What’s it like to tame your golden hamster? Centine has been with us for about a month now. She has gotten acclimated to her new cage and environment, and we think it is time to start taming her. So we got some fresh dandelion leaves from our front yard and started calling her, dangling the…
What’s it like to go to a tarantula exhibition with your kid? Today, we drove to a tarantula exhibit in the city of Solingen, West Germany. On two floors, they had different critters, not just tarantulas. There were also live stick insects, caterpillars, crabs, and snails. In addition, there were some model insects, so the…
What’s it like to feed a new golden hamster? Since Centex, my son’s first Golden, passed away, Centine, his successor, has been getting used to her new, big cage and furnishings. In contrast to him, who lived happily in his wooden labyrinth, she is digging lots of tunnels under the wooden cage and under the…
Oh no!!! My son’s hamster Centex passed away 🙁 He was barely a year old, and we took such great care of him. Maybe he fell off a ledge? We took all the wooden ledges out of the big cage we had gotten for him. Or, he hoarded some food and ate it when it…
Have you ever held an American Eagle? Nope? It’s quite heavy, and when you look it in the eye and see its huge beak, you might be lucky to wear your sunglasses that day (at least I was). Lyons Cub “only” got to hold a barn owl (kids got smaller birds to hold), but still…
What’s it like to visit the aquarium in the Cologne Zoo? Well, we’ve been to Cologne several times already, to visit the Chocolate Museum, see the Gothic cathedral, and take a panorama trip on a ship on the Rhine River or to play at the indoor playground, Hoplop or visit the precious stones fair. This time, we went…
Can golden hamsters eat yogurt? Yes, they can!! Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Of course, we checked it on the Internet first and found out that dairy…
As a kid, we’ve probably all learned that dandelions are “poisonous.” We used to pluck the stalks into small pieces and pull them apart, throwing them into a bucket of water to watch them form cute, little ringlets. Do you know why? The dandelion stalks form rings because their inner side takes in more water…
Lyons Cub has had Centex the golden hamster for three weeks now. We’ve let him get used to his new environment for the first three weeks without disturbing or touching him. Now, time has come to get him used to our voices. So my son ate in front of his habitat and spoke softly to…
What to feed your golden hamster? Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. For his 6th birthday, Lyons Cub got a 9-week-old male golden hamster. He will have to…
What’s it like to get a golden hamster for a grade-school aged kid? Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Lyons Cub will be 6 years old! For his…
What’s it like to establish and maintain an aquarium? Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Already since his birth, Lyons Cub enjoyed watching the fish in mommy’s aquarium…
What’s it like to ride the suspension monorail in Wuppertal? Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Today was my son’s first ride on the suspension monorail in the…
What’s it like to keep a Mainland Chahoua gecko? Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Rhacodactylus chahoua are commonly known as the mossy New Caledonian gecko, short-snouted New Caledonian gecko, or mossy prehensile-tailed…
What’s it like to go to the Dortmund Zoo? Well, Lyons Cub has already been at the Nashville Zoo, the Wuppertal Zoo, the Duisburg Zoo, the Aquazoo in Duesseldorf, the Cologne Zoo, the Fauna Park in Solingen, the Solingen Bird and Animal Park, and the Reuschenberg Animal Park in Leverkusen, so he had something to…
What’s it like to watch the cranes fly south? Lyons Cub has seen the Canada geese and the Siberian geese fly in formation, but this time, while we were at a playground with his little friend Giuliana, we watched a flock of cranes fly to warmer regions. They were right over our heads in arrow-like…
When Lyons Cub was 1.5 years old, we visited the Aquazoo in Duesseldorf during our summer trip to Germany. This fall, we came back. As a 4.5-year-old, Leander could appreciate the animals and especially the interactive learning stations much more already. Except for the parking situation, which was a hassle, and the many visitors, we…
This was Lyons Cub’s fourth Circus visit! First, he went to Circus Liberty; then, to Circus Proscho; and finally, to Circus Florida. Each one was an exciting event for a preschooler, and each one contained specific attractions that were phenomenal. This is a short comparison of what the four circuses we have been to so…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. My son has been to Cologne a couple of times already, once to visit the Chocolate Museum, see the Gothic cathedral, and…
This was Lyons Cub’s third zoo visit today! The first one was Nashville Zoo in 2019, and the second one was 2021, when we went with grandma to the Wuppertal Zoo. Alas, it was very hilly there and not easy to navigate with a senior and a stroller. It was quite exhausting, although the variety…
Today, Lyons Cub proved his bravery — he held an albino king python for the first time in his life!!! Given that his mommy used to be a vendor at reptile shows as LZRDGRL in Wheaton/Chicago, Indianapolis, Sheperdsville, and the Memphis Repcticon from 2010-2014, he totally steps into her shoes, heehee… This was his third…
Who would have thought that a dog that detects mines has his own Wiki page, or — even better — would be awarded the Order for Courage by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? Meet Patron (meaning, “Bullet”), a Jack Russell terrier and Ukrainian sapper dog from Chernihiv born in 2019, who belongs to Mykhailo Iliev of the…
Today, we visited the Fauna animal park in Solingen and were not disappointed — we saw a few different animals than in the Solingen Bird and Animal Park and the Reuschenberg animal park in Leverkusen, where we had already been: What stood out most were their albino deer and the leafcutter ants that had a…
Lyons Cub loves to watch and touch animals. We’ve been at the Reuschenberg Wildpark in Leverkusen several times already, but today, we tried out a different place, the Bird- and Animal Park in the city of Solingen. It has more birds than the park in Leverkusen, even big storks and colorful pheasants. The most interesting…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Lyons Cub grew up with two cats, Frankie (our rescue from a reptile show) and Felix (our stray that came with our…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Today, Germany is awaiting a major storm, so the government of our state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has ordered all schools closed tomorrow. Since…
Guess what my over-50 husband wanted for his birthday in 2016? GUINEA PIGS!!! Maybe that was an unfulfilled childhood dream… whatever, I was willing to fulfill it for him. And it shouldn’t just be ANY kind of guinea pigs; I wanted to adopt them from a shelter. So I looked online, and I found a…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. There are so many cute porcupine children’s books out there, and guess what they’re teaching about? You’re right: befriending a special person…
Big day for Lyons Cub!!! We visited the zoo in the city of Wuppertal on October 31st. Alas, due to the danger of Covid-19 transferring from people to the big cats, we couldn’t visit the lions and tigers. However, the brown bears, the elephants, the pelicans, the penguins, the seals, the deer-pig (yes, that’s a…
Today was a special day for Lyons Cub. It was raining, so we didn’t drive to the animal park to walk around outside. Instead, we drove to three pet stores to visit the animals. He couldn’t pet them, but he got to look at bunnies and budgies in their cages, and—best of all—a clerk allowed…