My Dads intristing job intervew

Today was a really bad day for my family after breakfast we got in the car and started our long drive to Auckland to my dad’s job interview. When we were just outside of town we got a really bad flat tire. My dad would have been on time for the interview but the flat tire screwed it up. My dad made us all get out of the car and wait for him to unload the car and get the spare tire out.  With lots of cussing he changed the car and got lots of mud on his dress pants. Then he reloaded the car and started to drive to his interview. Nobody said anything because by dad looked really scary. Whale he was at his interview my mom and my sisters and I went to a bakery nearby and ate some pastures’ I had a really good pastry with chocolate and custard. After we picked up my dad we went to a car repair place and dropped of our flat tire. Then we went to the mall and went grocery store and got lunch. Then we went back to the tire repair shop and ate lunch (sandwiches with lettuce, avocado and roast beef) and looked at car magazines whale we wanted for the store to replace our tire.

            After a night in Auckland we went on a long drive back to Mount Maunganui we got another flat tire right outside a shell gas station with a mechanic shop right outside of it. So we pulled into the shop and wanted wall the mechanic fixed our flat. My dad watched whale my sisters and I went to the gas station store and looked at magazines until the manager kicked us out. Then we played rugby until the flat tire was fixed. I thought it was a coincident that we got our flat right outside of a mechanic shop. Maybe the mechanic put nails out on the road to make more people come to his shop.

Zander     

Flat tires!!

On Wednesday we woke up early because daddy had a job interview in Auckland. We had to dig out his nice clothes from where they were deeply buried at the bottom of like three different bags. Then we had to unpack another few bags to find his hiking boots which were the nicest shoes he brought (yeah I know. Wow. He is obviously not planning to actually get a job on this trip). We were going to be early and we were making plans to stop at the park for a little while before the interview when we heard a clunking noise coming from the back left wheel of the car. Daddy said a few words that I won’t repeat on the internet and pulled over to the side of the freeway. He then yelled at us to get out and stand as far away from him as possible (he needs his space in these kinds of situations) and started pulling our luggage out of the trunk and throwing it on the ground. He found the spare and the tire changing tools and got to work. By the time he finished he had sweated enough to fill a few buckets and maybe a swimming pool and I had decided that mommy had totally wasted her time ironing his shirt. When he was done we finished driving to his interview on the dinky little spare which was way smaller than the other tires. We got dropped off at a park with some snacks and he got to his interview only seven minutes late. We walked around and ate some carrots and yogurt before we got cold and decided to go to a bakery for a treat. After daddys inteview we went and got it fixed.

The next day we were doing the usual driving around in circles with no idea where we are going, and the other back tire started making clanky noises. About a hundred meters down the road form where it started there was a Carters Tyre Repair Shop. Hmmm suspicious... I totally thing they had some nails in the road or something, but if not it was just lucky. I think if daddy had needed to change a tire again he would have ruptured an artery.

the end

by mia

were I want to live 7/28

Momma and dada don’t like to live in cities because they are too busy. Auckland was really nice because it was shiny and cleaner than LA. I want to try living in down town Auckland but mommy and daddy don’t want to get stuck in traffic  

 Hamilton was the right size by mommy and daddy standard, I liked Hamilton too, it had really cool parks and it wasn’t too spread out like other places, also Hamilton was a really cool community.

 Mt. Maunganui is on a really nice beach. I really want to live in Mt. Maunganui because it’s on the beach and has some really cool looking houses and  it has lots of parks. The beaches  had lots of cool shells  and the sand white and fine, also the water was a really cool shade of blue .

-Kayley

All the places we have been....

Auckland is the biggest city which automatically makes it the best in my book. Hamilton is the third biggest city and Taranga is just a little town thing by the beach. I really like Auckland because of the lights and the shininess of the city. Hamilton also has cool lights but it’s not as big. Taranga is smaller so there aren’t really any cool lights but it’s a cute little coastal town with only like three tall buildings. Mt. Eden was very similar to Taranga in that it is small but it is not near the beach.  Almost all of the towns that we have been to are set up pretty much the same. There is one (or two depending on the size of the town) main street with all the shops and restaurants on it. Then there is a big grocery store or pharmacy somewhere else. All those kinds of downtowns are really similar because they have just a bunch of small cafes, restaurants, mini marts, and clothes shops. There also tends to be a lot of sushi and Thai take away. Also, the weird thing is that it all closes down around dinner time for some reason. Around that one street is the residential areas, the parks, schools and fields.

Central Auckland is like that except a lot bigger and nicer and it doesn’t close up at five. The more central parts of Hamilton are somewhere in between the two. When we went out to sushi the other night in Hamilton there were little light projections on the sidewalk of flowers and the word Hamilton in big letters. Also, every other street light was blue. It was really cool. I have also noticed that in all three places there are a ton of hair and nail salons and spas and stuff. There are really nice parks everywhere and they are way different from the ones in SLO because they are actually fun and there is barely any plastic on the play structure. They all are so similar that I really can’t tell the difference between all the smaller ones. I know that Auckland is the biggest and has the awesome down town. I know that Hamilton has a lake and a river in it and the lake has a really good café next to it. And I know that Taranga has a beach. I can’t tell the difference between the little towns in Auckland and places like Taranga because they seriously look exactly the same.  So pretty much I don’t really care where we end up living because it would be the same as any other town that size…. All I ask is that I don’t have to go to an all girls school because that would  just take all the fun out of my education. That pretty much cuts down our options by 99% because all the high schools I’ve seen are all girls. L I don’t think my parents can really tell the difference between towns either because half the time we don’t  know where we are. Even with the map! We also spend much of our time driving in circles. Even the countryside looks the same; there are lots of green grass and sheep. They also seem to be into making giant hedges. Its really cool, they plant a bunch of tall trees really close to each other and trim them like hedges. They turn into super tall thick walls. You probably couldn’t get through one of those things without a chainsaw. Adios!

~~~~~ ………M……I……A……!......... THE END.

The Hot Springs

On Monday we went to the hot springs in Hamilton. When we were driving there I felt sick because the road was curvy. When we got there manager had just pulled up. My dad told here that we had four kids and two adults. She asked us if we were American and we said yes. Then she asked us if we voted for Obama or McCain. We told here we voted for Obama and she said come on in. There were three pools. The first pool we went into was the warmest then we went into the colder pool with a little slide that I slid down. The third pool was for little kids. There was two big water slides one was strait and one was curvy and you would almost fall off the edge. We had mats to sit on when we were going down the curvy one. Mia taught me to bend the front corners up to go faster. On some parts you would lose your mat and get it back on the slide. Other time you would not get it back until the end. I lost my pad and didn’t get it back twice. I did get it back six times. At the parts where you curve of the curly slide you would almost fall off.  I rode the swirly slide 33 times and the straight one once. The straight slide is light blue and the swirly slide is dark blue on the inside and white on the inside. Outside of the water it was really cold. In the warm pool it smelled like sulfur where the hot water came out. At the hot springs itt was very fun.

THE END

By Sarah

Typed by Mia!!!

Hot springs in Hamilton

   

When we were checking out Hamilton New Zealand, the third bigger city in New Zealand we had to go to go to the hot springs that they are famous for.  When we got there the manager had just pulled up. She said after we told her that we were American then she asked if we voted for Obama of McCain… We said Obama and she said “right answer” and let us in. 

When we got in we went to the warm pool first and when you get closer to the heater it smells like sulfur. There was also a colder pool with a small water slide for people that are 12 and younger. Then the manager came and opened up the big slides.

 There were two big slides one was strait the other one was bendy. I liked the curvy one better because with the pads you could go really fast. The strait one you could go fast but the water from the slide would go into your eyes.  So I went down it and a lot until my feet got numb. The only problem with it was that when you go under a part of the slide it drips on you, and if you go fast then you get really close to falling off the slide on the tight curves. One’s I almost fell on my head because the slide was in a semicircle and I was at the top of the circle before I came down.

driving in NZ

In New Zealand the driver’s seat is on the right side of the car and you drive on the left side of the road instead of the right. When we first got here dadda had big problems with remembering which side of the road to drive on and he kept going to the wrong side of the car to get in. Also, all the buttons for wind shield wipers and headlights and turn signals are on the opposite side so he had trouble finding them too. For a while he kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal and stuff. He even started driving in the wrong lane a few times. To be honest I am surprised that we are still alive…. He is a bit better now but he did start driving on the right on the way back from the hot springs. We were also going the wrong way that time and we drove for like half an hour before he figured it out. He didn’t realize that he was on the wrong side of the road until a car started coming in the other direction. That has happened like five times already and we are all still alive. I guess daddy has some really good swerving skills.

Car auction #1!!!!:) 7/24/2011

Here, in New Zealand they import barely used Japanese cars because in Japan there are rules that people can’t drive cars that are too old so they give them to New Zealand and probably other places too. Here they auction the cars and on our second day here we went auction at Turner’s Auction house to get a car.

When we got to the auction house Mommy took some pictures of me and the place for this blog. Meanwhile Daddy was doing paper work at the front desk, after a while we walked in to the warehouse were they parked the cars that were being auctioned. Then we looked around for cars that would seat six and we found a few and test drove one but the steering was sketchy so we crossed it of the list. A while after that they started the auction. The auctioneer on our side was kind of oldish and he could talk really fast. After a while Mia and I got really cold and went to the car with Zander. We didn’t get a car that time.  

The next day daddy went to another car auction and found a car. He got a Nissan chalet it was really nice and had leather seats.

       

Sarah's journal 7/12

Auckland

The second day we were in NZ we went to downtown Auckland to walk around and eat dinner and stuff. I think that place is my new favorite city!! Its super clean, really shiny and all lit up. There is barely any gum stuck to the ground and I have no idea how they keep all the glass so nice. There are a bunch of cool colored lights so its not just white lights and glass and steel. There are lights of all different colors everywhere. It’s all really modern and there’s a lot of glass everywhere. Also, there are fountains and statues everywhere. All the restaurants are all really nice so we kinda had trouble finding one that wasn’t way to fancy for us. We ended up getting sushi at the ferry terminal (it was good!). There was also a crazy good gelato place so that just made it more awesome. Compared to LA, where we had been a few days earlier, it was really clean and nice. Nothing against LA, that’s still my second favorite city (so far) but Auckland is just sooo clean and shiny (I love shiny things)!!! I thought it was just because it was night time but it’s still clean and shiny during the day. Like LA, Auckland is really, really sprawled, but while LA is just houses and streets everywhere Auckland is so spread out that you can be in a town and see sheep and cows on a nice grassy hill if you drive for like two minutes. Its really cool, but I still like the center of Auckland better. Grass isn’t shiny and neither are cows.

 Also, its really funny because there are people standing outside all the restaurants who sorta politely force a menu upon you and nicely shove you inside when you are walking by. They do that a lot here. It actually works sometimes! We went to a little complex of restaurants intending to go to one, but the one right next to it had this guy come out and hand us menus and stuff then he just started talking about how awesome the food was at his restaurant and eventually we just went inside. Turns out he had talked up the food a bit but it was still really good. People here are smart like that, practical I guess its cool, and really different from the US.

~MiaIsCoolAndYouKnowIt J

Alaska summary

In Alaska we went to Denali, Rangel- St. Elias, Prince William Sound, Homer, Seward, and Whittier. I liked Alaska because it didnt get dark out at night. I was happy and sad to leave Alaska. I was happy because I did not have to sleep on the floor anymore. I was sad because we didnt get to see the Northern Lights. On our last day we went to Erikas house for dinner. Erika is one of Mommy's friends form soccer. After that we went to the airport then we checked our bags and went to the security scanner. Finally we boarded the plane.
THE END
by Sarah
typed by Mia!!!

Dear Jurnal, writen 20/7-21/7

 Yesterday  my family and I flew in from LAX and arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. When we FINALLY got off the Airbus 320 after a 13 hour flight we walked to the glass desks were a lady checked and stamped our passports. The flight had started on Sunday and ended on Tuesday because we had crossed the date line. Then we walked to the baggage claim to pick up our checked bags and to plop them on the cart.Then we pushed the two carts to the place were they X-RAY the bags to make sure we didn't bring any special bugs with us. Then Daddy led Sarah and I out of every one's way and he went of to get the tents. Then the rest of the gang came so we went through the WAY OUT door just as Daddy came out of some other door with the tents. The tents were unrolled so daddy told Zander and I to roll one while Mia and Sarah to roll the other. When we got out of the airport it was so cold you could see your breath and I was wearing shorts so I was really cold and we had to wait a while for a taxi. When the taxi finally came we piled on, it was weird because the driver is on the right side and he drove on the left side to the Kiwi Inn. were we were going to spend our first night.  

There is a big difference in over seas and national flights. Flying international on Quantic airlines is a lot more comfortable then flying national because the Quantic flights are a lot more comfortable because they have to be because they are longer. They also have bigger airplanes like the Airbus 320 and 380, and the Boing 747.On the national flights they don’t give you entertainment. But International flights they give you free movies, games, and TV; I really liked that because they had all the new releases, so I watched The Mechanic, Just go with it, Modern Family. They also give you ear phones a pillow and a blanket and the seats are much bigger and newer. Our flight was a late night flight and they gave us dinner (fish) and breakfast (cereal) with a snack bag a few hours in. The National flights give you small seats and a few drinks; on the longer flights they might give you some peanuts. The only thing that was better about the national flights was that there were less people in them then there is in the international flights.

Zander

My family and I had to stop at LA for 10 hours for our flight to New Zealand. The first thing we did was find a place to watch the woman’s world cup (Japan vs. America) Japan won in PKs I was mad because America missed all but one of theirs and Japan made all but one of their PKs because America ad bad shots then we checked our bags and caught a taxy from the airport to the beach we had a really old driver that on city roads would never go slower than 60 mile per hour I thought that was pretty cool. Then we got our bathing suit on and swam in the ocean. The ocean was warm enough to swim without a wet suit and was really refreshing after a long plane ride from Saint Luis. After swimming we made mommy into a sand mermaid because she said that it felt good. After that we went on a really long walk to a subway and ate dinner next to a pear It felt good to eat subway and sit down. Then we walked to the end of the pear and got dissert at a store on the pear I got a big Oreo ice cream bar, after dissert we looked at the fish in the aquarium behind the restaurant the fish looked really misrule because they were crammed into a small little tanks with lots of other fish. Then we took a cab back to the airport to get on our flight.

Zander  

In 2 days we went from Saint Luis to LA to Auckland New Zealand and there was a substantial difference in there whether. Saint Luis was really hot and humid... I hated it because it was so humid that if you walk out outside all the cloths that you were wearing will get damp. LA was warm and sunny and was perfect because it was not to hot that you couldn’t walk barefoot like I like to do but not to cold. Auckland was cold and wintry and rained every day I don’t like it because I like to wear a t shirt and shorts but hear you have to wear a rain coat. Since they are on opposite sides of the world the summer in LA and Saint Luis but it was cold and winter in New Zealand. It is like that because they are in different hemispheres, and in the northern hemisphere it could be summer the southern hemisphere it could be winter.                                                                                                                                                                  

Zander

St Louis Family Reunion

From Alaska we took a plane to Chicago (on a plane all night, everyone was super grumpy) then to St. Louis. We got all our luggage and lugged it up to the rental car. The car was wayyy too small for a family of six even without a ton of bags so we were all squished together, six people in a five seater car, sharing with the luggage. And to top it off outside was like an oven outside except it was humid so it was like a pot of boiling water. Yeah. Gross. It wasn't so bad after a while when we cranked up the AC and stopped at Subway for lunch (EAT FRESH!!). We ate our sandwiches and drove to the Gateway Arch. That thing is giantly tall!! We didn't go on top of it but we decided that Percy Jackson was lying when he said he jumped off the Gateway Arch and into the Mississippi because the Arch is not over the Mississippi- there’s quite a lot of concrete underneath it though... (if you don't know what I'm talking about with all the Percy Jackson stuff, then you should go read The Lightning Thief or watch the movie or something). It was still boiling outside of course so that trip ended pretty darn quick. We then got back into the air conditioned car (thank god) and began driving to the Pere Marquette Lodge. We got lost about a million times (thanks to the Blackberry GPS which kept leading us to ferries that had stopped ferrying years ago and all sorts of dead ends and things) but finally we got to the lodge. We got checked in and brought all our luggage into the room. Then we all took a nap.

When we finally woke up a few hours later, we all took off to the pool. After we got out all the kids moved their stuff into the other room (which was a bit bigger than the parent’s room and daddy didn’t like that). Then we went to the lodge restaurant to eat dinner. In the lobby thing there is a bunch of games including checkers (which I am terrible at) and a giant chess board. Frank said it’s the biggest chess board in the US but I know for a fact that there’s a plastic one about twice that size in Avila Beach.

The next day we went to a 100 ft tall tower that you could see where the Illinois River joins with the Mississippi from the top of. It was pretty cool because one of the rivers was brown and the other was sorta greenish brown so you could see where they joined. Then we went to a Louis and Clarke museum and stockade thing. After we saw all that we went to lunch. It was really yummy!!! After we got back to the lodge we went swimming and Uncle Duncan and Aunt Eileen and Everett and Georgia (OMG THEY ARE SO CUTE!) arrived and everyone pretty much turned into their slaves haha. Then we had a fancy shmancy buffet dinner yummyumm.

The next day we went to another museum. This one was about a bunch of piles of dirt that some natives built a long time ago. It was amazing if your thought about it, but if you don’t, its just some grass covered piles of dirt. Then we watched a movie about it at the museum that talked about how they don’t know very much about the mounds except that they are old. Then we went to a winery in Grafton for lunch. When we got back to the lodge we went swimming and had some extremely violent chicken fights before dad came out and made us go back to the room to pack. When we finished that we went outside for a family picture that took like 20 minutes because there were a bunch of different cameras that it had to be taken with.  Then the whole entire family went to a restaurant for dinner. They took the kids orders last so everyone else was finished eating before the kids got served. It was good food though. When we got back to the lodge we said bye to all the people and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up way to early and got in the already loaded car and drove to the airport. We returned the car and checked all our bags and boarded a plane to LAX. I <3 LA!!!!

Someone else gets to tell you what happened after that but it was super fun!!! I lovee California J!!!

~MiaIsCoolAndYouKnowIt

Target practice in camp

      When we were river rafting  in Wrangell-St. Elias we had to stop and camp for the night. But we had to use up some extra ammo. So we set up a makeshift shooting range with some beer and soda cans filled with water. We put them on a log that was 100 yards away. The cans that we used were the cans of beer and soda that we drank on the river.

     We had a unexpected surprise our gun jammed so bad that it was not a semiautomatic gun any more, after every shot you had to open the action and eject the cartage. It jammed because the inside of the gun got some  sand in it. I think that it got sand in it because we set it on the ground allot and the ground was really sand.

      After shooting for a little while we went to our target and fond out that the ammo that we used determines the size of the whole it makes. We used full metal jackets and soft points. Soft points have led tips so when the impact they change shapes whale the full metal jackets stay in the same shapes. The full metal jackets made circular holes, whale the soft point rounds made really big holes and splintered the wood when they came out.

Zander

Chitina River Rafting Trip

On Friday we went and picked up our awesome purple cataraft after pickup and loaded the thing  in the car. The poleds were sticking every where and the 8 hour drive to McKarthy was pretty uncomfortable. When we finally got to the campsite we walked a mile to the itsy bitsy little "town" (haha its to small to be a town) of McKarthy. All it was was a few tiny museums, 2 restaurants, a few houses, and a hotel. We went to the saloon and got soda and really yummy fries for like $50 (no joke). We walked back and set up camp, ate dinner and attempted to put together our raft. It was really frustrating so we got about half done and saved the rest for the next day.
On Saturday we finished putting together the raft and packed it up. Then we lugged it over to the river and put in. Only the older people were going on the trip so it was just me and Zander with dad. We packed a cooler with soda and beer for extra fun. The rapids on the first day were bigger then the second so we wore wet suits to stay worm. That didnt really work because the wind went right on through. We stopped and camped when we came down from our sugar high (about 5:30) and set up before we took our the gun and shot all our empty soda and beer cans. It was pretty loud and when we got back Sarah said she had heard the gunshots! After shooting we ate some dinner and went to sleep.
The next day we woke up at like 7:30 and got going at around 8:30 (way to early). The river was a lot slower and wider and we got hung up on gravel bars like 5 times (mostly Zander's fault) and we had to get out and push. It was not as fun either because we only had one drink left each :(. We sat and talked the entire time, which, now that I look back on it, I wonder how we actually talked for that long. The wind picked up a lot so we had to actually row if we wanted to go somewhere. When we got to where the Copper River met up with our river there was a huge whirlpool thing that was sucking down one of our pontoons a little it was so strong. Dad did some hard core rowing against the wind for the last few miles until we landed. We took apart the raft and stuffed it all in the car as fast as possible because the wind was throwing sand at us (bad wind! dont throw sand!). Then we went out to dinner and ate 2 large pizzas, breadsticks, and 2 salads. Yummy :) ~mia

camping along the Katina River July9,2011

Yesterday we left Anchorage,and came  here,the base camp on the Kennicott river. We came here to  launch Mia,Zander, and Daddy in the purple cateraft. They were going on a hunting/rafting trip and Sarah, Mommy, and I were gonna camp. They launched this morning, and after that Sarah, Mommy and I ate lunch. Then we walked to a glacier lake and gathered fire wood and swam. Then we came back to the camp site and I started reading then Mommy braided my hair and I wrote in my Jurnal.

                             

This is Sarah sleeping in peace.

Denali compared to other backpacking trips July7, 2011

One thing that Denali has that other places don't have is you pick an area and get a permit and you can go any where in that area because there ar no trails. Were we were droped of the ground was spungy, wet, and was reallyhard to walk through so we mostly walked on the river bed were the ground was all rocks. We had to cross lots of streems to stay on the river bed so our feet were allways wet.

While we were in Denali it rained the first night and second night so it was extra buggy and wet. One of the rules is you can't make fires because moving rocks are sopposed to impact the wildernes that is way different from other places. Also it was never dark out so thats realy diffrent but we also saw Mt. McKinley!

Denali Backpack

On Sunday we got up early (for us, I guess... it was like 9am) and drove 4 hours to Denali. We went to get our backcountry permit and found out that we had to completely change the plan that dad had made because the river we were going to have to cross was too high. It took an hour or so to get the permit and watch a safety video and listen to a safety talk that a ranger told us really really fast like he had told it a million times and didn’t have to think about it anymore. Then we got these black plastic container things that are for protecting food from bears and caught a bus into the park. On the drive over we saw a grizzly bear by the side of the road. There were like 3 buses pulled over next to it and it didn’t even pay any attention to us!  It was really cute J. Then the bus dropped us off about 500 yds after we saw it so it was a bit scary…. So anyway they dumped us at the side of the road with our stuff and we hiked (more like bushwacked but that’s what happens when there isn’t a trail) for about 10 mins around a little hill so we could camp out of sight of the road (that’s the rule). We stuffed all our food in the bear cans and ate dinner then went to bed. (I cut that short  because if it keep writing this detailed this is going to take a million years and Zander is waiting for me to get off the computer).

Ok, day 2 we packed up and walked back to the road so we could cross the river on the bridge but we couldn’t so we crossed the river on foot and got pretty wet. We hiked along the river bed for a while and crossed where we had to. Then we set up camp and ate dinner. It was still pretty early then so dad made us all a deal that if we climbed to the top of a little hill with him he would take a day off the trip. Of course we said yes!! After we climbed the hill we all went to bed.

Day 3 during breakfast daddy told us that if we hiked up a bigger mountain we would go home that day. I have no idea why dad suddenly cut our trip 3 days short for no apparent reason, but it was totally okay by me. So we hiked up the big mountain for an hour and a half and dad dropped his camera off the top but he went down and got it. We got back down and packed up our stuff. Then we hiked back down the river and waited on the side of the road for a bus. Like 2 came and there wasn’t enough room for all of us so we had to wait for another one. We finally got on a bus that conveniently had exactly six empty seats! On the way back we saw a few caribou, a wolf, and Mt. McKinley which only 30% of the visitors actually get to see because of the weather. It was really big!!! But I guess that’s the point. After we returned our bear cans we hopped in the car and started driving home. We stopped at a cool local pizza place and had really yummy pizza and watched some drunk people play beanbags. When we got home it was actually dark!! That was the first time I’ve seen darkness in Alaska… that’s pretty sad!!

The End! By Mia (that’s why its so good… just kidding)

Weather in Denali

         Denali has a very difffrent whether pattern then the places aroud it. When it could be sunny and warm out side the park it could be raining and cloudy in Denali. We were there for 3 days and for 1 and a half days it was sunny and the other part it was eather raning or overcast.  Denali is a rain forest and so in a few hours it could go from sunny and warm to being rainy and cold.
          On the way back from the Backpacking trip we got to see Mount McKinley. It is 20 thousand feet above sea level and is the tallest mountain in North and South America and its 2 peaks are above the clouds.We were one of the 30% of parkvisitors to see the mountain, 70% of park visiters don't get to see the mountain even though it is what they came to see. They cant see it because it is really cloudy and overcast around the mountan.
         
Zander

Weather and Cowering

On our Kayak trip we had good weather for the first two days but it was rainy and cloudy the rest of the time. On the 2nd night it rained and we ate M-n-M pancakes that daddy made in the tent in the morning. On the 3rd day it was really cloudy. When we camped it started raining it rained the next day too. We cowerd under a tarp while we waited to be piced up, and we played cards for a long time.


-Kayley

the kayak

                                                                                                                                   7/2/11


           On monday we finish our kayak. I made lots of disers.The diserts I made were jello, puding and, other stuff . My  dad made hot chocolate and M&M pancakes. We even tried to make ice cream. How we made ice cream was:
we got sweetened and condensed milk and cream and mixed them together with m&ms then we put in coffee for flavoring. Then we freezed it by putting the small bowl that had the stuff in it and put it in a big bowl that had glacier ice in it. We put salt on the ice to melt the ice so it gets really cold. then we stirred it every five minutes. It didnt work and we ended up drinking it.

How i made pudding was by getting a chocolate Jell-o pudding packet and mix it with milk. then you boil it. How you make jello is different. You get a packet of jello mix and mix it with boiling water then you refrigerate it. Now that you know how to make camping desserts I hope you try it. bye!!
~Sarah

Whales in the kiake trip

Humpback Whale:


 



        On the first day kayaking my mom saw some Humpback whales. She saw 2 of them travailing together and they would come to the surface and spray water in the air. They migrate in the winter to the Arabic sea and in the summer they go to the Northern Arctic to eat. Just before it went out of sight it sufficed and made a splash with its tale. The males are normally 40-48 feet and the females are  45-50 feet. It felt kind of scary being 50 feat away from a whale  in a kayak. With one sweep of its tail it could tip us over.