Homeschoolers Have the Best Field Trips

Okay, it is that time of year again where everyone is talking about love, LOve, LOVE!  So you know what I love (besides the obvious:  hubby, kids, 10 seconds alone in the bathroom without children banging on the door wanting in)?  I'm lovin' the field trips we're taking this year as a family.  Total perk of homeschooling.  One of the top 3 perks if I had to make a list (also making the cut:  teaching while still lounging in jammies).

A few weeks ago, we tossed the plug-in cooler, kids, and enough DVDs (some educational) to tide us over for a drive to San Diego in the swagger wagon.  We had big plans to hang out at Balboa Park.  San Diego is a big theme-park laden, museum-studded paradise for vacationing families.  They have EVERYTHING.  And a good chunk of it is located in Balboa Park.

I'm just going to put in a few pictures of things we did.  I know I should put in a link to a freebie or post this on Pinterest to drive up the views, but this is just gonna be for the grandmas (now would be the time to put in the slight mention I did not get any Hallmark appropriate cards, nor any endearingly homemade-by-small-children cards sent through USPS for the holiday so this will have to do.

We had visited the San Diego zoo on a previous trip, so it was not on our to-see list this trip.  We hit a few museums, wandered the grounds, saw the botanical gardens and a few other gardens...including the one that used to be a nudist colony back in the day but now has been turned into a more family-friendly butterfly grove.

There is something intensely rejuvenating about hanging around a lovely park on a sunny day, watching the children run around (and not fall into) splashing fountains.  Then we headed in to see what the different museums had to offer by way of educational exploration.

First up, the Fleet Science Center.  My little guy did not last more than five minutes in the IMAX movie theater.  He apparently has a budding career as a professional heckler.  Not wanting to disturb the other occupants with a steady barrage of commentary along the lines of,  "Mooo, cow!" "DOOT! (look)!"  "Bubberfie!" (butterfly) he and I adjourned to a different area of the museum.  Not to worry, he promptly entertained himself a display of tubes shooting out air (there was also a beach ball trying to demonstrate some scientific concept which was entirely lost on a two year old).  The girls loved the movie about the Monarch butterflies, and my husband was relieved to realize watching the movie on a dome screen didn't make him motion sick.  

We also trundled across the way to check out The NAT.  Back behind all the dinosaur bones, they had an exhibit on chocolate.  You may think it was for me that we went through that exhibit and you'd be wrong.  Turns out I have this bizarre allergy to chocolate.  Too much and I'll be down with a screaming migraine.  Fortunately, my children to not suffer from this most unfortunate malady.  Especially Little Dude.

We had to haul him away from the larger-than-life bon-bons.  He was trying to caress and lick them while exclaiming, "Poplate!"  "Ahhhh, poplate!"  Wouldn't due to get kicked out of a museum for unruly behavior now would it?

Yes, the beauty of the homeschooled field trip...no permission sheets to sign, no be-back-at-the-bus-by-2, no 30 children to coral and chaperones to chaperone.  Nope, just toss the kids in the van and go!