Big Trees Family Day

A friend from church tipped us off about this great Family Day at our favorite state park.  We decided that even though we were tired from the first week of school and there was no shortage of chores to do around the house, we'd go for it and make it a family outing day.  We're so glad we did!  This special event was fantastic and exceeded all our expectations!

Set up all around the Big Trees Visitor Center were booths, shows, and interactive displays...

The church friend who gave us the suggestion (Mike, in the above picture) is a reptile enthusiast and his booth did end up being our favorite.  He brought a wide variety of reptiles native to California-- snakes, lizards, tortoises, toads, salamanders, etc.  He had several out for people to hold, which surprisingly delighted the girls.  A Rosy Boa has been added to the list of future pets. 

After a Birds of Prey show, the girls each got to try holding this beautiful hawk.

At each booth we learned something new-- like, how the Miwok Indians made dolls, how to track Big Trees animals with their poop, how to cast a fly fishing pole (above) or how the local fire department responds and drives to fires (below).

The girls each created some bird nest art work.

 And we saw another great show called "Wild Things" where we were introduced to owls, skunks, eagles, vultures and even a rattlesnake up close!

 We even found our good friends Sara, Arend and Anja at Big Trees Family Day!  We watched the Story Teller Lady with them.

And then together strolled over to the talented face painting ladies who decorated the kids' faces and arms with flowers, hummingbirds and frogs-- true works of art that were sad to wash off in the bath.

We're thankful our friend Mike encouraged us to attend this neat event!  There was quite a bit of learning to be done and fun to be had  We stayed at Big Trees for 5 hours and never even got to the North Grove hiking trail we usually hit!  I think we'll have to make this a new "Survived the First Week of School" tradition!