Annual Aquarium Trip

This trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their homeschool day has turned into a favorite field trip with friends. We didn't go down the night before this year (once again, we planned this for the Monday after the Superbowl, and I didn't think it was worth paying for a hotel room to just sit in the room all afternoon), but we were joined by three other families which made it extra fun.

The jellyfish are favorites.

These boys had a blast together.

And so did these two little guys.

Our group took over the exhibit where you get to create your own fish--14 kids will do that :)

Nemo!

It was such a beautiful day! We enjoyed the outside viewing areas--there were a lot of sea otters out in the bay.

I'm so glad that this girl was able to skip school to come homeschool with us for the day.

 It's always a little hard on her to miss classes and have to make up the work, but this is a field trip she hates to miss, so she makes it happen.

The octopus was so active--we watched him crawling back and forth for quite a while.

Even on our walk from the car, we found a bunch of harbor seals beached in the protected Hopkins Marine Station.

So much fun in Monterey!

Quick Trip to Monterey

We were able to get tickets to one of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Homeschool Days again, so we planned another overnight trip to one of my favorite cities. I wasn't really thinking when I got the tickets for the first Monday in February, meaning we were driving down Sunday afternoon in a race to get to the hotel before the Superbowl started. Daddy-o had no interest in doing anything except watching the game, so he, and Bean, who had been feeling pretty sick all weekend, stayed in the room to watch the game while the boys and I went to Point Pinos Lighthouse just down the street from our hotel.

It had rained on us the whole way down, but ended up being a beautiful afternoon once we got down there.

The lighthouse, even though it is still functioning, is set up as a small museum. It's fun to go back in time and see what it was like to oversee the light.

(We are so bad a family selfies. I'm bad at all selfies, but it's so much harder trying to fit 5 people and get something in the background that you actually want.)

(That's what we were trying to get in the background.)

We met up with friends at the aquarium and spent the day with a bunch of beautiful marine creatures. 

We got to watch the octopus moving around and changing color as it went.

We saw the underside of a bat star (and later watched him get knocked off the glass by a shark swimming by.)

We touched urchins,

watched the jellies,

found the sea turtles in the open ocean exhibit,

and found Nemo!

This girl was a trooper. Her fever had come down and she was feeling a lot better by Sunday night, so we figured she was fine to go with us to the aquarium the next day. But we pushed her too hard and by the end of the day, her calf muscles were cramping and ached worse than they ever had. I was pretty worried the next day when she could barely walk and did a little googling of symptoms--turns out that's a common symptom of influenza B. Poor girl was recovering from the flu and we dragged her around for a long day of sightseeing.

Under the tide as it came in--and at this point, I realized that I took almost no pictures of people on this trip. Here's proof that all 3 of our kids were there, but none of our friends. Oh, well. We all had fun--this is always a great field trip.

And to end our day, we saw a rainbow above the aquarium on our way to the car. We've seen a lot of rainbows lately--so much rain, and so many showers mixed with moments of sun.

Field Trip Friday

A teacher work day in Livermore meant a homeschool field trip with all three kids, and friends--full day at the Academy of Sciences in SF, playground time, and dinner. I had organized this trip through the large homeschool organization that we belong to, but after a lot of interest, in the end, there were 3 families who joined us and they were all our good friends. Next time I'll save myself the extra communication and headache--just inviting our friends to come with us works best.

The rainforest was a hit with most of them. We love this place, even if it is a little warm and humid.

The butterflies and birds are my favorite part.

The aquarium is another favorite. We need to come here first next time because Bug has felt rushed and didn't get to see everything he wanted both times we've been here. Everyone's always hungry by this point and we end up rushing through or skipping huge sections so we can go eat.

I think the kids had a lot of fun doing this trip with friends.

The discovery lab is my favorite here. I wish that we had something like this out where we live--so much to play around with and learn from! It would be the perfect weekly science time.

And this color/life exhibit. Another favorite.

At the end of the day, we found a bonus experience. The museum commissioned a master Lego builder to design and construct this model of the museum. It is amazing! And it was really fun to talk to the woman who is behind this creation and her experience of working for Legoland doing their models.

Can't go without saying hi to Claude.

Most of our friends left early in the afternoon, but there were two of us who decided we didn't feel like battling 2 hours of traffic to get home, so we waited out the worst of it. The kids are always happy with a stop at Koret Playground, and then we found a nearby place to grab dinner, Street Taco (which was really good--have to remember for next time.) It wasn't too far from the playground, but did involve a walk back down Haight street and through the corner of Golden Gate park after dark, which was mildly nerve-wracking with all the kids, but also made for a fun adventure. It's all about giving these kids real world experiences.

Monterey Bay Birthday Fun

Homeschooling has some fun perks, like free admission to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Mondays if you are lucky enough to get some of the much sought after tickets. We lucked out this year and got to spend Daddy-o's birthday at the aquarium.

It had been years since either of us had been there, and this was the kids' first visit.

We all had so much fun.

It's am amazing place, with great indoor and outdoor spots. We even found some sea otters out in the ocean.

And there's Hopkins Marine Station, with the little beach that I used to  watch the seals from and occasionally nap on at lunch time,

We drove down the afternoon before

and had time to play at the Dennis the Menace playground for a little while before we went over to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner. We sampled so many different clam chowders while trying to pick a restaurant that we probably didn't actually need dinner. But food always plays a prominent role in our travels, and celebrations. Waterfront dinner, amazing breakfast at Rosine's Restaurant, and clam chowder from The Fish Hopper, followed up by a sundae at the Ghiradelli Ice Cream Shop. Good eating!

We had a great, quick trip, celebrating the birthday boy.

Coastal Excursions

Not at lot of words, but I want to get caught up with the blogging--I've got so many posts waiting to be written, which is a nice change from the last few weeks. A morning at Wrightsville Beach--cute little town, very busy on a holiday weekend! I had a nice jog along the coast while the kids got busy building sand castes.

The Poplar Grove Plantation--pretty good looking plantation, but I'm still wanting to find one of the huge ones, like you see in movies, like Gone With the Wind. There have to still be some around, right?

The kids favorite part--they had a playground. Well, that, and the ponies.

The Aquarium--fun stuff, and we got a membership since it also works for the zoos around here, so now we can have animal fun.