Bowling and Zoo

I woke up early to start preparing breakfast, but the smell of bacon attracted June, Didi and Carrot to the kitchen. So I turned cooking duties over to them while I got lunch ready.

 

 

After breakfast, we piled into the van and headed over to library. It's about a 25 minute drive from New Holstein to Manitowoc. On our way we stopped at Henning's Cheese to confirm our tour and buy some cheese curds for the kids.

Once we got to Manitowoc, I decided to take the kids over to Lincoln Park Zoo (same name as the one in Chicago!). Didi saw an icicle hanging from one of the buildings at the zoo and asked me if she could eat it. "Sure," I said. "Really?!?" she replied, "It's not dirty?" I guess the kids are used to the dirty water in canals in Bangkok, so the idea that fresh water outside could be clean is very shocking to them. Didi tried the icicle and proclaimed it, "Delicious!" So of course, all the other kids had to try one.

The zoo is pretty small, so it didn't take long to tour it. We saw a sun bear, a snow leopard, some goats and lots of water fowl. It was pretty cold near the lake so the kids didn't linger too long at each exhibit.

The zoo had two American Bison. I told the kids that Americans often calle them "buffalo", so the girls started to shout "Muar! Muar! Muar!" (the sound that buffalo make in Thai) to the bison. As soon as they did this, one bison mounted the other one and they started mating. We all started laughing and I told the girls that the bison must have enjoyed their "love song". Hahaha!

At the library, we had a brief orientation class. I talked to the kids about personal safety, hygenie and assilimating into their host family's home. We gave them some basic guidelines for dealing with problems and asked them how they would handle different situations.

Around 5pm, we left the library and headed over to Hardees for dinner. It's a new restaurant for Manitowoc, but I remember eating at Hardees when I was a kid up in Shawano. So I told the kids that I liked it and it was very yummy. "Oh! Oh!" they all moaned. After making them taste-test candies and snacks that I like (but they hated), the kids no longer trust my opinions about food. So if I say something is "yummy" they assume it's going to be terrible. Fortunately, Hardees surprised them and they all agreed that it was pretty tasty.

After dinner, we drove over to Meadow Lanes West. Unfortunately, it was a league night, which means most of the lanes were occupied by the regular bowling-league bowlers.  We did get the kids onto two lanes, but it got a bit crowded after the Kolars, Larsons and Kay Grady showed up.
The kids really enjoyed bowling. Carrot and Win were pretty horrible at it, but they seemed to like it anyway.

On the way home, I turned on the radio and the girls sang along to most of the songs. They are at an age where music is very important and they let us know that. Very, very loudly. Hahah.