school field trips--Mission talk and Sleeping Beauty (with puppets!)

We've taken a couple of great field trips this week!

We are on week #23 (out of 32) with our Mother of Divine Grace Curriculum.  That's AWESOME because the ~~shhh~~ big secret is that technically, once you get through week #24, you can be finished with the year.  Not that we will do that!!!!  But it is amazing to think that we are one week away from being in the "safe zone"...

On Tuesday morning I dropped the 2 youngest kids off with Mrs. Cole.  Mrs. Cole is a wonderful lady from church who has been doing childcare for years and years...and has agreed to a drop-in program for me!  The 4 older kids and I took advantage of this opportunity to hear a priest from Fathers of Mercy (based in Kentucky) give a talk for our week-long parish mission.  The talk focused on "Jesus: our Best Friend" and explained all the ways Jesus can be considered like our best friend.  :o)

At the Parish Mission

After the Mission, we went to my NEW favorite coffee shop,
Manaia!!  LOVE their "Snicker's Surf!"

Yesterday we headed to Portland for a Northwest Children's Theater production of "Sleeping Beauty...with Puppets!"  This time we left Bunny with her grandmother since Bunny is not feeling well, and I took the 5 youngest.  The kids were patient and awesome and really loved the morning!

Meeting with the STARlings before the show

I had organized this field trip for our homeschool group, so we were joined by 3 other families.  Gemma hit it off with a friend's daughter, so I see some playdates in our future. I loved that I could see some of my mom friends (and meet a set of grandparents, too!).

The performance was amazing!  NWCT always does awesome work (they've won a ton of awards).  All these puppets were hand-made by one guy, and all the script and music was original.  Really, I just can't say enough about the quality of this show, and of others I've seen at NWCT!!

Over the years, we've seen a good handful of fantastic shows at NWCT.  Some were traditional, like Annie.  Others were 100% unique, like "Go Dog Go, the Musical" and "Goodnight Moon."  I mean, really, how in the world can you make a WHOLE production out of those short books, without adding any additional story?  But they do, and it's awesome!  We really liked "Alice in Wonderland--Jazz Version" last year with all-original music.

After the show we stopped at Burger King for their nuggets
and fries, and a "custom" pop from their machine.

And a few PM pizzas for dinner, since Marcus was on
a trip.  Gotta make it easy for mama!!