Our San Diego field trip

Here are the highlights of our train trip to San Diego.

Once there, Sky met us at the station with the van and we took the kids to breakfast...I did mention earlier the forsaken hour of our departure, didn't I?? We then headed to Point Loma to visit the Cabrillo monument and tide-pools. The tide-pool beach was not one conducive to playing and sand-castle building, so we packed it up and headed over to Laguna Beach- where we had lunch and relaxed.
It was a good day.

Here is the history book we read from to learn more about Cabrillo and why he has a statue...

Our Golden California by Juanita C. Houston

the early train

We had the chance to join a group for a field-trip,
the reduced fair of $6 a ticket was the only real reason I found myself at the train station at
6:15 A.M.

My offspring look way too chipper here, at this un-earthly hour....

Did I mention the 6:15 A.M. part? You do realize that this means most of these moms had to get up before or around 5 A.M. to make this magic all happen.

This is a preschool co-op group, they all have preschoolers, toddlers and babies. I am simply astounded that everyone made it on time!

Round of applause all around!

This magic-potion -in- a -patch-was the only reason I would step foot on a train...

another festivus miracle

We took the train from central Orange County to downtown San Diego. Kind of a once in a childhood experience, since the tickets are pricey. Trains are a very exciting, magical thing to little kids- I knew the memories of this trip would be worth the pain of getting to the station way-way-too early for sanity.

Here's Amie catching sight of the beach.

Childhood really is a time of wonder.

Jedi, mice and rockets- oh my!

Can you guess where I took the littles on Friday?

No, not the swiss alps.

We've been saving up to get the family annual Disneyland passes- and this was our inaugural visit.

Can you believe that we live fairly close to Disneyland, and yet we have never taken our two youngest? They have gone to the park once before, but it was with their grandparents.

The first thing Demi and Amie wanted to do was ride the horse-pulled trolley down mainstreet.

We spotted Mary Poppins, Amie asked me if
it really was the 'real' Mary Poppins. I looked
her in the eye and said, "of course it was the
real Mary Poppins". She looked at me a moment
as she considered...and then her face overspread
with a look first of amazement and then of
wonderment and satisfaction. I loved that look!
Childhood is so sweet to me because of the
endless possibilities and the endless magic.

The next ride was the rockets. I took one look and asked/told them they would go by themselves, but mommy would wait in line with them. Then I saw the sign that said Amie would need an adult to accompany her...so I went.

I will never do that again! (I get dizzy sitting
on a swing!) Demi wanted to go on
Star Tours next, but that ride makes me slightly
motion-sick on a good day, there was no-way
no-how I would survive it after the rockets..
"Hey, who wants a drink?!" Distraction is a
magical mommy tool... While we were getting
drinks, the Jedi training show began, Demi
was very excited by this, tho it had already started so he was not part of it (maybe next trip),
it was really cute and well-done. Re-tellings of this show make up most of their talk about our day.

It was a short day for us, we boarded the monorail back to DisneyWalk and then picked up a happy meal at McDonalds...

This last photo is of Amie on the Rockets ride.

Phys-ed

Today we met up with the cousins to let Demi and cousin J spend a few hours at the local skate-park. This was Demi's first ever trip to a skate-park. He was a little hesitant, he wanted me to walk him out (how long will that last?), which was not allowed, but a very nice teen walked him out. The bigger boys all seemed very nice and encouraging to the little guys.

Demi is not a very experienced skateboarder, I held my breath alot watching him try things. I was very proud of him being so willing to take a chance and go for it.

The park is actually a big place, here you can see how little the boys seemed.

I don't know about other home-schoolers, but for me, finding p.e. activities on a regular basis is challenging. I mean, I could send them out to walk a track for 30 minutes like I remember doing for most of my school years...but that seems kind of pointless. I dislike pointless drudgery.

well, today was a hit, I think we will be doing this weekly!

more Sea World field trip

The kids wanted to see and pet the sting rays, something I was not excited at all about, until- as the kids approached, several sting rays crowded around the edge and peeked over like a pack of puppy-dogs! They were so charming I had to go over and pet them, too. We soon realized it was feeding time at this pool, and they were looking for food.

Meg's aim that day was to visit the Clydesdale horses. These horses are huge!!

Amie and friend *G, petting one of the Clydesdales.

Sea World field trip

Wednesday Morning found us bright and early at Sea World for a field trip. We paid a little more than $5 a person as part of an educational group, and we were able to spend a half-day at the park.

We were so lucky to stumble upon these flamingos on parade! They must have been on their way to another exhibit spot...it was amazing being this close to them.

We visited with the dolphins, and arrived on the spot just in time for feeding/play-time. We purchased some fish and interacted, petted and fed the dolphins. I must say it was a much more organized and informative experience than my memories of doing the same as a teen. I would think it much better for the dolphins, too.

Here is Amie playing with the dolphins. They seemed to be very curious about each other.

We arrived at Sea World in the morning, left the park around 1:30 and had a late lunch at McDonalds with Gracefulmom and her kids- our kids had happy meals as a treat...mom's treat was not paying amusement park prices for lunch, so happy meals on me!! The weather was just perfect, after our days of rain the week before- the sun was out and the temp was just right, and no crowds! It was a good day in homeschool land.

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit- wow

We were able to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit while it was nearby in San Diego- it's the ultimate field trip, specially when you are studying ancient history.

This top photo is of the natural history museum and part of beautiful Balboa park in San Diego.

Next photo is of Sky and Josie center, flanked by a few of our bible school friends. They were the center of an incredible conversation around our table one night about archeology, the scrolls, Biblical manuscripts and I don't know what else...they are clearly a brain trust...so we decided to invite them along to enhance our experience. Here we stopped downtown for lunch.

This last photo...immediately after exploring the exhibit for a solid two hours, the boys headed straight for the books in the gift store to look up some points they were unclear on - we had to laugh! And then ask them their thoughts of course.... Meg is in this photo with the boys.

The exhibit took us 2 hours to work our way through, we did not take Amie and Demi, and I was really, really, really glad that we didn't bring them along...they would have been bored to tears.

It was an incredible experience to see the scroll fragments and other artifacts. Without getting all technical, I just have to say that to stand and look at scroll fragments written in Hebrew from the time of the 2nd temple was amazing...I loved the surety and confirmation evidenced by these same texts word for word the same as the Bible I hold in my hand. I can't describe what I felt, standing in front of a glass case, looking down at Psalm 121 with my daughters- listening to a recording of a Jewish girl singing the Psalm, while I read it with my eyes and sang along in my heart those ancient, comforting words.

It was an amazing exhibit, and learning about daily life at the community where these texts were produced was very interesting. It seemed like a lovely place, a community of believers-living, studying, praying and working together daily. I liked the thought of the group studying scriptures every night for an alloted portion of the evening. Some of the text found are interpreted by scholars as describing their own community; parts of the texts referred to the pure not being overthrown by war or pestilence...it was taken to mean that the group felt if they lived pure lives, that God promised to protect them and let them live forever- but as I read these lines, all I could think was that they were describing the body of Christ- His body made up of believers...the Church that the gates of Hell would not prevail against. The different parts of manuscripts read so like our new testament epistles in some places.

The last part of the exhibit felt a little like the deflating of a balloon...I really think that they tried so hard to make the scrolls identifiable to all people that they stripped it of it's amazing singularity and confirmation of a single message and history. Kind of like the point was out of focus and fuzzy...

And yet, I am so glad we went and saw what our ears have heard and our hearts confirm..

"Hear, O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!...."
-Deuteronomy 6:4

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills, From where will my help come?
My help comes from Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, Israel's keeper Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah is your keeper; Jehovah is the shade at your right hand.
The sun will not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
Jehovah will keep you from all evil; He will keep your soul.
Jehovah will keep your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore."
-Psalm 121

oh, the places we go

I have been absent from blogland this past week, because Sky and I were on a trip and I didn't have access to a computer.

Can you guess from these photos where we went? -OC Mom can't play, because she already knows...

This was our first trip to this region, and we really, really liked it. We were gone 6 days, and even though we had a great time and made some great friends, and of course ate some great food...it is so nice to be home!

So, come on- guess! Where were we?