Southern California

We spent a week in San Diego. We visited Legoland, the Zoo and Sea World.

The kids definitely liked Legoland, even though I was left disappointed having expected much more provided the concept of Lego. The spirit of innovation was absent, the element of creativity was non-existent. To play in life-size lego duplo playground was definitely quite entertaining, especially, after a day in the desert and two days of traveling.

The zoo was amazing. It's worth visiting even if you don't want to see the animals. It's a wonderful park to stroll through. Our favorite exhibit was the gorillas. We spent close to 2 hours there just observing them while they were observing us.

Of all venues, our favorite was Sea World. We visited thrice. We enjoyed all the rides, all the shows and all the exhibits. We learned a lot. Some of us even cried a lot when we had to leave. Some of us became brave explorers and overcame fear and shyness.

We found some good ice-cream shops. The kids fell in love with one frozen yoghurt shop-On the Rocks.

Before venturing out to San Diego we spent an afternoon at Griffith's observatory in LA (very crowded). We watched a movie in the auditorium and looked at all the exhibits. The kids asked a lot of really good questions and while we will be addressing these questions again and again in the future, the more exposure they have to the problems, the more viewpoints they encounter, the more 'I don't understand's they utter, the better for their own growth. Similarly enriching were the museums at San Diego's Balboa park. We visited the Air & Space Museum, the Museum of Man, the Natural History Museum and the Railroad Museum. The Air&Space museum on the walls had depiction of the history of the civilized world, following all main innovation break throughs. The natural history museum was different from say the Field's museum here in Chicago in that it had concentrated on the local sources of information-local fossils, local problems such as drought, etc. Here we also watched two films (we were tired from having walked through all other museums that day). The first one was about the prarie mouse and the chipmunk-how they survive, how they learn in real time in order to survive(Tiny Giants). The second film we watched was "Walking with Dinosaurs". It was also very nice and less scary than the dinosaur movie featured at te Field's Museum. The Museum of Man was phenomenal. I wish in 6th grade when I first heard about the early people I had a museum like this one to go to. Pictures are nice but on pictures it is difficult to note the differences, and how scientists can make relative statements of comparison. The museum had physical 3-D objects which aides tremendously in the understanding. This was my favorite museum. I loved all museums, I wish I had more time to explore more and take more notes. 

We also visited Joshua Tree and the kids enjoyed climbing the rocks and also realized (because we got lost both on the rocks and in the dessert in Hidden Valley) how important is to keep a compass handy and carry water.  During our last day, we visited a friend at Caltech, and we had a lovely afternoon at Santa Monica-the kids went on all rides, multiple times, without any lines; they ate chunk food and won some very expansive prizes. It was a real vacation, completely loose and care-free.

It took us over a week to recover from our adventure and to get back to normal routine. The kids missed two days of school because they could not wake up on time or did not feel well.

Since back we have been reading a lot about whales and dolphins, humans interacting with the environment, pollution and endangered species. We are currently reading 'Why we live where we live as well'. Overall, great trip which fit wonderfully with what we read. Here is the list below:

1. How Whales Waled into the Sea by Faith McNulty
2. Whales by Gail Gibbons
3. Orcas by Claire Throp
4. Dolphins: habitat, life cycle, foodchain, threats by Nicola Davies
5. Eight Dolphins: true story of survival by Janet Coleman
6. Beluga Whales by May Berendes
7. Why we live where we live by Kira Vermond
8. The shocking truth about energy by Loreen Leedy
9. The tale of Winter-the dolphin that inspired many humans 

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of all we read, this is just the list of what we read related to our travels. We have read a little part from "Tales of the Odyssey" by Mary Osborne; we read two books about the Pledge of Allegiance which incorporated both the historical and the legal issues associated with the topic; we read a lot of fairy tales (the kids still continue to love them); and we also read a lot of Lego easy-reader books (which I can't stand, but they love, so I suck it up). During our trip, we did not read at all, we mostly talked and discussed what we heard from the different programs.