Sunday, July 19, 2020

July School Holidays: Week One ~ Family Adventure Followed By Change of Plans

The July School Holidays have arrived and what better way to celebrate than a family outing to the zoo after church. We returned to our church building for the first time since 15 March and enjoyed seeing everyone and worshiping together. After church we jumped in the car and drove to the city for an afternoon at the zoo. The weather was perfect and it was so nice to spend time outside, away from home, together as a family. There are a LOT of photos, but I hope you enjoy your sneak peak at our beautiful zoo.

It is true... the animals live on prime real estate and have the BEST view of the city. 

Our first stop was the Capybara exhibit. When we last visiting the zoo in March we missed them because we didn't walk past their exhibit until late in the afternoon. So this visit we made them our first stop for the day and we were rewarded with being able to see all four enjoying the winter sunshine. 



It took some patience but I managed to snap a quick photo of the Cassowary. 

We are always on the look out for Water Dragons whenever we are at the zoo or a park. 

One of the boys spotted this Kookaburra sitting quietly. 

One of our favourite animals to visit is the Quokka. 

Probably the worst photo I took all day... but we were pleasantly surprised to see that the wombats have added to their family. 

 We love our Australian animals... the emu and wallaby were kind enough to pose for pictures.

 It was a treat to discover that it was feeding time for the gorillas when we got to their exhibit. I have never seen the gorillas get fed so I was super excited - they are my FAVOURITE animal. We learned that they LOVE vegemite... the upper right photo shows the gorilla wiping vegemite off the plastic container and then licking her finger.

 This juvenile gorilla was comical... still quite small... but walking around upright like the adult gorillas and it was adorable!

 The new African Savannah exhibit has a BEAUTIFUL meerkat enclosure so we spent quite a lot of time watching them. I got some GREAT photographs of the "lookout" meerkat.


The zebras were a bit hard to view... not sure if this is because of the layout of the new exhibit, or just where they chose to hang out. We'll see how well we can see them next time we visit. 

 It is always fun to watch the giraffes eat...

The elephants enjoyed some water play when the keepers turned on a hose in their enclosure. 


Beautiful birds... 

The Bongo... 


We finished up our day at the zoo at about 4pm with a visit to the Koi pond. By then the sun had gone down enough that the whole zoo was shaded and we were worn out and chilled. But it was a magical day and we're looking forward to our next trip. 

Sunday evening Monster completed his fish puzzle... this was a difficult puzzle and he was quite pleased with the final product. 

 Everything I had planned for our school holidays came to a screeching halt at lunch time Monday when Monkey developed a fever, cough and headache. A phone consultation with our family doctor saw hubby taking Monkey to the hospital for a COVID nasal swab followed by two days of strict isolation for the whole family while we waited for the results... which were negative.

We KNEW the test would be negative because the boys hadn't been anywhere and there were no active cases in our postcode (which is our suburb and three surrounding suburbs) but it should made the situation that much more real for us.

Therefore, we spent the entire week at home... playing board games and reading TONS of books.  Monkey still had energy to work on paper craft and draw, but I insisted that he hang out on the lounge, rest, and drink lots of fluids. 

By Friday he had completed this drawing...
We had an in office appointment with our family doctor on Friday as well since Monkey was still running a fever and not really improving. The doctor advised to monitor him through the weekend and review on Monday... 

We ended our week with a few games of Zeus on the Loose... 






We did LOTS and LOTS of reading... independent reading for Munckin 

 Books we finished as part of our on-going racism unit...






 More independent reading for Munchkin...

 School holidays is always a good time for "rabbit hole" topics... we we did some reading about the history of money, as well as this series (right-hand photograph) that our library recently bought...

 All three boys really enjoyed this beautiful book about space...

I never tire of reading the Ramona books aloud... 

 We learned more about Martin Luther King Jr as part of our racism study

 More read aloud selections... WWI for Monster on the left, and a bit about Gandhi for all three boys on the right...



Munchkin agreed to return the Elmer books so we spent and afternoon reading all of them one more time... 










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