Salmon Release Field Trip

Salmon is a big deal around here in the Pacific Northest, so in the schools, the kids learn a lot about salmon.  What they eat.  The five different kinds (which are pink, silver, king, sockeye, and chum in case you were wondering).  Where they breed.  In what waters they thrive, etc, etc. 

To learn about these fish first-hand, the third graders at Poulsbo Elementary began raising their own salmon in a tank at the beginning of the year.  Now I can't say that I know much about the process other than Elizabeth would occassionally check the tank when we were dropping Grace off or volunteering in her class, but I do know that they finally grew enough to be released.  So this afternoon, I boarded a bus (with quite a large number of other parents) for my first-ever field trip with Grace in over 2 years.  I normally don't get to go along because younger siblings can't accompany parent chaperones, but with Dave being home until Monday, he got our little girlie off to school and I got to be with the big girlie for a few hours.  We boarded all three classes onto two school buses and drove to one of our local estuaries at Fish Park to release the salmon into Liberty Bay.



The tide was out, but Liberty Bay was beautiful as always



It was a gorgreous day outside.  Now, not the kind of gorgeous 80 degree days that all of you are getting back in the Midwest, but gorgeous for us.  55...sunny...beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds.   

The kids got to stomp around in the mud, play a game, and listen to a few local salmon experts.  They had a lot of good questions and seemed pretty interested in learning about the fish. 







Grace and Poppie offering a quick "get out of here, Mom" smile

Either that or they were thrilled to be missing class to be hanging out at a park with their friends on a sunny Friday afternoon.  I know that Grace and her best friend, Poppie, loved hanging out together with a little more time to chat than they would have gotten if they were in class. 



Grace and Poppie dressed as silly twins

They are both such silly girls.  Great girls, but first and foremost, they are silly.  If you dont' believe me about the silliness, here is a picture of them from their playdate after school on Wednesday.  They dressed up as twins and skipped up and down our street.  They really are the best of friends.  See, Karen, we are putting those YMCA tie-dyed shirt to good use!  The kids and their friends all love to wear them!
  



Grace releasing her cup of salmon into Liberty Bay



At the end of our time at Fish P, each kiddo got to go down to the bank of the water and released a cup of 5 or so salmon.  I think it was very anti-climatic for most of them as they expected their fish to swim away quickly, but they (the salmon) mostly hung around in small schools right in the area where they were released.  A good lesson, right?  Science is usually interesting, but the processes aren't always as cool as you think they will be. 

But in true kid fashion, they made their own fun!  Grace and some of her classmates were "crying" after releasing their fish.  They were saying things like, "Oh, they just grow up so fast" or "It is so hard to say goodbye to your babies."  Did I tell you how much I just love these kids...simple humor at such an early age!

All in all, it was a great trip.  The bus was loud and warm, but luckily it was a very short trip just to the other side of town. The kids had a good time, and there were only a few tears (for all of the normal reasons like kids hurting other kids feelings and boys pushing other boys around/out of line).  There was a good number of kids that were complaining about how hot it was and how they needed to sit down and cool off. Keep in mind it was only about 55 degrees while we were at Fish Park. One little girl said to me, "Mrs. Zinkhon. Feel my head. It's so hot that it's almost on fire!"  These kids never cease to crack me up!

 

Busy, but fun weekend

I had hoped to have our entire Disney Cruise journaled on here by the end of the weekend, but between hanging out with friends all weekend and trying to figure out how this whole blog thing works, I didn't quite get there. 

We really did have a wonderful weekend.  We had spent all week getting the house back in order, so a lazy weekend is just what the doctor ordered.  Friends came over for dinner on Friday,  then it was lunch at a friends house on Saturday afternoon, and then drinks and snacks just over at the neighbors for a few hours last night.  Elizabeth did have a birthday party thrown in there on Saturday afternoon.  She had such a great time with all of the friends that she has made in kindergarten this year.

Other than that, we just hung around the house.  The girls both are still working to catch up on homework from missing school for the cruise so they would both probably tell you that was the low point of their weekends.  They played Legos together for over an hour this afternoon and just had the best time.  I love times like that.  Makes my heart happy to see them playing together without the squabbles that always seem to occur these days.

It was pretty chilly out today, but we did manage to squeeze in an hour at Battle Point Park on Bainbridge Island before we dropped Dave off at the ferry this evening.  Sure it was only 41 and windy and even raining the slightest bit, but we are PacNorWesterners.  To us, that is like a beautiful Summer day where you can't help but get outside and go to the park.

Grace was bored at first, but Dave pestered engaged her like he always does and she perked right up.  Elizabeth, on the other hand, can't spend enough time at the park.  She loves to pretend that she is having sleepovers or that pirates/monsters are chasing after her or (her most favorite game of all) that her parents have died and that she is an orphan that lives only with other kids.  Makes you feel real good as a parent...sheesh!  Despite her interest in imaginary play, that little girl of ours simply refuses to pump her legs on the swings and she still hates slides.  I'm certain that it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she had to be rushed to urgent care when her leg bent back underneath me when we went down a slide together when she was 18 months old.  Okay...maybe it has everything to do with that. 

Care to take a guess as to what Elizabeth's favorite color is?

After dropping Dave off at the ferry terminal, the girls and I spent the rest of the night at home just hanging out, watching some Phineas and Ferb (it's a cartoon on Disney) and eating our pizza that we picked up at Central Market.  Dave (or "the Davester" as our friends call him) will be gone for two weeks to attend a tomahawk missile school down in San Diego.  Upon his return, he will then report to the USS Stennis which is just about 30 minutes up the road from here.  For the short time that he was onboard, Dave was enjoying the job and his co-workers on the George Washington.  Here's to hoping that he has the same experience on the Stennis. 

The girls and I will be flying out on Thursday morning to spend a long weekend with Dave down in San Diego, but that is a post for another time. 

Happy first night of Daylight Savings, all!

All Aboard the Disney Wonder

"The Disney Wonder would like to welcome the Zinkhon family!"  Insert cheers, applause and high fives from cruise staff wearing oversized Mickey Mouse gloves, and that is how we were welcomed aboard our cruise ship: the Disney Wonder.  Now if that isn't red-carpet treatment to kick-off the beginning of your family vacation, I don't know what is! 

The moment that you walk into the lobby, you begin to notice all of the little details that make this a Disney Cruise.  Now it may not be any different than any other cruise line out there, but we were most certainly impressed with our surroundings.  Elizabeth quickly found this statue of Ariel (one of her most favorite Disney princess). 

Having done a little bit of research before we left, we knew that we should head right to one of the restaurants for lunch since all of the other new cruisers would just be wondering around the ship trying to figure out where to go.  We headed up to the top deck to enjoy lunch and check out the pools along the way.  The lunchtime buffet was filled with sandwiches and pastas and different salads.  Even if it was just having 7 rolls with butter, there was always something on the lunch buffet that the kids would enjoy.  More than anything, it was such a nice break from our grey skies here in Washington to eat our meal while sitting in the warm California sun.  Here's a little tidbit of extra information: Disney Cruise Line is very serious about hygiene and keeping the spread of germs down.  When walking into any of the restaurants, each person is handed a sanitizing wipe that they must use before entering.   

Once our meal was finished, we headed down to our stateroom.  Now I wish that I had better pictures of the room, but my camera did not like the lighting and I never managed to capture a good image.  (I guess it is time to read that darn manual).  Here you will find a picture of Grace looking out our window while we were still in port. 

Having checked out every nook and cranny in our stateroom, we headed down a few decks for the mandatory safety drill.  Then it was back upstairs for the fun to officially begin!  We ran (okay, walked very quickly) to the top deck so the kids could have a front spot for the "Adventures Away" show.  

Our cruise staff was introduced and then the singing and dancing began!  The moment this show began, everyone officially let their hair down.  Parents, kids, and grandparents alike were all smiling and shaking their groove thing.  I guess that is the real joy of a cruise (or maybe any vacation for that matter): you are never going to see these people again, so you mind as well let loose and have a good time.  People certainly had a good time!

Mickey, Minnie and all of our favorite classic Disney characters counted down, the ship's whistle sounded, and we were off!  The show was in full swing and just as good as any show we have seen at either Disneyland or Disney World.  Elizabeth received a streamer during the show waved it around without a care in the world.  I don't know that I have ever seen her so happy!  This smile on her face during the show was absolutely priceless.

It's Time for a Cruise!

Your entire home has just been packed up.  You have been preparing for your international move for months.  You have said goodbye to friends and family and are 6 short days away from making your big move to Japan.  But wait.  A flurry of emails are taking place halfway around the world.  Someone did not do paperwork correctly.  A major error has occurred.  Your family can't move to Japan anymore.  And just like that, all of your hard work to get things ready, all of your tear-filled goodbyes, all of the time that you put into selling yourself and your family on moving into a new land just flushes down the toilet.  It was all for nothing. 

Now there are many, many words that you could use to describe how we were feeling at the moment when we were essentially told "nevermind."  Angry, exhausted, disappointed, frustrated, and then angry again are the first ones that comes to mind.  But at the end of the day, we have been at this Navy game for 15 years, and we know that things in the Navy don't always make sense.  Decisions aren't always made with the family or servicemember in mind.  Sometimes, often times, in fact, it is just a decision that one person makes while sitting in an office without all of the needed information.  And so, we moved forward with the hand that we were dealt. 

As Dave made preparations for his return back home to the States (remember he had already been working in Japan since early December), we decided that we deserved a vacation.  Not your average vacation though.  More like a "holy smokes our world was just flipped upside down and we need to get out of town for a while before we go crazy" kind of vacation.  After a little bit of research, a decision was made: we were going to take a Disney Cruise.

Within a week, Dave arrived back in Seattle, two of the three shipments of our household goods were returned, and life was quickly resuming to its state of normalcy.  As we unpacked boxes, we were simultaneously packing suitcases for the trip.  To make our getaway a little more interesting, we decided not to tell the kids our final destination.  We simply told them that we were "going to LA."  Having traveled quite a bit, they both know that for our family, a trip to LA typically means two things: Disneyland and Aunt Jan/Uncle Phil.  We also said that we were staying somewhere that we had never stayed before and that it was more expensive of a place than we normally stay when in LA.  Being the inquisitive girl that she is, Grace actually Googled "most expensive places to visit in Los Angeles."  It came up with the Grand Californian Resort at Disneyland.  They were sure they had it figured out.  Dave and I let them think what they wanted. 

 We flew into Long Beach on Saturday evening and headed to a hotel for the night since it was "too late to head to where we were going".  The next morning we woke up to a beautiful, sunny California sky. We had breakfast and the kids swam in the pool for a bit.  We then rushed to get ready to catch our shuttle that would take us to the cruise pier.  They still thought we were going to Disneyland!  The secret was almost revealed when the shuttle picked us up and the driver said, "cruise pier"  several times. 

As we drove across the bridge in San Pedro, the driver coughed and motioned over to the cruise ship.  The surprise was starting to unravel.  As we drove a little further and finally pulled into the gate, neither of the girls said anything as the huge cruise ship finally came into full view.  I finally said, "Surprise!  We are going on a Disney Cruise!"  They still didn't say much, but you could tell they were excited from the smiles on their faces!

I won't lie when I say that I was just as excited as the kids!  We had never been on a cruise before this and I couldn't wait to see what the week ahead of us would hold.  The check-in process was amazingly convenient and well-coordinated.  Disney music played in the background as we checked in our bags, received our rooms keys, and registered the kids for their activities.  As we went through the process, we found our surrounded by families, just like ours, who were looking to find that perfect combonation of relaxation and family fun.  It was clear right away that we had made the right choice to take this cruise!