Wild Animal Sanctuary

On Saturday, we wanted to go to a few stores, but along the way we stopped at the Wild Animal Sanctuary.   They had more big cats and bears then we have ever seen there before, and it was still early enough in the day before it got really hot and so the animals were a little more active than usual....

When you first enter, you go up their wooden walk way that actually takes you up and over the big cat pens, so you can look down on the cats.....

Below you can see the walkway.  The Sanctuary said they are hoping to expand more so eventually they would have 3/4 mile of raised walkway like this.  That way you can go out and see the bears and other animals better. 

Do you see this white tiger sticking its tongue out?  I think it was sticking it out at Kevin....

 Many of the tigers were enjoying their water...

The lions...

How many lions can you count?

Do you see the tail?

 You know I LOVE the mountain lions....

They also have a pack of wolves and if you look out there, can you see a couple of bears?

 Some of the tigers were talking to each other through the fence....

It was a fun stop along the way, so different than a traditional zoo, and it is great to see the animals doing so well.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone!!!

In the next few days...stay tuned for posts about the Wild Animal Sanctuary, Cooking on the fire, and the 4th of July celebrations.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Holiday!

swimming at the pool

 On Wednesday my good friend Darline, invited Florian to go swimming with her and her son Nate. 

So first we went to lunch at the South Philly Cheesesteak place in town. It was good, we had of course Cheese Steak sandwiches. 

Then we headed over to the pool. 

 

 Florian and Nate.

Since it was still the middle of the work day, I took my laptop with me and I sat and worked while everyone else swam.  It was actually very nice to work from a different location for the afternoon, it was hot almost 100 degrees!  (38 C), but I really enjoyed being outside. 

Ritter Sport - Olympia

Today's chocolate bar is the Ritter Sport Olympia bar. It has yogurt, honey, nuts and traubenzucker (glucose) in it.

The reaction to it here by everyone was a little mixed. I liked it, but others didn't care for it as much. To me it has a texture similar to a sugar wafer cookie, except covered in chocolate. The sweetness of the honey and the crunch of the nuts is nice.

So on to the next bar....

Florian and Stormy

Florian has found that Stormy likes to play ball in the afternoon.

The blue stick is a "Chuck-It" which allows you to pickup and throw a slimy ball without having to touch it. And with Stormy you really don't want to touch the ball as she gets it really gross.

Chocolate Bars - Ritter Sport Edel-Vollmilch

Those of you who know me, know I like chocolate. Florian brought me a gift when he came from Germany, a ton of different chocolate bars. Since most of these you cannot get in the US, I was happily surprised.

That's a lot of chocolate

So every couple of days we are going to try one and tell you about it. The first one we tried was the Ritter Sport Edel-Vollmilch which I believe translates to "Quality Milk" if Google translate is right. This is a very smooth, very soft milk chocolate bar. For me it was melting in my hand by just picking it up. The taste was great and had a silky texture. It was a good way of starting of this adventure in chocolate. 

Sampling all of these is going to be a difficult assignment, but I'll do my best to get through it.

Working in the Yard

After church on Sunday, it was time to work in the yard, and do housework and laundry.  Florian helped Kevin in the yard.  He helped cut down weeds:

Then it was time for the field and cutting the grass in the field.  So Kevin got started on the tractor first.

Then he let Florian have a turn driving the tractor. 

Florian thought driving the tractor was a lot of fun so he wanted us to do a short video to show at home. 

He only drove the tractor for a few minutes, then Kevin took back over. 

Mimi's

After I visited the other exchange family, it was 5 pm.  We had not had lunch and had only had some fruit and a drink since breakfast at the airport, so we were hungry.  So on the way home we stopped at Mimi's Cafe, in Loveland.  Florian had chicken cordon bleu. 

Fort Fun....Fort Collins Colorado

 On Saturday, I needed to visit another family that will be hosting a German Student.  They live in Fort Collins, so after the fly in we drove up there.  It was really hot outside, but we decided to go ahead and play mini golf at Fort Fun.

 I always like the mini houses and such at putt putt places...

They had a couple of these....flower beds....I think they were really neat.  

Florian pretending he "won", we didn't keep score anyway :-)

Fort Morgan Fly in 2011

Glenn Miller went to school here in Ft. Morgan, so every year, they have celebrations.  On of the things they do is a fly in and pancake breakfast.  So yesterday we went to the small Fort Morgan Airport and had breakfast, and then walked around and looked at the planes. 

There also were a couple old cars...

This was just 10:30 am, and you can see no clouds in the sky, we knew it was going to be a hot day.