Animal Grossology & Remembrance

A trip in a Submarine, captained by Toveli!

And Factoids about barnacles, leeches, sea urchins, etc.  It was a fun & fact-filled morning when we checked out Animal Grossology at the Metropolis at Metrotown.  We know it's a hit when Anders asks "Can we come here tomorrow?"

Lots of info about dung and all other kinds of poops.  If Mitchell were a dung beetle, he'd be able to move up to 3,750 pounds of poop!!  50 times his own body weight.

The Slime Game, where you discover which creature makes the most slime in the world. 

Learn about the cow's digestive system.

And why do we always think of blood as being red??  And there's green blood, too!  Don't forget green in some caterpillars!

The morning was over (we also had a quick visit with Aunty Helen at her workplace) and we headed over to Central Park for a picnic lunch and a walk along the Terry Fox Circuit (not the whole thing), and reminisced about stopping east of Thunder Bay at the Terry Fox Memorial for where his run across Canada ended when cancer was rediscovered.

The children played Frozen Tag

and Hide 'n Seek (Laars is counting)

and watched a kazillion squirrels scoot here and there.  This pic shows how close they would come to our picnic.  Closer actually than viewed here.

Laars had a handful of huckleberries and you can see his excitement!

Lots of ducks and a few ducklings.

Two ponds.

We counted 14 turtles sunning here.  And there were some really big fish in this pond too.

Across the street from the park is Ocean View Cemetery where my father was buried almost 22 years ago, so we took the children there to see & remember.  Obviously, they don't remember Grampa.  None of my children do, unfortunately.  But we remembered, outloud, and shared about him as we do also about Grampa Johnson at times.

Gaelyn and Toveli place feathers at Grampa's graveside and have a peaceful moment there.  Wondering what he was like.  Imagining what he looked like in 3D. What he sounded like. 

Just wondering.