School Pictures

It's already November, and we have been busy with school..in a good way. Homeschooling, it seems this year, is more 'who we are' rather than just 'what we're doing'. It's a good fit.

Disneyworld...the Ultimate Field Trip

We surprised the boys at Christmas with plans for a trip to Florida. They had a countdown board, and each day before we left, they got to uncover a bit of trivia about our trip. The boys each worked on a lapbook about Disneyworld in which we studied the animals that we would see on the Kilimanjaro Safari and in the Pangani Forest at Animal Kingdom; the 11 countries in the World Showcase at Epcot, and other interesting facts. We discovered even more to learn once we got there, as Spaceship Earth reminded us of much of our history curriculum, and our Behind the Seeds tour taught us a lot about plants.

Epcot Adventures

Epcot remains at the top of our list.

Here the boys are enjoying Kaki Gori from Japan.

We also indulged in caramel treats from Germany, pastries from France, and nachos in Mexico.

One really cool thing we got to do was the "Kim Possible" adventures at Epcot. You pick up a cell phone-like device from a kiosk, and are sent on an adventure in one of the countries. As you follow the clues, things in the pavillion come to life to lead you on. The boys did three and wish we could've done more.

Same Gene Pool, Different Styles

Universal

We enjoyed a couple of days at Universal, primarily to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The boys also really enjoyed exploring around the Jurassic Park area (Cam even got to name a baby dinosaur that 'hatched' and got a birth certificate for the little guy).

We also got stuck in the middle of an epic battle inside Poseidon's temple, below:

Ready to board the Hogwart's Express
Unfortunately, a lot of our pictures turned out dark or just not great so we can't show all that we saw in the Wizarding World. Our favorite things: the monster's book of monsters, butterbeer, eating at the Three Broomsticks, Honeydukes candy shop, and exploring Hogwarts.

Behind the Seeds

We got to enjoy a special behind the scenes tour at the Land Pavillion at Epcot (thank you, Grandpa Ric), and really enjoyed it.

Because our tour guide worked in the aquaponics area, we got to do something that no other groups got to do...feed the alligators. We also got to feed the fish, but everyone gets to do that.

Mason volunteered to be one of three group members to get to distribute ladybugs on the plants.

This is just one picture of one of the hydroponics systems that Disney uses.