Wet and Not So Wild

Since Micaiah shared with you earlier about the beginning of our first "Full Blast School" week, I thought that I would share with you how that week ended. Patrick had the day off on Friday, and so after squeezing in a few hours of school and after a big breakfast (whipped up by Chef Daddy), we loaded up the van and headed west to ... Wet-N-Wild!

Here are just a few snapshots of how we celebrated the successful completion of FBS Week #1:

The first time that Bear went down head-first was a complete accident on his part (he slipped at the top of the slide!), but this photo op was manipulated by Mom at the top pulling the legs out from under her baby!! There was a lot of pressure from the photographer.

While Bear was romping through the Keiki Kove, the older siblings were exploring the Water World Playground ...

These photos need no captions as they clearly portray the personalities of each subject!

After displaying a fair amount of "forced patience" while everyone else raced down the Island Racer or careened down the Raging River, the height-challenged Bear was ready to tackle the slides in the "big kid" area. He loved every minute!

It was a great way to end the school week!

On the High Seas

How did we spend our Monday? The first day of 'full blown' school? We spent it touring the USS Ronald Reagan, one of the biggest air-craft carriers in the whole fleet! Well, Isaac, Abi, and I did, Dad was at work and Mom had to take Bear home because they wouldn't let him on the ship (not exactly sure why, but what security says goes). Bear was a little disappointed until Mom told him that he could watch some Little Einsteins at home. That cleared the whole matter up real quick.

The USS Ronald Reagan is HUGE and my pictures do not do it justice, at all. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the ship from the parking lot where you could actually get the scope for its size. So you'll just have to trust me when I say it is HUGE. After meeting our 'tour guide' and receiving our 'Escort Required' tags :

we began our tour. (The ship is not a tourist attraction, but when you have great friends who are happy and able to make these things happen for you, you jump at the chance.)

This was right under the flight deck. That line going across the picture was pretty much the halfway marker, so imagine three football fields and that's about the size of this area. All of the planes that this ship carries can fit in here. That's what I said, it's HUGE.

It was all very busy. There is a large difference between an active ship and a war memorial like the USS Missouri, that's for sure. Quite a bit of physical exertion was required on our tour.

We saw:

The chains that hold the anchors. We walked through halls with the constant danger of tripping and doing much personal damage (whatever you hit would probably go unharmed).

And last but certainly not least, the flight deck. I could not count how many planes were up there, though I'm quite sure our guide told us that. I was too busy taking pictures.

This is a prop plane - the big disk shape on top is a satellite. The prop plane's job is surveillance. It has to be my favorite type of plane, not that I know all that much about what they do and how they do it, I just think they look cool :)

Thank you, Mr. Wischmeier!!!

~RML