Oregon Coast Education Program

So I had this great opportunity to go to the coast, hang out with cool teachers, and get some professional development. It was an amazing three day hangout at the Oregon Coast with some of the coolest people ever.  I was so excited to go with our Fifth grade teacher Irene, and one of the fourth grade teachers (and new elementary honcho) Lorrie. We got to learn about macro-invertebrate sampling, water sampling, see the Hatfield Marine Center along with the Newport Aquarium. We also got to head out to the lighthouse and spend some time in the estuary.

If you teach in the northwest, I really think that you should go to this program! For more infromation, head over to: http://www.pacname.org/OCEP/ocep_main.shtml A huge thanks to Newport Aquaiurm for teaching us teachers about their program and giving us a fantastic dinner by the shark tank. It was fancy people! http://aquarium.org/ Also a big thanks to the Hatfield Marine Science center for housing us and letting learn about their matierals. http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/ Their website is a gem. You can get so much information about the coast and teacher workshops.

Learning about macro-invertebrate sampling

Lovely day at the coast

My intrepid co-teachers

Learning about the estuary-Great field trip for students!!!

So much mud

Pulling up clams and learning about inter-tidal species.

Cait is so awesome!

At the Hatfield Marine Science Center

My favorite Octopus at the Newport Aquarium 

Shar Tank!

Best teachers ever!

All right, just being weird

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Yaquina Head and its inter-tidal zone.

National Parks Part 3-Are we there yet?

So onto the last part of the national parks trip. I would write some, blog some, and explain some, but I feel like just letting the pictures speak for themselves.

We stayed at Treasure Island-Verdict-Meh

 In Las Vegas we stayed a night at Treasure Island. Now I am not sure if it was the fact that our stay accidentally coincided with the Electric Daisy Carnival or what, but it was a mad house. All the idiot 20 somethings roaming around made it not so fun. Look there is me-practicing grandma already. :) You know what made up for it though? The Buffet. Why yes I did only eat dessert for the entire first course. Why yes it was fantastic!

Dinner, first Course

Neat Water Feature in Caesars Palace

Somewhere in Las Vegas-Hot

Sorry for the thumb print but this was the best place ever!

 I cannot rave enough about Mary's Hash House. That place made magical food. It was fantastic, best breakfast ever. Make sure you go sometime! http://www.hashhouse.net/ I tried to convince Mary to move to Oregon for us, but she woudl not commit. So sad.

 The last real big visit of the trip was the neat Old Yosemite Park. It was a great beautiful place to end on. I was so excited to see all of the history and view the places that I saw in the Ken Burns Documentary(yup I am that nerdy, prior to the trip I wanted the National Parks Documentary.) The nice part was that we got to see our friends and their kids that night. Its an odd park though because its so full of people and the camping sites are smaller. I think its due to it being such an old campground.

So glad to enter the park and hang out with friends.

I want to see this view every day.

 It was a great trip. We actually cut if off by a day and spent the night at a hotel and skipped Lassen National Park. That will have to wait for a future trip someday. One last view as you go, a giant lemon. It just cracks me up for some reason. :)

Yup, its a lemon