Winslow Farms

The day before we flew home, we went to the Winslow Farm Animal Sanctuary in Norton, MA.  Winslow Farm is dedicated to the "rescue and care of abandoned and mistreated animals".  They have something like 200 animals living at the farm many are birds (about 100) and have been rescued from abusive situations, saved from slaughter, found lost, or just needed a permanent place to live.

Ryan took these first 3 pictures.

Karolina, the alpaca

Orion, the white peacock.  This was an amazing bird to see.  It turns out that white peacocks are not albinos (as I thought), but the white peacock is a color variation of the Indian Blue Peacock.  He is one of 4 peacocks that live at the farm.

This peacock showed us his feathers down on the ground and then hoped up on the roof and had himself a nap!

One of the emu's

Ryan's favorite part -- the playground!

Other Cape Adventures

Here are some other pictures of things we did during our visit to the Cape.

Going for a ride on the bike trail

Watching the seals off the pier of the Chatham Fish Market

Riding "Jack" the trolley around Hyannis

Enjoying the ride on "Jack"

A Chickadee (I think) egg found in my mom's yard

Exploring the Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary

The library in my mom's town had a terrific summer program for kids.  They had all kinds of shows, a reading program that Ryan got to pick a book to take home once he completed it, and a science program where we had to do 10 science related actives.  Once that was completed he received this bug catcher which was a huge hit.  My mom has lots of spiders in her house, so he was able to put it to good use.  Here is a spider he caught.

This is not a good pictures, but we went to see the local baseball team.  Many of the towns on the Cape have teams made up of college kids who come and play for the summer.  Ryan had a really good time.

Painting

One of the hobbies my mom has picked up over the last couple of years is watercolor painting.  She has a studio set up in one of the rooms that used to be my Grandmother's and Ryan was very intrigued by her set up.  Much to Ryan's delight, my mom gave him a couple of painting lessons.

Painting away!

Experimenting with colors.

His finished project.  Mimi framed it for him so he could hang it in his bedroom!

Ocean

In the past, Ryan has not been too thrilled with the ocean/waves.  This year he loved it!  The waves were pretty small this year, which I think helped.

"Raking" the waves.

Catching "sharks" (aka rocks) and putting them in his bucket.

Playing in the waves

Buried in the sand!

I see you!

This is the last day that we went to the beach before coming home and the waves were gigantic.  Ryan loved the big waves, but I had to really hold on to him or he would get clobbered. 

Lake

One of the nice things about my mom's is that she is close to the ocean, but also close to a fresh water pond.  The pond has some shade, but there is still a place to swim, life guards and sand.  For the past couple of years this has been Ryan's favorite place to swim.  This year I think that he enjoyed the ocean more, but we still went swimming in the pond many times.

This school of fish often swam with us.  It was pretty exciting.

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Swimming away!

Bumper Boats

This year we decided to ride the bumper boats while at my mom's.  We went when the place first opened.  We were hoping to avoid the crowds and having to wait to get a boat.  It worked.  We were the only people there!

Bumping into Daddy!

Going after Daddy again!

Bump

Ryan's favorite part was when we would bump into the target button in the background of this picture.  Hitting that target would cause the pirate sitting on top of the yellow building in the previous picture to fire his water cannon into the pool.  Ryan loved it when Dad got caught in the water from the water cannon.

Jake

While at my mom's we got the chance to meet "Jake" the ball python.  

At first, Ryan was a little apprehensive and only wanted to pet Jake's tail end.

But then he got brave and held Jake!  Jake lives with my mom's cousin for the summer.  He lives at the local elementary school during the school year, so he is definitely used to kids!  We were lucky we got to see him!

Ryan's favorite part was when Jake got all curled around the leg of my mom's table.

Pirate Adventure

One of the highlights of our visit to my mom's was our ride on the pirate ship.  

Putting together the treasure map . . . 

On the look out for the the treasure . . .

Playing pirate games . . .

Oh, no -- it's Slash and she is trying to get the treasure . . .

Spraying Slash with the water cannons -- like any good pirate!

Still spraying!

Knocked Slash right into the ocean!  The treasure is OURS!

Look we see were the treasure is . . .

Pirate booty . . .

Playing games on our way back to the dock . . .

Rip-tide Ryan checking out his treasure!