West Edmonton Mall

Mom said when everyone finished 2 subjects in their homeschooling books we could go to West Edmonton mall. We went last weekend! The first day we went to the water park and Nanny came with us. My favourite was the blue bullet waterslide. The next day we went to Galaxyland. This is me and Joe on the merry go round and it was so much fun.



And this is just me on the merry go round.

This is Katie and Sarah on the boat ride. If you look really closely you can see them. I went on the boat ride too but I'm not in this picture. And this is me and Dad on the bumper cars and it was a lot of fun!!! This is me and Joe at the play place and it was fun too. This is the swing of the century. I went on it, but I'm not in this picture . It was my favourite ride.

This is Joe in the play place.

This is me in the hot air ballooon ride.

And this is Katie in the hot air balloon ride.

And this is Joe in the hot air balloon.

And this is Joe on the airplane ride.

And this is Sarah at the mini golf place. She got a hole in one!!

This is me at the mini golf place.

And this is us at Chantelle's house and we stayed overnight there.

This is Sarah and Dad sitting on the couch at Chantelle's house.

And the then cute Wiskey dog.

THE END

The Panama Canal

In 1539 the first plans for the Panama Canal were drawn by King Charles V of Spain, but the project only became practical more then 300 years later with the construction of the Panama railroad. The railroad was used to transport goods from vessels on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and became helpful in choosing Panama as the site for a water transit route.

Construction began in 1880 by the French under Ferdinand de Lesseps, the same person who conducted the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869. Harsh working conditions, yellow fever and malaria wiped out an estimate 22,000 lives before the project was bankrupted in 1889.

From 1819, Panama was part of the federation and country of Colombia, but when Colombia rejected United States plans to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, the U.S. supported a revolution that led to the independence of Panama in 1903

In 1904 the project was taken over by the United States under Theodore Roosevelt, after orchestrating Panama’s move for independence from Colombia the previous year. The discovery that mosquitos as the carriers of yellow fever and malaria allowed for disease prevention, and work moved quickly under improved conditions, although it would claim another 5000 lives before completion.

picture from 1904

The Panama Canal was finally completed in 1914. The total cost was $375,000,000. It was 51 miles long. And allowed more than 14,000 vessels ferrying nearly 280 million tones of trade goods between the Eastern and Western nations to pass each year. The cargo ship Ancon was the first to cross on August 15^th 1914.

Gatun Locks

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

http://geography.about.com/od/specificplacesofinterest/a/panamacanal.htm