Shark Week, Day 3

I woke up today, and I really barely had the mental energy to acknowledge Shark Week. For whatever reason I just wasn't into it. But, the show must go on! Or so they say. And the kids have been so excited over it, how could I say no?

We didn't have a science experiment today, but we did do a lengthly craft. I stripped the boys down to old basketball shorts (because, paint) and took them outside to paint a paper plate blue. While it dried, they took a second (white) paper plate and cut the middle out to make it look like shark teeth. Once the paint on the blue plate was dry, the boys drew and cut out sea creatures, talking about what sharks would manage to eat (whether on purpose or not) on a day to day basis. They glued the creatures to the blue plate, and then I stapled the white teeth on top. 

Viola! 3D shark mouth! This project was a long process, but I would consider it a grand success. 

Calen's shark had seals, eels, fish and seaweed

Cam's shark had a seal, an eeel, a worm, a tiny fish and seaweed

Luckily, I did a little prep work yesterday for their special snack. I happened upon a box of blue Jello in the pantry, so I quickly made it and cooled it overnight. Then this morning, I filled the bottom of two small Mason jars with mini sweet tart bites (because Nerds weren't available where I looked...dumb) to make it look like aquarium rocks. Then, I dumped one jar of cooled jello into the mason jar on top of the candy and let it settle, and finally took a knife to cut a few slits in the jello and stuck Swedish fish inside, and shark fruit snacks on top to make it look like an aquarium. 

Obviously, major sugar overload and not something I'd let them eat on a daily basis, and they only had maybe 3 bites of jello each (after digging out all the candy....turds). But it was fun for a rare occasion. 

And that was it really. They watched an hour or so of Shark Week on TV and we called it a day. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the Hansen's Shark Week, because I'm running out of supplies and Pinterest ideas, but it has definitely been well worth sorting it all together for a week of crafty overload. 

Shark Week, Day 2

We had a lot of crap to do today. Doctors appointments, school clothes shopping (can kids PLEASE stop outgrowing shoes overnight??), and I worked in the evening. But, it didn't stop us from doing a quick little bit of Shark Week. 

Today's experiment was super quick and didn't work as planned. The idea is to fill one balloon with water, and one with oil. You drop them in a pail of water to see which sinks or floats. This teaches that most sharks float (because their skeletons are made of cartilage, not bone), but some sharks like nurse sharks actually sink to the bottom. 

Unfortunately, I think I got too much air in each balloon, because both ended up floating, albeit one was trying to sink. But, the kids got the idea, and we followed it up with a simple weight comparison to really feel the difference between bone and cartilage. But since I don't happen to have skeletons in my closet and cartilage in the cupboards, I used a heavy metal spatula to represent a bone, and a straw to represent cartilage. 

After that quicky experiment, we went right to the art project. This was another Pinterest winner that was stupid simple. The kids used glue sticks to put down various shades of blue tissue paper to make a stained glass type ocean, and then add silhouettes of sharks (that I cut out because both boys were getting frustrated at cutting their own). 

Cam chose great whites again, and Calen added a "dead fish" to the middle of his hammerheads. 

The end. Super fun and simple, but it was time consuming so it engaged them for a while. 

Today's snack was superbly awesome, in a torture your kids type of way awesome. I chose an accurate taste of what sharks like to eat: sardines. 

Okay so maybe sharks don't pop open cans of sardines and snack on them. Neither do most Americans. But it was fun I couldn't wait for their reactions. 

For extra effect, I made a shark mouth out of Bugles. Because of course I did. 

I managed to catch the moment that perfectly depicts how the boys liked the sardines. Calen is licking his lips because he liked it, Camden is angry that I made him try it. 

Brilliance. 

Calen even ended up making "stuffed crab shells", in which he stuffed sardines inside the Bugles. He convinced me to try one, and it's strangely delicious. 

And that was really the end of it for the day. We found a few more shark documentaries on Amazon Prime and they played Lego submarines and sharks basically all day. 

 

Shark Week, Day 1

When summer vacation started (and spring baseball ended at the same time), I asked the boys if they wanted to play flag football, which to my surprise both opted out of. Which means, an entire summer with no obligations whatsoever (other than the occasional swim lessons for the 6 year old, because life skills and water safety and all that baloney). 

So I declared that I was going to use all that free time to blow through some 475 Pinterest projects that I've pinned for the last 5 years or so. I've got time! I've got nothing but time! Let's burst out those glue sticks and glitter and get cracking!

4 weeks later, and summer is half over, and I'm like, shit! We've barely done any!

Coincidentally, next week is celebrated Shark Week on Discovery channel, which if you know my boys is the equivalent of saying that Christmas is around the corner. But, since we don't have cable anymore and they are going to be at VBS next week, we declared this week Shark Week. And I have a solid dozen Pinterest pins to use up for the occasion!  

We met a Lego man dressed as a shark last week at Legoland. It was a sign. 

Today was "Day 1" of Shark Week. My overachieving goal was to have a science experiment, a craft and a snack related to it. You know not just throwing on shark documentaries on Netflix and calling it good. We have Pins to use dammit! 

They're ready. I even found a pin to make Shark Hats

Today's science experiment was learning about ocean layers. I found this brilliant-yet-fairy-easy project here (on Pinterest, because obviously). It took a little bit of prep work, so the kids played Lego Shark Awesomeness versus Scuba Man Bob (some of you from my childhood MUST remember Lego Scuba Man Bob) while I did the prep:

To start, you collect 5 containers and fill them with various types of liquids and dyes (as stated on the website, which you can look up yourself, because I don't feel like retyping what liquid you dye what). Liquids included common household items, like water, and cooking oil, dish soap, rubbing alcohol, and corn syrup. I had to buy the corn syrup for this experiment, because who the hell keeps corn syrup around?!

All of the zones, before we poured them in

Then, the kids and I poured the different "layers" into the jar. It's important to follow the directions and pour the right liquid in the right order, or else they will mix. As we poured in each layer (going from deepest ocean layer - trench -, so the closest to the surface - sunlight -), we discussed just how far down it was, and what types of sealife lived in it. I did a bit of a Pinterest-Fail and dyed the two deepest layers too similarly dark, so it was hard to decipher between the two unless you held it up to a light. But otherwise, it turned out pretty awesome. The kids loved the photos of the creepy ass sea critters that live in the darker zones (thanks, Google images) and was interested to know that Hammerhead sharks prefer the Twilight zone, while most of the rest of the sharks live in the Sunlight zone. 

Ocean zone jar! You can't really tell, but the Trench Zone on the bottom is black, and the Abyss Zone is purple. 

Then of course, Lego Shark Awesomeness took over the zone jar. Even Batman was prepared, on the surface. I was surprised at how engaged the kids were with this experiment, even after it was over. 

Note: this isn't something you like, keep around. After a couple hours the liquids slowly started to spill into each other. I'm not even sure I want to keep the jar, because who wants to clean out dyed corn syrup? Not me. 

After the excitement of the experiment wore off, I found some shark documentaries on Netflix (it's called..."Shark". Well that was easy) while I cleaned up and made lunch. And because it's Shark Week, we had to have a themed lunch. So, bologna and cheese sandwich islands with Bugle palm trees (but I wasn't so ambitious as to find something green and leafy for the plans, so they were dead palm trees), blueberry coral reefs and shark fruit snacks. Oh and an octopus gummy. Because of course. 

The craft for the afternoon was a newspaper shark. Not super exciting, but it was cute on Pinterest, stupid simple and the kids loved it.

It was as simple as having the kids cut out the shape of a shark head out of newspaper (that I got for $1 yesterday at the grocery store, since no one actually has newspaper floating around their houses anymore). Calen chose a hammerhead shark and Camden did a great white. Then, they glued their shark heads to light blue construction paper, glued on some googly eyes, and cut out/added a black mouth and white teeth. Once their shark was finished, they cut out dark blue "waves" and glued it on top of the bottom of the shark. 

Done, done and done. Shark Week Day 1 in the books. All 3 of us had fun. 

Calen's hammerhead shark (with "splashing water") and Camden's great white. Excuse the poor lighting, it was dark when I realized I forgot to take a picture. 

Bonus round: we went to the pool afterwards, which seems like it should be a part of shark week. Also they had been inside all day and it was time for them to get out of my face for an hour. 

Exploring the Point Reyes National Seashore

We had the first Saturday off today since like, February. No baseball (Calen is on BYE week and Camden's season is done), no work, no duty. 

Quick!!! What are we gonna DO?! We have to DO something!!!!

My goal, since moving here, is to explore as much of the area as possible. One, it keeps us busy as a family. Two, before we blink an eye, new orders will come in and we will have to move away, possibly to never return (we are already at the halfway mark here in Petaluma, you guys). Three, exploring is cool. 

So, last night I whipped out my good ol' local area references (Pinterest and Google), scratched up a quick itinerary, and planned a day trip to the Point Reyes National Seashore. And in case you local(ish) people want to do this same day trip, I'll give it to you in itinerary form! See? I did all the work, you just follow the map. 

For some reason I thought Point Reyes was a lot further away than it is, and it only took about 45 minutes (of winding, Dramamine hell roads) to get there. We stopped at Point Reyes Station (small town of 350, where Brad had his honor guard parade event last year) to get provisions (pre-made sandwiches, trail mix, and donut holes, because obviously) before heading to our first stop of the day:

1. Bear Valley Visitor's Center. 

This is a really good place to start, as it is a great staging area for many trailheads. There is a huge parking lot and bathrooms to puke up your motion sick heart out. Just kidding on that last part.  The visitor's center itself is really interesting, with diagrams of local wildlife and Rangers on hand to talk to you about...whatever it is you talk to Rangers about. 

From the parking lot, we headed out onto a shortish (1-2 mile total) hike on Earthquake Trail. To call it a "hike" is a joke, because it was flat, and paved. But it was in the wilderness so we'll call it a hike. This trail takes right on top of the San Andreas Faultline, and has many educational signs for kids and adults alike along the way. The most interesting part of it was a picket fence, split in half and moved 16 feet away from each other in under a minute during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That's just nucking futs, as my mother would say. 

Calen at the original fenceline, Camden at where it moved during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Once we completed the Earthquake Trail (and climbed some trees), we walked across the Visitor's Center to the Kule Loklo Trail, another very short trail through thick Eucalyptus trees that opens up into a meadow, where the park has recreated an entire Coast Miwok Native American village. There are teepee style huts made out of redwood bark that the kids could climb into, and even a humongous "family sweathouse" built into a hill that we could all fit inside of. Very cool place to go, hang out, and let the kids explore. 

The "Family Sweathouse". Yikes

Inside the sweathouse! Calen was making "smores"

That concluded our time at Bear Valley, though there were several other longer hiking trails we could have explored. But, we had an itinerary, by goodness! We hopped in the car and continued further into the National Park, stopping at:

2. The SS Point Reyes Shipwreck. 

About ten minutes past the Visitor's Center is a tiny little joke of a town called Iverness, and if you park in the Iverness Store parking lot, you will find a beached fishing boat not a two minute walk behind the store, on the shore of Tomales Bay. I tried to look up why exactly this boat got beached, but it's kind of a mystery, so we leave it at that. We had a picnic lunch at some tables near the ship, and the kids LOVED exploring around the shipwreck (don't climb on it, it's unstable, and a fire has gutted much of the stern of the boat, exposing metal and nails. All in all, way cool little pit stop and super awesome photo opportunities. 

Other side of the shipwreck. The kids are standing next to it, for scale. 

Then, back into the car, continuing in the same direction to our next stop:

3. Cypress Tree Tunnel/KPH Maritime Radio

I kind of expected this to be a quick stop, like the shipwreck. But it turns out there's a lot more to this place than we bargained!

Driving further into the National Seashore, heading towards the ocean, there's a lot of fields and plains. Tons and tons and tons of fields. And cows. And then suddenly, unexpectedly, there's a stupidly long row of cypress trees stretching perpendicular across this meadow. So naturally you stop and are like "what's up with these cypress trees?" and go explore. (FYI, park on the street, before you get to the tunnel. You don't want to be "that" person driving your stupid car through the tree tunnel, dodging pedestrians and ruining photos. I was not that person, thank you). 

So you park your car and walk in to this crazy long true tunnel of cypress trees. It's GORGEOUS. I mean, an incredible spectacle, like something out of Alice In Wonderland or something. 

And then we were like, "What's that white building at the end of the tunnel?" And so we walked to it, which was strangely surrounded by cows, and a little side door was open and a guy came out and said "please come in!" and not to be rude, we did. Turns out, this building is home to KPH Maritime Radio station, which uses (still) Morse code and radio teletype to receive and send maritime notices (weather, seas, etc). There was a machine auto typing the maritime report, and the guy stopped the machine and allowed the kids to type their name into the report. Then he taught them how to use morse code and then talked to us adults about the inner workings of the radio station. It's mostly more of a historical site now than a real working station, but it's still way cool, and the last thing we expected at the end of a big tree tunnel. 

The boys typed their names into the report

A ranger (or someone) teaching the boys about the radio teletype machine 

Once we finished one more walk through the Cypress trees, it's back in the car we go, to the next destination:

4. Point Reyes Lighthouse

This lighthouse is famous, in that before the lighthouse was built, the amount of shipwrecks going into Tomales Bay was off the charts. Because Point Reyes juts out so far into the ocean, it's a prime spot for a lighthouse. Fun fact: The lighthouse was run and operated by the Coast Guard until 1975. Yay!

It's also 400 steps straight down from the top of the cliff. Which is fine going down. Until you go back up. Combined with the amount of people, I kind of felt like I needed a climbing rope and a carabiner to clip in and join the expedition to climb Mount Everest. 

The views at the top of the point (coming back from the lighthouse) is exceptional, so we hung out there for a little while. 

Then, we hopped back in the car one last time, and headed to our last destination of the day:

5. South Beach at Point Reyes

After forcing the kids to climb a thousand steps up from the lighthouse, we scrubbed another hiking trail on our agenda for another day, and drove down the point to the nearest beach, called South Beach, to let them play. 

To make it clear: this is not a swimming beach. The shelf drops off dramatically just a few feet from shore, the waves are wicked, and the undertow is deadly. And there's sharks. So yeah. No swimmy swimmy, but the sand is nice and the view is awesome. We brought no beach toys (oops), but Cam dug a hole and Calen created a game with the tide and a stick, and we tossed the football around that we always keep in the truck. It was a nice way to relax after a busy day. 

We stuck around for about an hour, then called it quits, took another round of Dramamine and drove home, getting back just in time to eat leftovers for dinner and watch Beetoven (1991 style, with Bonnie Hunt and that big St Bernard) as a family. 

Super awesome day. If you're local, I highly recommend exploring this area, BUT, plan ahead, and make sure you download offline google maps of the area, because you will have ZERO cell phone reception. 

Mother's Day In The Raw

It's the Day of Mothers, or the Mother of Days, or something. Either way, we are celebrating me so of course it's important. 

Blah blah blah I'm not that vain blah blah blah everyone is important and special and everything blah blah blah.

I had a very classic Mother's Day. Not like, flowers and brunch (seriously, who's idea was it to invent brunch?! I'm hungry and I'm NOT waiting until 11am) and all that mushy nonsense. Like, I was mothering to the limit type of Mother's Day. Because the kids aren't suddenly going to say "Hey it's Mother's Day let's sleep in until 9:30 and be perfect well-behaved angels during every waking hour today." No, they were kids, so they needed to be mothered. 

I like the term "mothered" as a verb. It's kind of like "smothered", except without the "s", and not as violent, because there's no pillow. Maybe like a warning shot. It's like, "If you kids don't knock it off I'm going to MOTHER you, and if you keep on keeping, THEN I'm going to SMOTHER YOU."

Blah blah blah don't smother your kids blah blah blah but you definitely can mother them blah blah blah legal logistics crap. 

So this morning we got up and dressed and went to breakfast on base. The kids were on their best behavior by jumping up and down with their breakfast trays in line and arguing over who got a half ounce more of orange juice in their glass than the other. Then Calen announced that he didn't want to eat his eggs because they were cold, and Camden glanced over, then suddenly slapped his entire hand on top of Calen's eggs to see if they were cold. And when Camden announced "your eggs aren't that cold", Calen then goes "You just slapped my eggs!! Oh yeah?!" and then slapped his hand onto Camden's eggs. 

Perfect, well behaved children on Mother's Day. 

We left breakfast (without eating the eggs) and went over to Sebastapol to the farmers market. Which was very, uh, hippy. Like more hippy than usual for northern California. But, we walked around and gawked at tomato plants and bought a bag of cherries to support the cause (whatever the cause is). Also cherries are delicious. 

Mural in Sebastapol. Camden: "I'm going to TOUCH HIS FLUFFY BUTT."

Since we finished the market a lot sooner than we thought, we drove over to Bodega Bay, and during the said drive, the boys were perfect angels in the back seat, fighting over a pirate telescope and a single matchbox car, both of which I snatched from their hands and launched past them into the trunk of the car. Then I caught Calen wipe his boogers on the door of the car and listened to them shoot zombies with invisible guns the whole rest of the drive. 

The epitome of "boy": barefoot, jeans rolled up, reading a book about a kid shooting Nazis (truth. It's one of those "I Survived" books). 

At the bay, we walked out on this massive dock path thing that went past the boatyard and stopped basically in the middle of the bay. We tried to take a nice picture for Mother's Day, which turned out perfect and completely frameable (see below). While we were out there we were visited by a couple of sea lions, including this humongous mutant sea lion that just hung out right below us observing us. Way cool. Then we went out onto the beach during low tide, running around and turning over rocks to find baby crabs. 

Unfortunately I had to work this afternoon (booo...hisss), so we cut it short and headed home. The boys and Daddy brought me sushi for dinner while I was at work this evening, and then when I got back home all 4 of us had a Star Wars Battlefront tournament on the Playstation. 

Sarcasm aside, this really was a fun Mother's Day, and we made it the best we could considering it was a work day for me. All I really wanted was to be able to spend some time with my three favorite people, and I got to do just that. I'm so thankful for my family and all the craziness that goes along with it. Normal is just a setting on the dryer, anyways. 

Why I celebrate today!

Playing Hooky In The City

Brad's folks arrived last night for a couple weeks, so we made an executive decision and let the kids play hooky from school today. After all, who needs stupid stuff like an education anyways. 

Yeah yeah yeah I know education is important blah blah blah it's only one day blah blah blah. 

Today was shockingly beautiful and sunny, so we left after breakfast and blasted into the city for the day. 

As the good tourists we are, our day in San Francisco was spent at the Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39. We walked around the shops and let the kids picked out new hats and kites and a few hundred other little things and watched a few fantastic street shows on the waterfront. I mean, that's what you do at Fisherman's Wharf, right? Shop, people watch, walk around, eat. 

New fave picture of the boys with their grandparents!

Sourdough Bread Factory

Watching the sea lions on the pier

The boys and Papa got new hats

More hats. Super fun unique ballcaps.

We also went to the Aquarium of the Bay right in the heart of the Wharf. This is a first for any of us, so it was extra fun. It's not the best aquarium I've ever been to (the award for that goes to this one in Philadelphia), but it was definitely worth seeing once. It featured exclusively all the local fish life from California coasts, including jellyfish, rays and sharks. It had a touch tank where you could pet baby Rays, lots of different exhibits and two tunnels (including a shark tunnel!). We really had a good time in here and it was a great way to break up the day. 

Taken with my cell phone!! In the shark tunnel a shark swam above me, passing a spotlight. 

While we were down here, we walked by a Rainforest Cafe, and decided it would be super fun to do a special dinner for Camden since it was the last night of him being five!! (wah sobs boo cries). These restaurants are rad. It's a two story mecca of all things rainforest. The walls and ceiling are covered in vines, trees, and other flora (fake), resembling a thick jungle. Nestled inside it are lots and lots of animatronic animals: gorillas, elephants, tigers, leopards, butterflies, etc. Every few minutes or so, they get angry (or something) and all start moving and calling out and causing a big fuss. 

The boys decided the gorilla standing in front of our table was probably hangry, and they kept pretending to feed it their bananas off their plate to make it happy. 

A girl walked around and made balloon snakes for them, and then the waiter came out with a huge cake "volcano" for Cam to share. 

I think he liked it. 

Great day in San Francisco. I'm thankful for all the experiences we get to have across the country.