The Bug Lady

We went on a field trip with our homeschool co-op today to see The Bug Lady. She owns a studio with a whole bunch of different animals that she educates people about. There are insects, snakes, lizards, birds, ferrets, turtles, guinea pigs, frogs, rabbits and a hedgehog. Below are some pics, but they are just a small sample of the many animals she has. Some of the animals were rescued by cruel owners. Most of them are not poisonous, and she only allowed animals that would not hurt anybody to be touched and held.

The Bug Lady said she feels a little awkward when people want her picture taken with them because she's "just a former kindergarten teacher." Lauren wanted a pic with her because The Bug Lady is on TV. I told her she is a local celebrity!

Her background with these animals began with her 5th grade teacher who kept critters in his classroom. She said she never liked creepy crawlies but at the end of that year she changed her feelings. She later became a kindergarten teacher who kept animals in her classroom. When she stopped teaching, her teacher friends wanted her to continue coming with her animals to show their students, and the business just took off from there.

Her studio is cutely decorated with themed posters, and art work. Her apron and tablecloths were made with insect patterned material. She has a funny personality and made lots of comments that made us all laugh.

The lobby area has great wall art as well a jungle/outdoors theme.

She had several animals in containers on the floor that the kids could hold.

Some cages and tanks lined the wall filled with a variety of animals.

Kids sat criss-cross applesauce in rows so she could walk between them with the animals and not trip over legs.

She would walk by everybody and let them either look through the protective containers to view the animals, or she would carry them in her hand and we could touch them. She called on some adults and kids to be helpers. Most of the time she had them close their eyes and then she would put something into their hands. One of the older boys she put about 4-5 hissing cockroaches on him and he walked around letting us touch them. They were crawling all over him and one got under his pant leg and as soon as that happened he brushed it off onto the floor and squeals and a lot of movement began as the bug crawled around on the floor. The adults were more hilarious though. They were more nervous than the kids and provided lots of laughs as they made faces, or even changed their minds and ran away from the critter.

This was one of the best field trips we have ever been on--very educational and very fun. I wish The Bug Lady much success with her business.

Lauren was given the ferret to hold, and she just wasn't sure what to do with it. We just started passing it around to other kids.

Hedgehog trying to hide under cloth.

Abilene Field Trip

Yesterday we went with some families from our homeschool co-op up to Abilene to take a train ride that lasted about 1 hour. Roger had taken the day off of work and came with us. I really enjoyed the ride up there through the countryside and seeing all of the farmers fields lush and green. We arrived in Abilene early so Roger drove us through the boyscout camp that is located there that he and Evan went to last year and it was very, very nice.

On board the train, we ate our lunches in the dining car while our tour guide Wendy talked to us a little bit about the history of Abilene and the train we were riding on. We rode for 30 minutes, and then for the last 30 minutes we switched to more of the open air train car we sat on picnic tables or benches for the ride back. The kids enjoyed it very much.

After this ride, most families went on to tour the Heritage Center in Abilene where there was an old carousel, telephone museum, and then some went on to tour the Dwight Eisenhower museum. We decided not to do these things and instead head back to Wichita via the city of Salina so that we could stop by Cozy's Hamburgers and introduce the kids to this old treasured establishment. When I was in elementary school, I lived in Salina and Cozy's was very popular. Their hamburgers are made with onions, and served with mustard and pickles. You have to order a certain number by the sack full, but they are smaller in size than regular burgers, so you can eat quite a few. Roger was introduced to Cozy's many years ago, so since then whenever we go to Salina we have to stop at Cozy's. Then, a few hours later Roger's parents arrived in town from Colorado to celebrate Lauren's birthday which is tomorrow. They got to see her during her taekwondo class while Evan was at drum lessons. A very fun, but busy day yesterday.

Third Adventure

The third adventure the kids and I made it to with our church was to the Great Plains Nature Center and then to Riverside Park to play in the fountains. We had so much fun!!!

Eagle Valley Raptor Center

With our homeschool group we took a fieldtrip to the Eagle Valley Raptor Center in Garden Plain in April. The grounds are beautiful and Jeff the owner is very knowledgeable about his birds. The kids found it so interesting. Not everybody got a chance to interact with the birds, but luckily enough we were chosen to be the only ones to say HI to one of the eagle's by opening our mouths very wide, and the only ones to get pictures taken with the eagle. It was a great experience, but I felt so bad that not all of the families got to do it. There were more birds to take pictures of, but my batteries ran out of juice.

Kansas Aviation Museum

Last Thursday we went to the KS Aviation Museum with our homeschool co-op group. I had never been before and it was really interesting. We split into groups and Lauren and I went with the younger kids and Evan went with his friends in another group. We had guides to show us around and ended up being there for about 2 hours and got to pretty much see everything, but probably could have stayed longer to view things in more detail. My favorite part was looking at all of the planes on the ground and getting to go inside the FEDEX plane. It really is something for Wichita to be proud of.