An Ansolabehere Fieldtrip (Lewis and Clark Museum)

This was our special guest...Dixie.  My little sister's Great Dane Puppy.

This dog has the worst FARTS ever!!  Sorry to use that "bad word" (at least in my house that is a bad word)

but to describe them in any other words would require VERY BAD ONES!!

Seriously, I think I barfed a little in my mouth about 53 times!!

Auntie Katy had the kids picking up trash in the Museum parking lot.

Everywhere we go, we try to do this...our baby steps toward being good stewards of our planet!

 On this adventure...we made LOTS of very interesting discoveries about the state that we live in!

 We visited 3 places all within a one mile radius of Great Falls, Montana.

We started with the fish hatchery and Giant Springs.

Canaan learned a new word...FISH.  Only, he pronounced it "PIT"!

This took about 100 times of me pointing to the different species of fish and saying "fish"...he thought this was hysterical, until...finally he caught on and attempted to say the word!

 The fish hatchery is used for trout...in which we learned they receive fertilized eggs at three weeks and keep them till they are 3 months old and approximately 2 inches long before they release them into our Missouri river.

Some they keep quite some time as you can see in the picture of my very photogenic Ezra!

 Gabrielle was our designated "Note Taker"...she did an amazing job gathering about 10 pages of facts and data!

 Then the beautiful Giant Springs!

Did you know that a spring is water that comes from underground? 

This particular spring comes from another body of water in the Little Belt Mountains and take about 50 years to come up from the earth here in Great Falls.

 We were very thankful to have Auntie Katy with us...she is so much fun!

 We learned that we have the longest and shortest river here in Great Falls

The Missouri runs 2540 miles long...200 miles longer than the Mississippi!

The Roe river is 201 feet long and they connect here!

 Boys love to run, so I had them do a fun race on what Ezra called the "China Steps."

 Ezra might be a stinker...

BUT he is one smart stinker!!  ;)

 Isn't my lil' sister GORGEOUS!!

Then we entered the Lewis and Clark Museum.

And still note taking...

This little boat couldn't have been that hard to pull for Lewis and Clark!

Well, they let you see...and even our superwoman, Auntie Katy, couldn't get very far!!

 Here we are with the very handsome Lewis and Clark...so buff pulling their very heavy boat.

 The facts we learned were amazing.  Lewis and Clark stayed in Great Falls for a whole month!!

Here is a buffalo robe they kept their "notes" on.  Gabrielle's looked a little different!

Lewis drew up 2 maps and Clark about 125!

Lewis used triangulation to determine how far their journey was

and out of 4000 miles, he was only 40 miles off!!

 Sometimes...I have no explanation.

My children are just

well...

WEIRD!

By the end of our adventure...everyone was beat!!  We got in some GREAT naps!

When I saw this beautiful buffalo robe, I just couldn't help myself.  I need a nap!!

Truth was...

IT STUNK...

BAD!!!

We got to watch a video on Lewis and Clark and were the only ones for a presentation on their map making.  Pretty cool one-on-one lesson!  For those of us whom could stay awake!

And still note taking...

After losing Abraham....this is where we found him. 

Dead...due to an ancient avalanche!!

The poor dear.

All in all...it was an AWSOME day!!