Alcatraz

 Ashlee and I, along with 3 of her friends their moms all went to Alcatraz together yesterday.   The 5th grade classes have been planning this field trip all year long, yesterday they finally got to go.  There are 50 5th graders in their school.  All but 6 kids, had at least one or more parent or grandparent go with them.  The group was huge.  The weather was perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.  A little windy on the boat ride over to the island, but other than that it was great. 

I have never been to Alcatraz, so it was a neat experience for both of us.  The day we visited there was a guy there who's father was a worden at Alcatraz, and he grew up on the island.  He has wrote some books about his experiences on Alcatraz and he was there signing books.

 Ashlee in front of a model of Alcatraz, before we boarded the boat to the island.

 Alyssa and Ashlee on the Boat.  Headed to the island.

Ashlee, Alyssa, Sarah and Lauren

The inside of a cell.

Ashlee in cell.  The tour is a self guided audio tour.  That's why we have headphones on.

Ashlee and I in a solitary confinment cell.  These were small and dark.

Alyssa and Meliesa

Looking out a prison window at the San Francisco Bay.

Sarah, Ashlee and Lauren

Lauren, Alyssa, Sarah and Ashlee in the gift shop at Alcatraz

This may look gross.  But there were 3 prisoners that made these heads out of soap and placed them in their beds to make it look like they were in their cells.  They escaped the prison through a utility room corridor using spoons.  They planned their escape for over a year.  They were never found and it is believed that they made it to South America (I think they became shark food).  But I guess one will never know.

After our tour on the island we had a late lunch on Pier 39 and headed home.  Needless to say, the bay area traffic was awful.  It took us 45min to get through one stop light, over 3 hours to get home.  While we were sitting in traffic, a crazy city driver came up along side us (my friend Meliesa was driving) and hit the mirror on the side of her car. Cut us off, got into the lane next to us, and acted as if nothing happened.  Since we were just sitting in traffic we decided to confront this crazy driver.  He knew what he did, but all he had to say was "I was in a turn line and needed to go straight.  So I needed to get over."  I guess to him that means you wipe out anything in your way to get in the lane you need to be in.  Thankfully there wasn't any damage and no one got hurt.  Traffic was slow all the way home.  Our trip to Alcatraz ended up taking 12 hours from start to finish.  We all had fun, but we were all a little tired.  It was a long day!

John's 35th Birthday

We had a really lo-key birthday celebration for John.  His birthday fell on a Monday, but Monday's are hectic and crazy around here between work, school, swimming,and the rabbits and chickens so the girls and I decided we would make his favorite cake and give him his gift on Sunday evening instead.

Dance Recital

Tonight we had the opportunity to watch the girls perform in their schools dance recital.  Ashlee also played her violin.

Ashlee playing the violin

Mikayla and Allison

Mikayla, Allison and Brooke

Ashlee and Alyssa they did like a fiftys song and wore poodle skirts

Allison's mom found these cute outfits for $7.86 so she grabbed some for Allison and her friends to wear.  They worked perfectly.

Mikayla, Allison, Brooke and Jordan

AR Award Mikayla

Mikayla received an award at a school assembly today for reaching 50 points in Accelerated Reader points.  This is a huge accomplishment for a 3rd grader.  Very few 3rd graders reach this many points.  Great job Mikayla.

Mikayla and her teacher Mrs. Crawford

Mikayla's Award

Columbia-Weekend Getaway

Last weekend we had reservations to go camping in Columbia since the girls were out of school for Spring Break.  Unfortunately, it rained nearly every day during Spring Break so we canceled our camping plans (we went to the snow instead) and rescheduled them for this weekend.   It was a hot weekend.  Last weekend we needed snow clothes and this weekend we were in shorts and wishing we could get in swimsuits and go swimming.  Unfortunately, the swimming pool at the campground was closed.  They don't open their pool until Memorial Day Weekend. 

Saturday we did some adventuring.  The plan was to go on a hike.  Ashlee got on her Ipod, found a hike on the South Fork of the Stanislaus River, wrote down the directions of how to get there and we were off in the truck to find the hiking trail.  Needless to say, we never found the hiking trail.  We ended up on some one lane uphill, twisty mountain road.  We found a waterfall and a nice view.  We even found cell phone service out on this road in the middle of no where. 

The waterfall:

 The view:

 Since the Ipod directions didn't work so well.  We decided to use the GPS to find the trail.  The GPS led us to the Stanislaus National Forest Office located in downtown Sonora.  I think it's time to update our GPS!  Well since we were half way from the campground and half way to Pinecrest, we decided to head towards Pinecrest and check out the campgrounds along the way.  We eventually ended up in Pinecrest.  It was hot, the girls wanted to get in the lake, but hey What happened to the lake?  Apparently they drain Pinecrest Lake in the winter time (we didn't know this).  So here is what the lake looked like.  They got to play in a little bit of water, but not much because we weren't prepared for swimming!

On the way back to the campground we stopped and got some ice cream in Mi Wuk Village and then headed back to camp to meet  my Mom, Terry, Grandpa Billy and Kay for dinner at El Jardin Mexican Resturant in Columbia. 

That was our short, but sweet weekend getaway trip to Columbia.  Thankfully we made it home without any problems.  As soon as we got home, John unhooked the trailer from the truck.  Went to get in the truck to go to the rabbits, went about 4 feet and the truck died.  The next day we had to have the truck towed to the shop.  Apparently some sensor in the fuel filter housing unit went out.  Luckily we didn't end up stranded somewhere!