Field Trip Week

Well...I feel like I haven't blogged FOREVER...so here is a little update on what the Epps Clan has been up to recently. A few weeks back, Charley took the week off of work and we had a "fun" week. We went to the library, we went to the Exploratorium, and we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I had not been to the Exploratorium....probably since about junior high....so it was fun to go back and show the kids all the fun stuff.
My lovely little red headed girl getting blown away:):)


The Palace of Fine Arts...do you see my little "ant" children??


Just being funny

All my sweet kiddos

Unfortunately, that same week, all of the girls (including myself) got colds. Mine was the worse with an INTENSE sinus headache. However, not wanting to miss going on some good field trips and having a wonderful thing called Claritan D and Ibuprofin :):), we went anyway. Once again the Monterey Bay Aquarium did not disappoint!!

*Don't know if you know this or not, but it is the male sea horse that actually gives birth. We were standing by one of the exhibits talking to one of the volunteers when Charley says, "One of the sea horses is giving birth!" Low and behold he was!! They looked like teeny tiny bubbles coming out of him. However, as the volunteer had been talking about, the other fish that was in the tank pretty much ate them up before they went very far. I guess that is their method of "birth control" for the sea horses. It was very interesting to see. Will probably never see it again!

The kids really enjoyed seeing the new sea horse display.

The kids also, depending on their age and ability, wrote reports about some of the things we saw there. I printed off some coloring pictures from the MBA website, the kids colored them in the car on the way there, and then they wrote some things about the sea life (from the info that they read about the sea life at each exhibit) that they had decided to write about. Kristina did her first "bigger" report and even typed it out...for the first time. I printed out some of the pictures we had taken and glued them to the writing pages. They turned out so good! Even Anna did a little report :)

For lunch, we went to Bubba Gumps which is just down the street from the aquarium.

Anna and Kristina

Me and my honey at Bubba Gumps