Exploring Mission San Jose

I'm not very good at this "former homeschool mom" thing.  I keep finding educational opportunities. 

The younger kids' school planned a trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium.  And then gave the kids the day before off as a "home study" day.  Well, that was inviting us to make it into a mini vacation, right?  So we turned it into a 3 day trip, with a side of missions on the drive. 

If you don't know about the California Missions, in a nutshell, there are 21 of them stretching from San Diego to Sonoma, started by priests from Spain in the 1700s.  The king of Spain wanted to establish a hold on his territory here, and the priests wanted to convert the Native Americans.  It's a complex and interesting part of California's history.  As times changed, and so did the ownership of California, the missions were secularized and many of them were used for other purposes or allowed to deteriorate.  Eventually, they were returned to the care of the catholic church, and many of them are active churches today (although a few are owned by the state and run through the parks system).  It's a personal bucket list item for me to see all 21 of the missions someday.  (I've been to 6.)  You can read about our trips to Mission San Diego de Alcala, and Mission San Francisco de Solano. 

We set off at 7:40 Monday morning, a mere 10 minutes after I hoped to be on the road, so I was thrilled! 

A couple hours later, we arrived at Mission San Jose, which is actually in the city of Fremont, not in the city of San Jose.  Both the mission and the eventual city were named after Saint Joseph, but that's the only connection. 

The Mission San Jose website has more information, as well. 

The kids were happy to get out of the car and explore! 

It was not quite 10 o'clock when we got to the door of the museum, but one of the staff poked their head out when they heard us try the door, and they took pity on us poor road trippers in need of a bathroom, letting us in at 9:56. 

After cycling everybody through the restrooms and then paying our entrance fee, we were ready to check out all the interesting exhibits. 

I did have the fleeting thought that it would make a cute picture to stick Katie in the cauldron, but I restrained myself. 

We saw many tools and handicrafts. 

The doorways in the missions are not as tall (or as standardized) as our doorways today. 

This room was set up like a little chapel, with explanations of the different pieces.

Liturgical vestments from the active mission time period.

Timbers from the original mission.

I loved that the kids could see the clay mixed with straw to make bricks.  Given the materials available for construction, the structures they created were really impressive!  But it's also no surprise that most of the missions have had to be rebuilt or reinforced heavily. 

The kids know what a mortar and pestle are from previous exposure, so I added a couple new vocabulary words for them.  Rosary and genuflect.  Hannah chose to draw a rosary in her trip sketch book. 

This quaint little chapel was much less intimidating than the "big church." 

Out in the gardens.

Checking out the fountain.  "Mom!  Why is there money in there?"  I could have sworn we covered that at the mission we saw in April, but I explained it again. 

If you look at the wall segments behind Jack...  those originally spanned between the church building (right) and the building on the left, which we've just come out of. 

The garden area was lovely, and I took the opportunity to get pictures of the kids in a pretty and relaxed setting. 

The fountain and the museum building from a different perspective. 

About to head into the church.  There were a few graves on this side of the church. 

Front of the church.

Back of the church.

Jack being irreverent. 

Out the other side of the church is the main cemetery. 

The gravestones and statues here are much more elaborate than the ones we would later see at the next mission.  Also, I found it interesting that they have a columbarium with modern (2016) remains interred there. 

Mission San Jose was a tranquil and interesting place to visit, and I'm glad we got to stop and enjoy it on our way to Monterey. 


This post may be linked up at these linky parties.

Thanks for clicking for us!

Cats, Picture Days, Shriners, and More

After 4 weeks of all the kids being in school, I can happily report that we're falling into our new routine nicely.  Mornings run smoothly, after school snacks and homework are happening, and so far, we haven't had a forgotten lunch box or an epic melt down (me or the kids). 

The drive out to the younger kids' school is nice, but I did have to sit in traffic one morning after dropping them off because a crash closed the road. 

I like to pull an activity out to have ready for Katie to play with when she starts wandering around looking lost while Hannah is doing her homework.  This was lacing cards. 

Jack working on computer homework.

I did some work on the school room and changed the direction of my desk, moved some stuff around, threw out a lot of paper trash that we didn't need any more.  I'm slowly getting rid of homeschool stuff we no longer need, and am thinning down some of our other books, as well.  It's progress, but I still have a long way to go. 

I got the wild urge to decorate over a week ago, and now the house is looking a bit more autumn-y.  There's a leaf garland on the piano, and a scarecrow family on the mantle, and some other little touches, too. 

Still using up the cupcake papers.  I've been throwing all sorts of random things in the muffins I've been making.  Hemp hearts are an easy addition that adds great nutrition without significantly altering the flavor. 

I think my favorite are the apricot muffins, but the banana nut ones were pretty good, too.  I've also used blueberries or craisins. 

It looks like Halloween, but it's actually picture day.  Since the seniors have Senior Pictures in the yearbook, they've taken to dressing weird for regular picture day. 

Jezabel, one of my current favorite kitties at SPCA.  She was unhappy in a small habitat, but since moving to a larger room, she's become quite the love bug! 

And Leo, another favorite.  He plays with enthusiasm, and had to take a little rest during our session, lol. 

Can you believe this Grumpy Cat lookalike is a feral?  It came into the feral spay and neuter clinic last weekend.  Some of the cats are pretty rough looking--you can tell they've had a hard life.  But some of them are soft and pretty. 

Speaking of cats...  There's my sweet Wheelie.  For those who don't know, he adopted us, many years ago.  He just kept showing up in our yard until we accepted that he was our cat.  Well, lately, it seems that he's been spending a good deal of time at one of the neighbors down the street. 

So it was very nice to have him come home and grace us with his presence for a few hours. 

This paper I found in Katie's backpack cracked me up.  She's "bin learning" quite a bit in school. 

Speaking of school, the younger kids had picture day, too.  Which I forgot about until the night before.  Jack's not big on button shirts, and frankly, it never seemed like an important issue, since he has a largely casual life.  Some frantic digging produced this shirt that used to be Eli's, and it was perfect.  Except the school insisted that he put a tie on for the picture.  And the tie in his backpack had stripes.  I'm expecting the pictures to be cringey.  I may just have him wear the shirt again and take my own. 

Pretty sure she would look cute in a burlap bag. 

As would Miss Hannah. 

Katie, making her spelling words with our phonics blocks.

Katie had been telling me every day, "I don't have any homework," and since she's my 9th kid, I had not actually bothered to open her backpack up to this point.  However, the teacher mentioned "in their homework packet" on the class app, so I thought I'd better investigate.  Turns out, she has had homework, the whole time.  And she's been telling her teacher every day, "Oh, I didn't do that last night."  Sigh.  Not sure where the disconnect is in her little mind.  I don't think it was malicious avoidance of school work, but I'm not coming up with a better explanation, either.  So, no Mother of the Year award for me this year. 

Paul and I spent a morning at Green Acres and Lowe's, oogling plants and having ideas.  We came home with a few things, including this Venus Fly Trap, which is already doing it's job. 

Spelling her spelling words with word tiles.  No words next week because of the big field trip (more about that later) but I'll be pulling out the sidewalk chalk for her words next month. 

The girls will be getting new legs.  The first step in that parade is to have the girls see the doctor so he can order new legs.  This was that appointment. 

Miss Katie even got an x-ray.  My poor television-deprived children found the Sesame Street playing in the imaging waiting area fascinating.

Done at Shriners and headed off to school! 

Boy asked Brianna to homecoming. 

The kids are loving the whole After School Snack idea.  I should have started this years ago. 

In fact, the one day that I wasn't able to make anything, Josiah stepped up and made these pumpkin spice cupcakes with pumpkin patch sprinkles. 

On the volunteering front, I've now hit over 75 hours, with more than 35 of those hours in September.  I don't think I'll have any problem hitting my goal of 100 hours in 2017.  I'm moving past the "everything is new and interesting" stage and starting to discover which opportunities I enjoy the most. 


This post may be linked up at these linky parties.

Thanks for clicking for us!