MiniTown 2013

Each year Aprende Middle School sponsors a camp called "MiniTown."  The goal of the camp is to provide leadership and diversity training to 8th grade students.  It is a great experience for ALL kids who attend camp.  They always walk away with an acute awareness of themselves, their friends, their peers, and their families.

 The adult women who chaperoned camp had great housing accommodations.

 I found a friendly squirrel outside my door.

 This building is where most of our large group activities took place.

 We had a fresh layer of snow welcome us on the 2nd day of camp :)

 My Discussion Group!

 My discussion group is a little silly.

 There were lots of great kids at camp!

 I tried to photo bomb every picture I could.

 Isn't singing stupid songs a requirement for EVERY camp that exists in the world?

 This student is another one of my Birthday Buddies!  Love her!

 All of us!

Dodge-Ball Tournament

I participated in Aprende's school wide dodge ball tournament.  I agreed to be on an all girl team because there would be prizes for best costumes.  Looking at my teammates and myself, I knew we had no dodge ball athletic  skills, so our good looks were going to be our strong suit.

 Our goal was to stay far away from the balls.

 None of us would run up and grab the stray green ball.

 We lost this game :(    (not a shock though)

We played against my student-teachers team in this game.  To our delight, we won!!!!  (Don't worry, we didn't win again after this!)

Our team:  Punk Ballerinas.

We won best costume!

Finally Met My Birthday Buddy

April 14th was an incredible day.  I met my Birthday Buddy Shelby.  We are just 39 years apart.  

She is perfect!

(For those of you who don't know, a Birthday Buddy is someone who has the same birthday as you do.)

Happy Easter!

Our house is a disaster now that Brent has started to build the 2nd floor in our home.  All of our furniture from the family room is piled up in the living room.  No TV downstairs, no place to sit and relax.  With everything in disarray, I wasn't sure how we would do Easter this year.  Mitchell, Perry and Kingsleigh came over Saturday night.

 Mitchell liked to play on the trusses making the 2nd floor.

The construction project didn't bother him.  He liked playing on the partially finished floor.

 Kingsleigh got a big bunny rabbit for Easter.  The cute bunny is bigger than her.

Mitchell & Perry got their last Easter basket.  Now that they are parents, they will have the fun of celebrating Easter with their daughter.  I'm sure they will join in on any Easter egg hunt that is held.  They won't be able to resist their youthful urge to play.

 Brent's parents were in town for Easter too.  Brent's dad has been a wonderful help to Brent in getting the 2nd floor built.  They were also able to meet their first great-grand-child! 

 On Sunday Grant searched the house for his Easter basket.  He was allowed to ask me two yes/no questions to help him locate it.  It was so much fun to watch him search.  

 He found the basket inside the black box underneath the blue Snuggie.  He said it was too easy to find, so he asked us to hide it again.  Brent hid it in the oven.  Grant searched the entire kitchen but did not look in the oven.  He then searched the rest of the house before he started to use his two questions.  1.  Is it upstairs? No  2.  Is it in the front room?  No.

Eventually, I needed to use the oven to bake the angel food cake, so we played hot and cold until he found it.  He is so much fun to play with!  We should do this again next year!

Our Sunday Easter dinner consists of a roast, mashed potatoes and Brent's famous rolls.  Yum!

Kingsleigh looks beautiful in her Easter dress.  Love her!

Spring Break Vacation - San Diego Day 3

The third day of our trip was broken into three parts:  Sea World, Cabrillo National Monument (Park), and Mission Bay beach.
We headed back to Sea World Tuesday morning to see the things we didn't get to see and spend more time doing the things we enjoyed.  Our first stop was the Manta roller coaster.  Grant went on this roller coaster several times the day before and he had to go on it again.  Then it was back to the Bat Ray's.  Next, Dolphin Point.  The dolphins were playing in a large pool.  They had various toys to play with.  I took about 100 pictures in an attempt to get some great shots.

 This dolphin would throw the football into the crowd at one corner of the pool.  The people would throw it back.  This went on a dozen or more times.  The problem was that the dolphin only threw it to that one spot, never to us :(

 We were close enough to the dolphins that we could reach out and touch them.

 This dolphin is soooooo CUTE!

Brent and Grant are begging the dolphin to throw them the football, no luck.

 After spending an hour playing with the dolphins, we went to check out the killer whales.  One of the killer whales had a baby on February 14th, 2013.  You can see the baby whale swimming by her mom.

 This is a shot of the mom, the baby, and the VERY large older brother.

It was great sitting on the ground watching the whales swim by.  They are so majestic, graceful, and intimidating.  

Next we visited the otters and another aquarium then left the park.  We went out to lunch and then out to Cabrillo National Monument which is on a peninsula across from Coronado island.  The Cabrillo National Park had tide pools along the cliffs where various sea life get trapped during low tide.  Despite the endless wind, we had a great time exploring.

 Grant found some very small anemones.  When you put your finger on them, they would close up.  It feels like they are sucking your finger in.

 There were lots of shells attached to the cliffs and in the pools.  Grant was able to remove one.  Underneath the hard shell was this soft orange muscle. 

 If you look at the bottom of the muscle, you will see it's mouth open.

 One of the many rounded out tide pool areas.

Grant climbed inside one of the caves.  There are sea creatures and shells all over the walls.

It was very refreshing to just sit on the rocks and listen to the waves crash against the shore.  

We played along the shoreline for a few hours.  Then we headed up to Cabrillo National Monument's visitor center.  While we were there, we took a walk to an old light house.

 Grant was striking a pose with a creepy smile.

 Still windy.

 The old light house.

 Grant is sitting at the bottom of the narrow winding staircase.  I'm at the top looking down at him.

We had a wonderful views of the ocean from every part of our scenic walk.

Exhausted from all of the walking, climbing and time in the sun, we headed to our hotel room to take a much needed break.  Being out in the sun for two days straight, is really draining.  

Since this was our last night in San Diego, we made one more evening trip to the beach.

 Grant played in the kelp again.  He is pulling on a long vine that is attached to two separate piles of kelp.

 Grant chased the waves and the birds.

The longer we stayed after the sun had set, the more fog rolled in.  It was so thick we couldn't see the parking lot.  All we could see was the faint glow of street lights.  Grant thought it was amazing that the fog was so thick.  He decided to run down the beach so we couldn't find him.  It wasn't very long when we couldn't see him anymore.  I had know idea how disorienting and deceptive fog could be.

Our family vacation was filled with so many things to experience.  I'm so glad that we came to San Diego.  Despite all of the great things we saw and did, we did have some challenges.  Navigating the streets of San Diego was challenging.  The streets change their names depending on which direction you are traveling.  They also run in any and all directions, no pattern :(  Another challenge was finding a place to eat at that we could park near.  Parking is a premium there.  Some little restaurants had two parking spaces in front of them!  Even with these minor frustrations, I would do it again!