Saturday, February 27, 2010

Age of Sail

Recently, I went on an overnight field trip with my lovely fifth grade class. After having finished a super-cool unit on world explorers, we made our way to the bay area to experience first hand what it was like to live on a boat. The program, called Age of Sail, is organized by the San Francisco Martime National Park.


Once on the boat, the captain, first and second mate, and cook/doctor took over. The adults were not allowed to interact with the kids at all... no talking, no non-verbal communication. The kids were split into crews. Each crew was trained to take responsiblity of a different part of the ship (yes, we were on a real ship, docked of course). Once given directions by the officers, the kids had to figure out how to accomplish their task without any help from adults. It was amazing to see the kids really step it up and meet the officers' very high expectations.

While the actual program was really neat, the overall field trip was "dampened" by one thing... the weather. Oh, the weather was the worst. Literally, it was the worst. The age of sail people told us that it was the worst weather they have ever had during a field trip.


It was rainy. It was windy. It was cold. Everyone was soaked to the bone. We changed our clothes a few times, only to be soaked through again within 15 minutes. I think the pictures below speak for themselves.



(This was taken right after we got off the bus. Within 30 minutes, all the students were covered in bright yellow rain slickers. We had some time to burn while waiting for our program to start. We walked up to Ghiradelli Square in a line. It looked like a row a little duckies walking around San Francisco.) (Our ship, the Balclutha. Once used to ship goods around Cape Horn to San Francisco. It's since been restored in order to be used for the Age of Sail program.)

(My little duckies.)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Valentine's Weekend

Michael surprised me this past weekend by whisking me away to Lake Tahoe. On Saturday, Michael took me to a very nice resturant. We heard that it had a view, but it was so dark that we couldn't see the view. Maybe Michael will just have to take me back some other day.
The food was delicous! But even though it was a fancier resturant, Michael ordered his favorite cheeseburger and fries meal. He's so easy to please. We ended the meal with the famous Hula Pie. Micheal and I first ate Hula Pie together on our honeymoon in Hawaii. We were totally stuffed by the end of the night. The next morning we took a walk down to the lake shore. We found a spot of beach where dogs are allowed off leash. Cooper didn't interact with too many dogs (they're just too big for him), but he had a great time sniffing around and playing fetch.


We wandered our way up the road the dog park we usually visit in the summer. There weren't any other dogs around, but there was a lot of deep snow. Cooper had to practically leap in order walk around the snow.


That afternoon we set out to find a good sledding spot. The first place we stopped at was so crowded. Michael took a couple rides down, but it was a little scary. I was a nervous wreck. There were so many people that you had to dodge people and stop quickly. We saw a few people get taken out by sledders. After just a few minutes at this spot, we left to find a less crowded sledding spot.


We stopped along the highway that wraps around Lake Tahoe and found this more secluded spot. We had to work for a few minutes to get the sledding trail just right. Afterwards, it was a great ride. Everytime I went down the hill, Cooper would chase after me. You can see him trailing after me in this photo.





Cooper was quick to fall asleep on the way home. Two days later and I think he's still recovering from the day. He's asleep as I type this right now.
It was such a fun weekend!