during our time in mesa, we were able to hit up two different national monuments, both about an hour or so away, and both dedicated to preserving the history of native people who inhabited the area long before we did. first up, casa grande. the big house. the kids insisted on doing as much of […]
roadschool
desert botanical garden.(spoiler: it’s mostly cactuses).
for our first grand adventure in the state of arizona, we chose the desert botanical garden in phoenix. the lidkids actually voted for it, out of all the options presented to them. we definitely like cactuses in this family. on the stroll in, i took this shot, to showcase our first usage of the trio […]
grandlidbom san diego christmas. last day.
for the last (full) day of the grandlidbom san diego christmas extravaganza, the world famous san diego zoo was on tap. before we even entered the gates, we happened upon our first “animal”… there were hundreds of bees buzzing around a (rather peculiar) plant. i don’t know if this pic is from my phone or […]
grandlidbom san diego christmas, days 2 & 3.
after our action packed first day with the grandlidboms, the lidkids spent the night with them, and since we didn’t have anything planned until lunchtime on day two, our morning at the camper was lazy and glorious. i savored a delicious cup of coffee outside by the lake, with no bickering, whining or cartoon sounds […]
grandlidbom san diego christmas, day 1.
finally. the day was here. the grandlidboms arrived in san diego. we woke up, ate a quick breakfast, and then headed out the door to meet them at the birch aquarium. we had our happy greetings and then started exploring… while the whole place was pretty educational, the first bit that we walked around in […]
menifee, california.
well. so. we had to cut our time in joshua tree a little short. we ran into a bit of trouble with our battery being able to hold enough charge, given the allotted charging time. since we didn’t want to have to leave every few days to go charge up offsite, we decided to head […]
joshua tree.hidden valley, cholla cactus garden, cottonwood springs.
for our first joshua tree big adventure, i dragged the kids out for a short hike in hidden valley. i think technically it was a “nature walk”, but it had some good spots to climb and explore, so we’ll call it a hike. first photo shoot with an actual joshua tree. they really are so […]
the hoover dam
for our final field trip with my parents, we went to the hoover dam. we had learned a bit about it at the springs preserve, but we were excited to check the place out up close and in person. firstly, there were WAAAAAAY more people there than i ever would have imagined. we tried to […]
las vegas springs preserve
our second major field trip while new gramma and grampa terry were in town was the las vegas springs preserve. i didn’t know stuff like this existed in las vegas, but i guess there’s probably families who live here who need places to go that aren’t casinos. we learned a lot about the history of […]
real bodies at bally’s.
derek planned several big adventures for our vegas time, specifically while my parents were in town. our first, and the most anticipated by anna and my mom, was the real bodies exhibit at bally’s. it’s basically a bunch of real actual bodies and organs and parts, cut up and displayed in random and interesting and […]