Final Post

Hey everyone, sorry for not posting in a while. I was really busy last week, and then gone all weekend. Sad to say I never thought this day would come, but this week is doing me in. Although I've had a great time at the zoo, I'm sort of ready for a change of pace. I think I'm calling the blog quits for now. I really appreciate all of you that read it. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. I'm heading home this weekend for a few days and then moving back to Morningside on Monday.

Jessica

Day 51

Okay I am officially starting to feel exhausted. It has finally hit me. Good things still happened today at work, but these kids are starting to drive me nuts. hahaha They are loud, and they do not listen very well. The original plan was to have some birthday treats after lunch tomorrow for my birthday with the kids, but we are going into tomorrow one strike away from having that taken away. Not sure what it is that's different about this week, but they just constantly talk. Guess I feel pretty lucky now to have not had weeks like this one before this summer. We went through Australia this morning, and we decided to hold hands in pairs to walk around rather than one really long line. Eli (Mr. Ornery) was my buddy this morning. He's still that ornery kid that I can't help but enjoy. haha

Oliver asked me yesterday if he could bring his shark teeth in for show and tell, and it actually fit in well with some of our lessons.

As I write this at almost 5pm tonight, the sky is looking good. Aimee said they had a good flight this morning. Looking forward to getting out there again tonight. Also as I write this, I am just a bit over 7 hours away from my birthday, not that I'm counting. hahaha Sorry another shorter post.

Day 50

So it was too windy for any of the balloons to go up tonight, and I'm tired and just feel like I should shower and go to bed. Our flight last night was interesting. It was kind of windy, but we got her up, and they were booking in the air. Then we blew a tire on the highway with the chase car. Fastest tire change I've ever witnessed. haha Was a fun night, though. At first I wasn't sure what to do with myself tonight since we couldn't balloon but I ended up chatting with some friends. Nothing too monumental jumping out at me from camp today other than that we did a craft that took us about a half hour this afternoon. Didn't think the kids actually had it in them to stay focused that long. haha Well, this post is really jumbled, and I apologize to those of you who look forward to reading it every morning. I'll do better tomorrow, but I need to take advantage of this going to bed a bit earlier thing while I can :-) Thanks again to all of those you who like to read my blog though. I don't think I have said that yet.

Day 49

Well, since it will be kind of later nights for me this week, I think I will post about balloons before I go into what I did at the zoo. So, last night I was out at the balloon field again and things ran smoothly again. The balloon made it all the way across Hwy 65/69 last night, which was different. Landed in some land owned by the county. Brett, Tom's 3rd grade son, was my little buddy tonight. The first night I met him he was pretty quiet, but we were having a good time in the way back seat of the chase car. We were having a little water bottle sword fight, and then I told him I was going to tackle him once we got outside. After that, he threw some grass on me. hahaha

At the zoo today, we started our second Prehistoric Pals camp. As you know, the dinosaurs are pretty popular with the kids. We have a full 24 kids starting out in the morning, and after 1:00 still have 12 of them. Three campers are repeats from other weeks - Chance, Eli, and Oliver P.

We learned about the three main dinosaur periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous), fed the fish, visited the dinosaurs, took our group and individual photos, and worked on our craft bags.

This afternoon one memorable thing happened during some Simon Says. When I said, "I'm Simon, Chance said back, "and we are Says." hahaha

So, the balloon didn't go up this morning... too much wind up above, and not sure if we're going to be able to get it up tonight. Guess we'll see.

Balloon Weekend

Balloon Classic 2011, here we are! Woke up at 5:10am to get ready to head to the balloon field with Brad and Aimee to help crew. Brad is crew chief. Dave and Aaron, the pilots met us there, and then we were off. Dave was really great about explaining things to me as we set up. When we first pulled up to the spot we were going to take off from, I just had a big grin on my face.

It was soooo cool to just see these huge balloons filling up and taking off. Wow! Then, here I am helping set one up... then, they tell me I get to fly this morning. I went with Dave and Aaron. I wasn't expecting to fly my first time out there. It was a really great morning for it and we flew for about an hour.

These are some photos I took:

Aimee took these:

After landing, I helped pack it back up.

When we returned to the big balloon field for them to fuel up for the next flight, Brad said it was time for initiation. Brad told me we were going to do the balloonist prayer. He asked me to get down on one knee, he recited the prayer, and then they sprayed me. hahaha I had a feeling something like that was coming. Aimee caught some good photos of it.

So fly times are about 6:30am and 6:30pm all week. So, I went and helped again Saturday night, which actually was the Grand Ascension night. All the balloons took off from the field, which was really cool to see. Brad had said how I'd feel like I was walking amongst giants.... Definitely true. We had more help tonight, so things went really smoothly. Then after we had them up in the air, I got to ride in the chase car. :-)

I asked Tom, one of the crew members, to take this photo for me.

Then the crew got together at the Simpson apartment the pilots are staying at for a pasta feast.

Back up at 5am again Sunday. Two days in a row waking up while it's still kind of dark out. haha Did that 5 days a week last summer when I was working at Lindsay.

Got a nice sunrise shot while the pilots were in their meeting.

In the chase car again today after take-off, and we actually caught some really great photo ops. I was pretty excited.

 

I about fell over when I saw this."Aaaaaaack look at the reflections". Kevin backed up the vehicle for me to take this one. Perfect photo stop :-)

Then, when we were stopped somewhere else, I saw a little barbed wire fence and decided I'd try to frame the balloon in a shot.

Another great flight! I'm heading out again tonight to help, but I'll be ready for bed when I get back, soI figured I'd post now. Right now I'm planning on going to help crew every night through Thursday I believe. Sooo much fun, and I feel so lucky to have this opportunity. It's really cool just to be a part of this big community. Gotta love the Midwest.

Day 48

Free admission day at the zoo, so we were ready for the madness. Hannah, Mary, Maddie, and I played Monopoly this morning in before care. I went to jail twice, and Hannah joined me there once. haha

 As soon as the dino exhibit opened today, we headed there before it got even busier at the zoo. I couldn't believe the line of people outside waiting for the doors to open at 10. We also heard that traffic was backed up on SW 9th St. for a while this morning too. Well, for this zoo tour, we split into small groups again and made the kids stay really close. It wasn't too bad up in the dino exhibit yet, so I'm glad we went when we did. 

Here's my group - Sebastian, Izzy, Selena, Zach, and Elijah:

After lunch today, we ended with a Splash! We hooked up the sprinkler out by the admin building for the kids to run through. As we were walking up there with our towels and such, people kept asking "where's the pool?" haha

The 5th and 6th graders finished up their exhibits this afternoon and then presented some of the things they learned. After introductions, they stood by their individual exhibits where friends, family, and 3rd and 4th grade campers were able to ask questions.

Day 47

In before care this morning, Dawson and I were playing Monopoly yet again. I beat him the first day, and then he beat me yesterday. So today was winner takes all because he will not be in before care tomorrow. Well, I went to jail twice this morning. Ugh. Think I forgot to mention yesterday how I went to jail four times. haha Well, and then Dawson started sending me into bankrupcy. He is definitely going to grow up and be a businessman. haha

When Hannah gets there in the morning, she usually has been taking over for me. Now tomorrow, looks like her and I will just have to play.

Today was Averee's birthday, so we switched  things up a bit today. Talked about turtles and tortoises this morning. Next, we did our craft project. This idea came to me last night as I was laying in bed. A lily pad photo frame from a paper plate for our individual photos by the frog. What do you think? I was pretty stoked about it.

So yesterday, I put some of these extra ocean tattoos that the zoo had in the craft bags the kids took home, and it was cool to see Cyrus have one on this morning.

Here's a photo I had to take of Zach working on his picture frame. Each time he colors a craft project, he holds a handful of crayons and draws with them together. I told him I liked it.

Also this morning, I found a penguin Averee had decorated yesterday, so I hung both of ours up by the rule poster. Averee decided that mine (on the right) was 007 and hers (on the left) was the villain. haha

We fed the giraffes after animal presentation today.

Then, we toured along the African boardwalk.

After lunch, we had our little birthday celebration. I picked up some cupcakes for the kids...

 ...and a birthday cookie for Averee.

Then, we had a little more time before half-day checkout, so we walked to the elephant spray, which the kids always love.

This afternoon, while working on craft with the 5th and 6th graders in the classroom, the 3rd and 4th graders were also working on craft. They were doing some clay modeling, and the purple was not good... as one girl tried to flatten it out, it stuck to the table. Miss Jessica to the rescue scraping it up with my fingers before I got smart and used a popsicle stick. Funny story... as I was doing this a few zoo employees walked in discussing some future plans by the sounds of it. Anyways it was the director of operations,  the stinking CEO, the guy in charge of animal care, and another lady from the office. Boy, to be scraping clay off a table with the CEO standing there... haha Classic.

Interesting afternoon snack today. This last weekend was the "Feast of the Wild" event at the zoo. Someone donated a bunch of leftover dirt cups, so we were told we could use them for snack today. A little too much chocolate for me, but they look fun. A few of the kids caught me taking photos of the food again. Just who I am haha. Gotta make sure I keep this blog interesting for all of my awesome readers with some photos throughout :-)

 

For Averee's birthday, we went to eat at a French restaurant in downtown Des Moines. Nice place. Here's one of my cultural experiences.

The bread to start:

A cheese sampler:

Homemade french fries with meat and cheese:

Averee's chicken entree:

My mushroom faux poivre:

Averee with her chocolate:

In our dresses at the restaurant:

Averee's surprise birthday present. Her parents were very clever and sneaky. I didn't even see it coming. I know she's talked about asking for a new car. If you can't tell, she was pretty excited. haha I rocked capturing the moment, by the way :-)

 

Then, when we're back at home I get called up to the kitchen to be a witness... Averee's dad sold some company stuff to his brother, and they needed a non-relative to sign as a witness. I know that's random but still kind of interesting. haha