The Intiso Family

At my school we take the kids on about 7 field trips during the year. They are all very exciting, but the kids are most excited about the OVERNIGHT stay in Monterey. This year we went on a Wednesday and Thursday. I really enjoyed the trip, but it was definitely a whirlwind of activities. We were on a tight schedule and you will soon see why. We cram all of these activities into two days. This includes the 4 hours of driving to and from Monterey.

Timeline:

Wednesday
6:00 am meet in the parking lot of the school
6:30 am leave school parking lot
8:00 am potty break at a rest stop
10:00 am meet at Mission San Juan Batista

Here are pictures of Mission San Juan Batista. Juan Batista de Anza began an expedition to find an easier land route from New Spain (now Mexico) to Alta California (Northern California). He was unsuccessful. In these pictures you can see the mission church, altar, and bells.

Here are some other pictures taken at the mission. There were several statues and a beautiful rose garden.

Some more flower pictures. Very colorful.

A cool looking cactus, one of the mission bells, and the site of the original El Camino Real. El Camino Real is the route along which priests and travelers would travel from mission to mission. It connected the 21 missions of California. Each mission was built in about one days walk from the next mission.

A statue of Father Junipero Serra. He was known as the founder of the missions. He began the first mission in San Diego. He helped establish 9 other missions. His hope was to teach the Native Americans the Spanish ways of life and Catholicism. He hung the first mission bells that would become part of El Camino Real.

11:45 am Drive to Monterey..meet at Cannery Row

1:00-1:30 pm Walk Cannery Row, shop, and enjoy the atmosphere

Some random pictures from Cannery Row. Of course the Monterey Canning company and Bubba Gump restaurant. In front of Bubba Gump is a park bench with a suitcase and running shoes for Forrest Gump.

1:30-3:00 pm Monterey Bay Aquarium

Outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a cool starfish, and a seahorse. The newest exhibit at the aquarium is the seahorse exhibit. They had seahorses of all sizes. It was amazing to see them all curled up amongst the grasses. When they are not swimming, they anchor themselves in the grasses to rest and sleep.

The jellyfish exhibit is as always amazing. It is funny that most people think that jellyfish swim upright. They actually swim with their bodies pointed down.

Sea cucumbers, sand dollars, and a two-story high exhibit of kelp

3:30 pm. leave Aquarium and head to the Fisherman's Warf

3:30-4:00 pm. Explore the Fisherman's Warf and more shopping

You can buy lots of yummy taffy, chowder, and other souvenirs on the Fisherman's Warf. I snapped a shot of the Italian restaurant named Isabella's.

5:00 pm. Check into the hotel

6:00 pm. Dinner

7:00 pm. Free time..go to the beach..or in my case try to take a nap

8:00 pm. Bonfire

8:30 pm. Chaperone and teachers versus kids volleyball game. The adults won!!!

9:00 pm. Hot chocolate and scarry story time

9:30 pm. Snipe hunt on the beach

10:00 pm. Lights out...pass out from exhaustion

Thursday

6:30-7:00 am. Morning walk on the beach..or in my case..sleep in

7:30 am. Breakfast

8:30 am. Beach wading..boy did the kids have fun here. Unfortunately I can't post any student pictures here. But it was frigid and the kids still went out and waded.

9:00-9:45 am. Clean up and get ready to leave

9:45 am leave Monterey and meet at Point Lobo Park

10:30-11:30 am. Explore the hiking trails of Point Lobo Park

Some coast pictures. What a pretty view. One part of the trail was along the cliffs.

The other part of the hike was a little more wooded. I love the pictures of the trees and the foggy picture of the cliffs.

11:30-12:30 Eat lunch in the park

12:30-4:00 Head back home

So that was the whirlwind of activities that 3 teachers, 26 chaperones, and 70 students experienced in two days. I was sunburned, mosquito-bitten, and very tired. I had a lot of fun and so did the kids. I also got some pretty cool pictures out of it. Because of privacy, I cannot post any pictures of my students, but the smiles on their faces tell the story.

So that is my latest adventure of the month. Isabella is growing fast and now has 4 teeth. We still can't really get her to pose with a smile. She tends to open her mouth really wide when she smiles, but covers her teeth with her lips. She missed her mom while she was gone over the two days. Also the weekend before that, I was at National Scrapbooking weekend with Lynne. So she spent a lot of time with daddy. She is also now able to get to a standing position from the ground without pulling up on something first. She is learning to balance her weight and walk better. She is also able to turn while she is walking. Before, a turn meant dropping to the ground, turning, then crawling to something to pull up, then walking again. What a complicated way to go about things. But she eventually learned to keep that balance and turn while she walked.

Well that's it for the latest update. Hope all is well with everyone. Until next time.

Melanie

For Easter this year we had to decide what traditions we wanted to introduce to Isabella. I remember as a child the anticipation of Easter morning. We would wake up and see what the Easter bunny left in our baskets. We would frantically search for the hidden easter eggs. I also remember the fun of coloring and decorating the Easter eggs before the day arrived. Even though Isabella is still a little young to understand or even care about the traditions, we thought that it would be nice to introduce that to her and see her reactions. We took many photos along the way.

Isabella in her bunny ears. Luigi scoffed when I said that I wanted to buy these silly ears. Then I saw a friend online who had done the same thing with her kids. I knew it would make for some cute pictures..always a plus, but she actually left them on and didn't pull them off. Lately she doesn't really like to have anything on her head. She can't stand hats and hates it when I do her hair in a ponytail. So keeping this thing on her head was a real surprise to me.

We decorated Easter eggs in all kinds of colors. It has been such a long time since I have decorated Easter eggs. We went for the basic colors this year. It is amazing how many different kinds of Easter egg kits they sell at the store now. I saw marbled, sponged, swirled, metallic, bubbled, and a few different other kinds of kits. So I went for a little more traditional. I remember using the basic colors and being very happy when I was a child. But I can see in the future, once Isabella has a say, that we will probably be picking out the less traditional.

The day before Easter we tried out our first Easter egg hunt. Luigi was going fishing with Jonathan on Sunday morning, so we decided that we would try this out on Saturday. That way Luigi was able to see Isabella's first egg hunt experience. We used plastic eggs for obvious reasons. Isabella liked banging the eggs together. She also tried to eat them.

Put them in the basket! Or take them back out? She wasn't sure what to do with these strange things.

Take them out I guess?!

Yeah Easter eggs!

My stepsister Connie invited us over for Easter Sunday. The kids were all excited about the Easter egg hunt. We also celebrated Emily's 9th birthday and Papa's 62 nd birthday. The kids went on an awesome Easter egg hunt with what seemed like at least a hundred eggs. It was neat to see the anticipation before they began the Easter egg hunt. All of the kids lined up at the door in age order. Isabella went first and was happy with her two eggs. the other kids ran around and gathered as many eggs as they could find. You can see them running around the huge yard, checking in every place they think the eggs might be hidden.