Farm, Food & Play - Rice!

Another day, another preschool program at the zoo! Today it was Farm, Food and Play at Harmony Farms. We learned about rice!!
We had to get to the zoo early. We recieved a letter that told us that because it was Spring Break, we would want to arrive early in order to make it on time. So we got there about 20 minutes before it started, and ended up having to wait 15 minutes anyway.
When we left though, people that were just arriving to the zoo were parking in overflow parking! It was really really busy.

Here is Kayley playing with Cody. They are planting "rice" in the "rice paddy."

They had parachute fun again, making "popping rice"

Cody also helped Kayley at the "sushi" table. This little playset was interesting. It was all wood sushi rolls and such, with velcro!

Even the chopsticks were velcro! Made it very easy to use chopsticks. Thank goodness Cody is so patient with Kayley. Kayley made Cody "eat" at least one of everything on the table.

Learning about different kinds of rice and their textures.

Kayley made this beautiful rice mosaic (which has pretty much all fallen apart by now.)

We also planted our very own "rice paddy-in-a-cup."
Finally, a plant that I can't over-water!

We also made our own "Fruit-Sushi" with sweet sticky rice and fruit. It was very sticky and stuck to everything. Yummy though.

We also made a special treat to take to the Wallabys. Puffed Rice in a bag.

At the Wallaby Walkabout Kayley gave her bag to the keeper there and she hung them up for the Wallabys to play with.

And, we were bummed when, the Wallabys didn't care. They were snacking on some peanuts and ignored our bags. We hung out for 10 minutes and got bored and left to go ride the carousel.

Rhinoceros! Thanks to an extra person working the carousel today. He snapped our picture for us. Can you see my short hair?

Kayley making the "rhino" sign.

I have no idea where she learned this and if it is right according to ASL?

On the carousel. You can see getting excited about making the rhino sign at the very end.

Sweet Streets Playhouse

I picked up this little dollhouse from Deseret Industries last week. I paid 4 bucks for it. Brought it home, cleaned it up and let Kayley play with it with her Little People. I looked it up on the internet and discovered that it is the Sweet Streets dollhouse and is worth about 15 dollars on eBay in played-with condition. I love it when I find a bargain.

Kayley has been having a lot of fun with it. It has a bathroom with a toilet and a bathtub. Her little people spend a lot of time in there. If you listen closely you can hear her putting her little people on the potty and then splashing in the tub. Toward the end her Little Dude falls down the stairs and she tells him "Be Careful!"

Pretty Lil' Irish Colleen...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Enjoy these pictures of our little Irish Colleen, Kayley...

Her shirt reads, "Mommy's Lucky Charm."

Yes, I made those ginormous hairbows myself. =)

St. Patrick's Day past... Kayley, last year. March 2008.

She was cranky and I was sad not to get any really good pictures of Kayley decked out in green.

First St. Patrick's Day, March 2007.

Erin Go Bragh!!

More Things Irish...

As promised. I scanned in some more old Irish Dance photo's. I'm really sad. I have a CD that my friend Stephanie gave me that has a bunch of pictures on it, but the entire CD case has mysteriously disappeared in our apartment. I have been looking for it since early February, since it has several other important discs in it, but it still hasn't turned up. Maybe I'll beg Stephanie to email me those pictures when she has time... Sigh.

Anyway, here is my first St. Patricks day parade. I think I'm maybe 21 or 22 in this picture.

My first dance competition. I did terrible and didn't win any medals, but it was fun.

My last dance competition. I'm 5th from the left. Number 1152. I "kicked butt" at this competition winning several first place medals and a couple of seconds.

Dancing with the City of Denver Pipeband. I traveled with them to Sydney, NE for Octoberfest. Fun fun fun times. Dancing in the Beer tent in our ugly 80's costumes. Those were NOT flattering at all.

Dancing at a Ceili (pronounced just like Kayley), a traditional Irish Dance party.
Can you find me?

Cavalia

We saw Cavalia last night! It was incredible! Wow!

Cavalia is a Cirque du Soleil show featuring horses. We were so excited to go see a show! We kind of joked that it was like watching Lord of the Rings on stage. It was very magical.

From the program: Cavalia combines acrobatic and equestrian displines. The Cavalia stables are made of more than 45 males, both stallions and geldings interacting on stage with all the artists and riders in great liberty and harmony.

The trick riding was breath taking. There were girls demonstrating with lasso's... (I guess that is a reason to put Kayley in 4H?) There was more traditional Cirque performances with the bungee girls from the ceiling and flying on harnesses (with the help of horses). Overall, it was amazing and if it wasn't so expensive I would clamor to go see it again.

Photography during the show was prohibited, but here we are waiting for the show to begin. You can probably tell by the seats behind us that we were very early (my fault, obviously). We were really close to the front too...we were on row 7!!!

We sat in the "Horse Lovers" section of the seats, which is a "preferred seating area." Except we didn't know that until we got there. After picking up our tickets at the box office they told us that part of our tickets included and exclusive backstage visit to the stables after the show! Talk about cool!!!

Here are some of the horses!

Look at that increadible hairdoooo!
Walking the horses. I'm sure many of them needed to walk awhile to cool off after the show.


I hope this You Tube video works...it is an awesome trailer for Cavalia and you can hopefully get an idea of what we saw last night!