"Nature Education" part 982,165,186,001.

Driving out to Moscow yesterday we chose to let Ashley choose which way we went; past the airport or past the bears. She chose the bears. As the road wound around we first saw running horses, then some goats, then more horses, then the bears, and then some big horn sheep.

We were pointing out all the animals to Ashley and when we had passed the last of them I said it was like a drive through zoo. Aiden was just thinking the same thing.

The bears are not statues or wood carvings or anything, they are real live bears in pens. On the way home we stopped to look at them up close. There was 4 of them out in the field and several more in their pens. This included a mama bear with 3 cubs. AWESOME! We couldn't get a really good picture of the babies since the pens have a lot more fencing around them but you could definitely see them. And after the mama came out of the building into the pen and carried them back in one at a time, you could definitely hear her growling and roaring. I don't know if she was growling at another bear or a human inside but she was NOT happy about it.

Ashley was pretty non-plussed about the growling but did enjoy watching the bears poop. We had a lot of conversation about how big it was, especially compared to the cats' and how it would be much worse to scoop a bear box than a cat box. I think the old people who were also there thought there was something wrong with this conversation.

They should have been around today. We went with all the kids and Amy and her four boys to see the bears again. The babies were not out and I guess it was too early for the bears to be up and about much. So we walked across the street to look at the big horn sheep.

Ashley was getting bored as none were ramming into each other so she and I went back up towards the smaller ones to count them. Alex and one of Amy's kids, Wyatt, had made quite a discovery while we were up there. Aiden came up to me and said they had noticed a red thing poking out of the sheep's stomachs.

Amy told them it was a distended belly button. Alex was pretty sure that was not it at all but I told him to let it go. He's almost 9 and Amy's boys are 6 and under. I don't know if they are ready for all that information just yet.

On the way back to the bears I was holding Alex's hand and he was holding Wyatt's hand. Wyatt decided to bring up the red thing and reiterate that it looked more like a sword than a distended belly button. This brought on a scenario where the sheep don't just fight with their horn ramming but with their swords.

Alex told him to let it go (I was SO proud!!) and that was the end of it.

I do not envy the job of Amy having 4 boys to raise. at all.