The Cincinnati Zoo was a hit! We didn't get to see the whole thing, but we got a good bit of it. These Rhino's were at the entrance. Love those animal props.


This is a nice site when we head to the Texas beach. This is the Roseate Spoonbill.
One of the first things we noticed is the peacocks that run around the zoo. They're not fenced in. Many of the female peacocks (pictured here) had peachicks running around nearby.
What a lovely flower they had blooming in their botanical area. This is a Catalina Midnight Blue Wishbone Flower.
Here's are some Black Magic Elephant Ears.
I don't know what these are called, but they were so pretty, I had to take a picture.
Cool mister in the garden... Daniel had a blast with it.
This is in the jungle trails.
This guy is pretty cool hangin out!
We found this ancient Indian style statue in the jungle trails.
Time to feed the Lorikeets.
Cameron liked it too. He wasn't expecting a photo shot.
These are the white lions. We didn't get to see the white tigers.
Taylor loves Manatees! Inside the building in the background was a huge aquarium with a happy manatee. He swam around and gave Taylor a nice show.

Another must have photo opportunity.

Last stop - the carousel.

We missed half of the zoo, but we had fun while we could. It's a pretty nice zoo!

Dayton, Ohio is very proud of the Wright bothers who were credited with inventing and building the first successful airplane. This is a small airport down the road that features a museum. It's very small and took only about 20 minutes before Daniel went running out the front door.
This airplane is a replica of the Wright Brothers airplane. The pilot of this bit of history told us that he flies a couple times per week and takes anyone over about ten years of age for a ride.

He does take it to fly-ins all over Ohio at least. It's a great topic for discussion as he gets a ton of attention from the rest of the airplane enthusiasts around.

He explained how the plane works. The Wright Brothers first invented a bicycle. They used the idea for the bicycle to create the plane... with an engine. David wanted to know how they made the engine. Good kid. The pilot told him that he wouldn't understand that until he was older. I bet mom and dad could show him. :-)

The kids did get to tour the cockpit.
Then, we moved on to Henry Ford. What a treasure they have in this car.
That was about it. Daniel was gone by the time I was taking this picture.

The kids found a rabbit hole right in the middle of the back lawn. Momma was out doing her thing for the day. She comes in around midnight to feed her babies once and then off again to party or something. Her chillins came out to see what all the commotion was about when they discovered the kids playing on their roof.
We read up and discovered that they needed to be returned, so we were prompt to do so. We checked the next day and found that momma moved them to a new home.

Since these were taken before my blogging days and since it happened to be a topic of discussion tonight as we discussed swallows... it deserves a post. :-)


This was from May 2007. Stonehenge II is located in Hunt, Texas. It's worth checking out. Their impressive display includes a couple of Easter Island heads and some great cliff swallows!

These are the cliff swallow nests. It's neat to see the swallows fly up to their nests with a bit of mud and patch it onto their nests. These guys have had plenty of time to build some nice nests.
Dumb, dumb...
Hope you make it out there. It's a cool little adventure. Admission is free. :-)

We just studied space rocks in Astronomy and we're eager to get out and watch the meteor showers coming up. The Delta Aquarid shower will appear tonight. The show will only feature about 20 meteors per hour, which isn't bad. But, the Perseid shower is scheduled to appear on August 12. That one will be impressive with 60 meteors per hour! You'll see one every minute! Kids love this. I remember laying out under the stars with friends one night watching the "shooting stars" everywhere.
For more info, check out this site:

Yay!!! I can't believe that we were able to go to Ken Ham's famous Creation Museum. It is absolutely top-notch! If you ever get the chance to go, be sure to watch all the neat movies they show as part of the museum tour. The Planetarium show does cost a little more, but it is also excellent!

This Rhino is at the front entry of the museum. The boys of course noticed just how detailed this guy is... but we won't go into details. :-)


This is a marvelous display of Adam naming the animals. The figures are very realistic.

Taylor knew what these guys were immediately, but I had no idea. She's not in the room at the moment, so no documenting that.
This was in the Building of the Ark room. They kids got a break to use some motor skills. The puzzle David's working on is the famous Noah's Ark.
There was a room with lots of dinosaurs and their descriptions. Daniel was particularly fond of this one.
This was actually in another room called the Starting Points room, I believe. They discussed the differences in biblical truth versus human theories.
Ah, back in the dinosaur room again.