FamiLee: Learning Log #6 (Sept 24th

Road trip!!!!

This week was great! We finally got to go on vacation, just our little family, and it was wonderful to spend so much time together playing. Here's a summary of our trip:

Day 1:
We left a day early to break up the trip, and be able to spend some time swimming in a hotel swimming pool. We knew that we'd be too exhausted in California to swim in that hotel's pool, so we made some time to swim in at least one swimming pool on our trip. So we spent our first night in St George, going out to eat, enjoying the different scenery, and swimming.

School Note: As we drove through the state we talked about facts about the state of Utah. The capital, the state flag, the state bird (and how it came to be the state bird), the state flower, and the climate.

St George!!!

Day 2:

After breakfast we packed up and headed for California. We drove through Nevada, waved as we drove past Las Vegas, enjoyed 15 minutes of pretty Arizona, stopped in traffic in the middle of the desert, and finally made it to Anaheim, California, just in time for dinner. We thought seafood from Red Lobster was appropriate, since we were so close to the ocean.

School Note: We brought state books with us on our trip, so occasionally I'd pull them out and read interesting facts about the state we were going through. On this day I pulled out our Nevada book and read to them about their climate, geography, animals, population, some facts (like the capital and state flower, etc) economy, and a bit about the history of the state. We all agreed it was sad that the state flower is the sagebrush flower.

Arizona! For 15 minutes, anyways...

Hello, Las Vegas! Goodbye, Las Vegas!

Our first up-close and personal view of a cactus!

Largest Chevron ever. This is only half of it!

Aaaaand, we've made it to California. Strange, liberal, California...

Day 3:

This was our big Disneyland day! The wait times were generally pretty good, and made even better with the wheelchair access I needed (still mending from a broken/sprained foot). We were exhausted by the end of the day, but had a lot of fun!

Starting off the day grumpy. I'm smiling, but it's forced. You can see Libby currently fighting, and Richard upset by it.

Happiest place on earth! Unless you're not getting your way...

Here we go!!!

The wait times were pretty great! :)

This is how we all face our fears:
The girls scream, Garrett yells, "Wa-hoo", and
William and Richard clench their buttocks and brace themselves.
hahaha So much fun!!!

Day 4:
We needed a breather between days at Disneyland, so this was our beach day! But as it turned out, it was just as fun and exhausting as our first day at Disneyland, so it turned out to not be as much of a "breather" as I had planned. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip, though! We drove to Seal Beach, enjoyed the quaint little ocean-side town, and the nearly empty beach. The weather was great, at 85 degrees, and the waves were perfectly big! Richard turned into a little kid and spent 5 hours straight in the waves! We had lunch on the beach, and stayed as long as we wanted to. It was a fabulous day! The only downside, was that Richard and I ended up burning, and making Day 5 harder.

School Note: The kids learned first hand about the salinity of the ocean. Garrett vehemently objected to the waves forcing their way into his mouth! We stayed long enough to learn about tides and collect shells. From our spot on the beach we could see LA, and Hollywood hills, and talked about how LA is the 2nd largest city in the US! And how we weren't going anywhere near there because of that. lol J/K. Kind of.

Their first time seeing the ocean!!! They were elated!

Found some alien seaweed.

Collecting shells, when the tide was low.

Richard, holding Libby's hands to show her how to jump the waves.

Day 5:

Back to Disneyland, we go! This was our California Adventure day! There were parts that were really fun, but overall we enjoyed Disneyland A LOT more! Our judgement may been influenced by our exhaustion, sunburns, and the fact that California Adventure doesn't have wheelchair lines, and much longer wait times, though. In hindsight, we wish we would have done a park hopper for this day, gone on a few rides in California Adventure, and then hopped back over and gone on our favorite rides again in Disneyland. We liked Cars Land, and Ariel the best, though the rapids were pretty fun, too!

So burnt!!! One foot was more than the other, because that was the foot that has been in a boot all summer.

First ride! Pretty enjoyable, and cute!

We all loved the line to Guardians of the Galaxy, however the ride itself... none of us liked. It was a bit too crazy!

Picturesque!

We waited in line to get this moment. Will was star-struck, even though he knew it wasn't really him.

Heck no am I spending $25 on these ears, but we'll take pictures of everyone's favorites. ;)

The sun... it burns!

This is how I spent my days; in a chair! Poor Richard...

Fantastic scenery for this area!

Very fun ride!!

Wait times were A LOT longer, than Disneyland! Eek!

Pretty, and unusual flowers.

Day 6:

We packed up and said "goodbye" to California, and headed towards Arizona to visit Richard's brother and his family. As dry and hot as Arizona is, we learned that there are some deserts that are more beautiful than others. The Mojave desert in California is probably the ugliest, saddest desert in the US! And then you finally get to Arizona and the plateaus, cacti, and red sand are like a breath of fresh air! Then you get out of the car and the heat hits... wow!!!

School Note: On this drive I opened up our book on California and we learned a bit about the history of California, the vast differences of climate and geography in the state, as well as a bit about the population, economy, and facts about the state.

Day 7 & 8:
We spent a few days playing with family and resting from our previous adventures. It was a wonderful leg of our trip! On the afternoon of Day 8, we packed up and headed towards home. Our destination for the night was Kanab, Utah, to break up the trip. We made a HUGE mistake leaving so late and driving through some pretty amazing stuff in the dark! We vowed that another trip will need to be made to that region to see the things we missed.

School Note: This was the day that we broke open our Arizona book and read from that. We learned about some state facts, some interesting places in Arizona, population information, economy, history, and geography and climate.