Lessons on raptors & other fun events

David is always finding fun and interesting things for us to do here in NW Arkansas and this weekend's event was no different! Saturday after lunch we headed out to Hobbs State Park to attend a Raptor Program...basically a lesson on several different types of raptors we have here in the area. The speaker was a lady named Lynn and she is a high school teacher in Rogers as well as an animal rescuer. She was full of knowledge. We were definitely the youngest people there and the only one who brought a child, but we all had fun seeing the different birds she brought.

Bird #1 was an owl named Joey. Ryan REALLY wanted to touch it:The second bird was a spunky red-tail hawk named Jenny:

Bird #3 was a turkey vulture (can't remember his name) and he was quite the crowd pleaser by spreading his wings and posing on demand:
After the program the group either went kayaking or hiking in search of different birds, but we opted out and went on our own little 30 minute hike. It was 27 degrees out so we kept it short, but had fun!And to put this knowledge to use as we were driving home from church the next day we spotted a red-tail hawk in a tree near an open field by our house!

Ryan was invited to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon for his friend, Alyssa, that turned two. Her party was at JumpZone and it was our first time at this crazy place! Ryan was not thrilled at first, but ended up having fun on some of the smaller jump houses with his friend, Nate.

This is a picture of Ryan and his friends, Megan and Joshua. They came over Friday morning for a playdate. The kid's have been playing so well together lately and it is fun to watch. Ryan splits his time between the two of them - if he wants to play cars or chase with big trucks he's with Joshua and if he wants to play something pretend (like school or restaurant or shopping) he is with Megan. It's fun to see the difference!