Lately: The Animal Edition

Spring has sprung, and we have been surrounded by all kinds of animals during the last week. Here's a peek into some of what we've been up to lately:

Henry finished his massive animal habitat project on the Kemp's ridley sea turtle. 

The project culminated with a parent viewing of all the projects.

Gramma and Grampa came along too and Henry told them all about sea turtles. We also heard that the first Kemp's ridley sea turtle nest in Texas was found this week! 

Speaking of eggs, Henry's teacher incubates chicken eggs each year.  The kids have been learning all about chickens and incorporating them into all subjects from math and science to reading and writing.

The chicks started hatching this week! 10 out of 22 eggs hatched and they are so sweet and fuzzy. The class will keep four (the other six will go live on a ranch) and watch them grow for the rest of the school year. We hope to get to do some chick-sitting soon!

Chicken love

Aunt Jess also gave us two monarch chrysalises from her backyard, and we got to watch them for a week and then release them into the wilds of our backyard. This was a special treat, since I grew up in Pacific Grove, California, aka Butterfly Town USA, where thousands of butterflies spent the winter each year. We had annual butterfly parades and there were fines for harming monarchs (I remember being very distressed if our cats ever caught one!).

Last week, my photography buddy and I spent the morning exploring some of the FotoFest exhibits in the Washington Avenue Arts District. Our favorites were the exhibits of the three National Geogrpahic photographers at Spring Street Studio.

And finally, I'll leave you with more reptiles. We had a presentation by Texas Snakes and More at our Cub Scout meeting last night. 

The boys could touch and "wear" five friendly snakes!

 

Ball python

 

We do a lot of fun things in Scouts, but this was a huge hit with all the boys!

It has been an animal-filled week!