthday on the day we broke down. He turned 5! I had baked him a cake that morning and we were going to stop early and make stuffed shells (his favorite) for dinner. Unfortunately with the turn of events he got a McDonald’s Happy Meal at 10:00 for dinner. I did bring the cakes with me and the frosting and we had cake before bed in mom’s trailer. Here is a picture:

We spent the day on Saturday at COSI, the Science Museum in Columbus. The kids had a lot of fun (and so did Nathan). There was a ocean section that had lots of hands on fun with water. Josh especially enjoyed this section.

In the gadgets section there was a fun giant engine where you pushed the pistons in. Nathan thought it was great fun considering the recent blow up of our pistons.

Timmy tried his hand at lifting his own weight. He was very impressed with himself. He didn’t know daddy was helping. :)

Nathan quickly realized they had fun toys for the big kids as well. They have a unicycle that you can ride over the atrium. Samantha and I were tall enough but we were too chicken to try. Mom wanted to try but didn’t want to hold us up. We would have waited. Guess we will have to go back at some point so she can give it a try.

We all signed up for a chemistry class. Unfortunately Josh wouldn’t keep his goggles on so my mom took Josh to a play area for his age while Nathan and I did experiments with Samantha and Timmy. They had a menu of choices and you could choose which experiments you wanted to do. We did an experiment with alka-seltzer that caused a small explosion of a cap off of a film canister. We also did an experiment with ice and salt where we lifted an ice cube with a small piece of string after salt was poured over the string and ice sealing the string to the ice. We then finished with a whole bunch of experiments with baking soda and vinegar. Do you see a theme in what the boys wanted to do?

On our way out we were stopped by a roving demonstration. He showed the children what happens when a meteor burns up as it falls. He also had a piece of meteorite to show them. It was much heavier than rocks found on Earth and was also magnetic. After he showed them the burning up of the meteorite, he let Samantha try it to see if she could get the same result. You had to hit it with quite a bit of force so she wasn’t able to get the same result as he was.

I forgot the camera again! I need to just keep it in my purse or something. We went to Connor Prairie on Friday and Nathan came with us. The kids had a lot of fun. It is more condensed than Williamsburg and spans more time periods. It is also more interactive for the kids so I think they enjoyed it more. They have a Indian camp where you can trade with the fur trader (we got there too late) but we were still able to see all of the different pelts and talk to them as to what they consider worth trading for. Also in the Indian camp were two different shelters and the kids could try to grind corn using a large mortar and pestle type container.

Next they had a prairie town that was set in 1836. We were able to walk through all of the houses and learn about how different careers lived and worked. They also had a barn where the kids could interact with different animals. They had goats, sheep, baby chicks, a cow and a donkey. Josh and Timmy especially liked this area. They had an opportunity to make beeswax candles. Unfortunately the boys got bored before theirs were done so Nathan ended up having to finish theirs while I took them back to the barn. :)

They also had another settlement that was based in 1886. At the farm in this area the kids could help with some of the chores. Josh was getting tired by this point but Timmy and Samantha both took turns milking a cow! :)

We are winding up our visit in Indiana tonight. We just met another family two sites over tonight that have 3 kids and also home-school. The kids have been having a lot of fun playing with them tonight. We will leave in the morning and will try to do something fun tomorrow for Timmy’s birthday. We will Walmart camp tomorrow night and then Tuesday we will be in Pennsylvania for a week so we can go to Hershey next weekend.

This is my last update before I go to bed. I think I am finally caught up on the blog and I learned how to resize the photos so it shouldn’t take so long to load the blog now. I also set it so it only shows the most recent 5 posts to aid in load time. Anyway, we are in Indianapolis until Monday morning. We will be going on a field trip on Friday to a place called Connor Prairie where the kids can experience life from the frontier days. I will post with pictures soon after. Tonight we went bowling for Timmy’s birthday. His birthday is on Monday and I asked him what he wanted to do and he said go bowling. So I looked for a local lane and they had a family deal on Wednesday so we went tonight. I will bake him a cake and take him out for a special meal on Monday to celebrate his actual day. Hope everyone enjoys catching up with our adventures.

Okay… I remembered the camera this day. We decided since we weren’t too far away from Williamsburg that we would head there on our way to Indianapolis so we stopped on Saturday and spent the day.

When we first got into the visitor’s center we saw a sign for costumes that you could rent for the kids. The kids wanted to so we rented them costumes.

With the costumes came a letter for each of the kids asking them to do chores for the author. The girls get to learn how to do a proper courtesy, plant some seeds and pick up a letter at the post office and deliver it to the printer. The boys get to learn how to be in the military (was closed when we were there), plant some seeds, and pick up a letter from the post office and deliver it to the printer.

We went to the garden so the kids could learn how to plant seeds. The gardener let Samantha hoe the line while the boys supervised to make sure her line was straight.

Next the gardener gave them all some cabbage seeds to place in the line.

Next Samantha had to hoe the ground again to level the dirt back over the seeds. While she was busy doing this the boys went with the gardener and fetched some water to water the seeds with.

Next we went to the post office and printers. We spent some time walking through the town and learning about the various shops and jobs. We samples some items from the bakery and listened to the fife and drums.

Next we took in a play and then on the way out of town we showed the children what would happen if they misbehaved.

Needless to say we had a fun day but we were all tired from the walking so we headed out hoping to make it most of the way to Indy before stopping for the night.