Boxtoberfest Road Rally Letterboxing Event
Author: Jennifer
•6:34 AM
We went to Austin this month for a wonderful letterboxing event. I was very impressed. It was incredibly well planned and so much fun!!! We were given clues at a special location. Then, we had to answer questions in order to open clue envelopes for the next letterbox location. The final clue revealed the secret meeting location at the end which was a neat German bar and grill. We had so much fun getting to know Austin! It's really a pretty area.

At the state capitol, we were greeted by this albino squirrel. I had to get some shots of him, nearly making us late for our specified show-up time.

We got our clues and moved on as quickly as possible. Here was one of the most creative locations for a box! We loved this! This would be Bloomin Grandma Jo. :-)
Ah yes... interesting Texan display of pumpkins and flamingos. Whoda thought?
And the award goes to... yeah, very cool letterbox. It has a Halloween theme, apparently. It's very creative!
The stamp was place into the styrofoam here with a velcro'd piece of felt.
Here's the secret meeting location! We all did as many exchanges as possible, but missed a few. Does Daniel look tired? Yep, exhausted!
This is Pacifikle and me, Cha Cha Cheetah.
And here's the group. Tom said we look like a bunch of nerds. Well, oh well. :-) We are all different kinds from all over. We just like to have fu-un!

Happy letterboxing!
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Sea World Homeschool Family Day
Author: Jennifer
•6:03 AM
I didn't realize I was so behind! Here are some pics from Sea World.
We had another fun day at Sea World Homeschool day. They hold this once a year and the price is very reasonable. None of the rides are open as this is an educational day.

First thing first... dolphin feeding time. This has got to be a favorite amongst my kids. They love to feed and possibly touch a dolphin. They're such friendly, majestic creatures.
Here's a sea lion waiting to be fed. They sure are loud and funny, too!

Have you learned the difference between a true seal, an eared seal and a fur seal? We studied these guys in out Apologia Astronomy II, Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. I'll leave this to you to figure out. :-)
Lunch time! We always like to eat lunch near Shamu Stadium by the flamingoes.

In case you don't know it already, those humps on the ground are flamingo nests.
I had to get pictures of the beautiful butterflies bounding from flower to flower.



Time for Shamu! Look at that splash. I was trying to get a pic of him jumping out of the water, but by the time my camera would get a shot, it was always just a splash.Finally, a pose! :-) We've learned that the dorsal fin on a killer whales back does not hang over naturally. It only does that when they've been in captivity. Scientists have not year figured out why. Interesting...
This is always a funny show. Sea Lions are great!

And that was it! It's only a four hour day at Sea World which causes us to hustle while we're there if we want to see everything. We also walked through the aquarium, ran over to see the penguins and then back to the Beluga Whales before they closed all of the animal exhibits at 11:30. That's only 2-1/2 hours to see them all before lunch and the two shows. It's the only time of the year that we get to go... and we enjoy every bit of it!
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NASA Homeschool Day & Ike Aftermath
Author: Jennifer
•4:40 AM
We travelled to Houston last week for NASA Homeschool day at Space Center Houston/ Johnson Space Center. We had a blast... literally! (kuddos to Becci for the pun)
http://www.spacecenter.org/HomeSchool.html

The kids had so much fun... and I think the adults did too. :-) The first thing they all spotted of course was the Martian Matrix, which is a four-story jungle gym. We let them get it out of their system right away. Daniel couldn't get it out of his system, though. He was already woken up in the middle of the night and wouldn't sleep on the way. He made an emotional attachment to the Martian Matrix so we had to drag him to any other place we wanted to go.
Second stop... Space Tram.
This tram took us on a tour of the grounds. We stopped in an area to watch a rocket take off. Okay, it was just a model rocket. But, it was fun an interesting to watch and learn.

"Look out belooooowwww!"
Then, the tram took up to see the mock-up spacecrafts. These are exact mock-ups of what's is really out there! When a space shuttle is in space, they use this mock-up to built stuff to send out to meet the shuttle. They know it will fit by the time it makes it's expensive trip. Imagine sending something FedEx to space. Sure.
I don't remember all of the details on these since I was attempting to keep Daniel entertained while listening to the tour guide.
This is a model of what the international space station will look like when it is complete. You can get an idea of the size of this model by looking on the back wall of the picture above.
Sorry... don't remember what this is. Daniel was getting sleepy. It looks cool!Back at Space Center Houston, we found the sci-fi section... or is it? ;-) Since my kiddos are such Star Wars buffs, we had to get some pictures. Daniel is pictured there by his favorite character, R2D2.
And, this would be Taylor's favorite character. Taylor likes feminine, but not prissy, I suppose. This is Ahsoka. She is a new character feature in the new cartoonish Clone Wars. We have not seen it yet.

Daniel had to get this pic... but I think it was potty time here.
Confiscated in space? :-)
Oh, and I suppose this guy is from the new movie, too. We're not sure if he's supposed to be a good guy or bad guy. Daniel wasn't interested in reading the plaque there.

The future of racing...

We went into a neat big screen theater and learned about space travel. I'm so glad we read that last chapter in out Apologia Astronomy book! Taylor absorbed so much more by already having learned about it. There was a hidden portion of the museum on the other side of the theater that we wouldn't have know about had I not dragged Daniel from the Martian Matrix... again. The had moon rocks and other neat stuff back there.
After leaving the space center, we went out to observe the path that Ike made through the area. Hurricane Ike didn't affect us here in San Antonio, so sometimes it's hard to fathom the destruction that a natural disaster can create. So, in case you're wondering if it was all that bad, here are a few pics of houses along Galveston Bay.
Can you see the little girls pink metal bed hanging there on the left side?
The spray paint on this house says "Sorry No Vacancy", "Have a Nice Day" and "Watch Out, Mean Cat". We saw a Motel 8 that was gutted and not in very good shape. There was a large piece of wood out front that said "Opening Soon!" At least someone had a sense of humor.
Cinder blocks aren't as tough as they seem. Wow!
There were many homes like this. One of the families was living in a travel trailer next to their destroyed home.
Looks like something out of Wizard of Oz.
We didn't see any sign of the rest of this house. Can you imagine driving out to see how bad it was only to find that your stairs are the only thing left? We're pretty spoiled in San Antonio. We rarely get any kind of natural disasters. A small tornado may touch down on the outskirts or we might get a pretty good flood every 5-10 years, but nothing like this. It makes me thankful for where we live.
This gave us a good opportunity to learn about hurricanes. It really opened the kids eyes to see how real they are.
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