Field Trip!

We seem to be in a pattern of taking 3 field trips per year. Last year we went to the farmer's market, a national park, and the dentist/zoo. Today we took our first field trip for the year! We took all 22 kids and 13 adults to Momba Dairy Farms and to the Choma Museum. It was an exhausting and exciting day! At the dairy farm, we were able to see four cows being milked by a suction device (which we DON'T have at New Day!) Then we went to see the baby calves, the sheep farm, and the new lambs who were born just last night! Then we went to the ranching side of the farm and watched a slew of cows walking through their high-tech chemical spraying machine. We constantly watched our step and left smelling like a mixture of animal excrement ;) The coolest part was we saw them packaging some milk from their cows that is sold in the grocery store, and when we left they gave each of the kids their own pack of milk!

From the dairy farm, we headed to Choma museum where we had a nice picnic lunch on the awesome grounds there. We then separated so that some of us could buy orphanage groceries (Thursday are our usual shopping days), while some of our staffers took the kids in groups inside the museum. They learned a lot about traditional Tonga life and were pretty glad that they don't have to run bones through their noses anymore! The kids enjoyed playing outside and eating ice cream until it was time to go. We then took them to the gas station and the market. (I bet you could never get away with taking a group of American kids to a gas station, but that was some of our kids' first time to see one and see how fuel is put in a vehicle!) The market was neat for them to see where we get our vegetables every week!

Here are some pics to get a glimpse of our day!

Cambree enjoys her ice cream at the museum!

I told Joseph to smile with his ice cream, and he gave me a tiny smile...I kept asking him to "smile bigger" and his mouth kept getting wider and wider!! Hey, it's hard to focus on smiling when you're enjoying chocolate ice cream!

Picnic lunch

Joseph

Kefi

Muchoni (who had NO fear!)

Precious...isn't she?? :)

Mweene (who also had trouble focusing on both smiling and holding a squirming lamb!)

Cambree

Caedmon

Cason

Hildah, who is scared of her own shadow, had a lot of adventures today!

Cynthia

Cason found a nest on the ground where some baby birds had fallen..the kids were fascinated!

Watching the cows get sprayed

Cambree & Kelitah

The farm has around 1,000 sheeep!

Sisi, the last one to hold the lamb!

The farm had over 1000 sheep!

Papa Wes & Mama Lala with their group of 4

Hildah milks a cow for the first time!

See, quite the adventurer!

The kids loved checking out the suction that milks the cows!
It is always exciting to get to see the New Day kids experience things that they otherwise would never know about. I love field trips! (and I love it when they're over! ;)