Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse Tour

Saturday, January 15th, 2022

swiss-family-robinson-treehouse-tour

I’ve always been fascinated by treehouses, ever since, as a young girl, my parents took me to Disneyland in California, where one of the amusements was a replica of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse from the famous classic book and movie. My young eyes widened at the thought that people could survive without electricity and running water by creating their own sustainable lifestyle, which today would be called homesteading. Being a homeschool family, my husband and I built a fort in between some trees in our backyard that looked and felt like a treehouse, complete with a rope ladder.

Over the years, the kids played in their treehouse-like fort, and we eventually went to stay the night in a large treehouse in Oregon. We filmed our experience back then and put it into the Unit Study Treasure Vault, under our description of all the hands-on activities we did for the literature unit study for Swiss Family Robinson.

Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse Tour (video)

Well, today I have a treat for you, which is a tour of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse in Disneyworld, Florida, where my husband and I took our kids for a family reunion last summer. We walked through the entire treehouse, stopping at each area with the video camera, giving you a virtual tour:

Years ago when we read the book Swiss Family Robinson as a read-aloud, my kids were excited to draw treehouses from their own imagination. I think my oldest son was 8 years old when he created this drawing:

treehouse-drawing

Years later, my sister (my kids’ aunt) and I created a 3-D model of a treehouse from odds and ends of wood and other bits of cloth and pebbles. We fastened it all together with hot glue. This is what it looked like, along with a description of how we created the entire project:

miniature-treehouse
One of my younger sons (about 5 years old at the time) drew his own version of a treehouse:

young-child-treehouse-drawing

So kids of any age can enjoy creating drawings and sculptures of treehouses. One year at a state fair in our area, we saw some children’s models of treehouses. The children used popsycle sticks, branches, and other odds and ends to glue together their masterpiece:

child-mini-treehouse

We have truly loved the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse theme over the years, and now that we are able to give you a taste of it with this tour, we thought we’d add the drawings and treehouse models to inspire you. To find out what other hands-on activities we did for the Swiss Family Robinson unit study, you can see our cram-packed article inside our Unit Study Treasure Vault, along with our real-life overnight stay at a treehouse down in Oregon!

Canyonlands National Park

Monday, August 13th, 2018

canyonlands-national-park

When our family arrived at the top of one of the overlooks at Canyonlands National Park in Utah, we could see an immense canyon with bizarre red outcroppings jutting out of the ground. The summer heat penetrated our skin as we took in the beautiful panorama.

canyonlands

Canyonlands is a desert area, with flat-topped outcroppings that are striped with layers of sedimentary rock. The layers in the distance look purple and blue, making me want to paint the scene with oil paints on canvas. Or maybe a watercolor would bring out the soft hues in the rocks. I didn’t have any art supplies on hand, but we snapped over a hundred pictures. These were my favorites:

canyon

If you ever wondered what a butte looked like, here is a gorgeous picture of one. It seems strange that erosion wouldn’t have flattened the structure by now, since the surrounding area is so much lower. It looks unreal.

canyonlands-tops

This is an area known as “The Needles,” because the rocks jut up in needle-like structures, standing up like an army in the middle of an empty battlefield.

canyon-edge

The edge of the cliff reminds me of cartoons of Wile E Coyote, who chased Roadrunner through deserts like this, only to find himself falling off the cliff–often with an anvil rather than a parachute.

I liked how the tree grew near the edge, allowing people to sit in the shade to enjoy the view.

sitting-on-rock

Here I am sitting on a rock in the sun, from a different vantage point. (I would be paying for it later through a bright red suntan.) I slid the red dirt between my fingers and marveled at how different it was from the stark white sand we saw at White Sands National Park earlier in the week.

canyon-alan

My husband Alan is pictured here in front of a super interesting formation called “Island in the Sky.” From up above in a helicopter, you would see a blob like an amoeba carved into the ground like a ginormous cookie cutter. A river runs through the area.

canyonlands-tree

Gnarly trees like this one grow in this desert area, giving a small amount of shade from the intense heat.

canyonlands-plants

Most of the plants are lower to the ground, and they are sparser the further down the canyon you go–except for the river area, where you will find strips of green along the water.

canyon-view

You’ve really got to see this in person to get the full magnitude of the giant-ness of everything. Looking down from different angles at the beautiful rock formations is truly a breathtaking experience!

Making Sand Angels (White Sands National Park)

Monday, August 6th, 2018

making-sand-angels

I laughed when I saw my son making sand angels when we visited White Sands National Park in New Mexico. We were on our way to Canyonlands National Park, so we only spent about an hour playing in the sand, which was ultra fine and starkly white.

We took off our shoes and left footprints in the sand. The wind made ripples that made the sand look other-worldly. I felt like I was walking on the moon.

footprints-in-white-sand

My oldest son lay down and flapped his arms up and down in the sand to create a sand angel. He must have felt like the white sand resembled snow. Apparently the sand is made of white gypsum. This national park is the largest deposit of gypsum sand in the world.

sand-angel

Not very much grows in this sand; it’s kind of like a desert. In fact, there are lizards and other desert animals hiding in the dry shrubs.

white-sands-park

It definitely looks like another world. It’s silent except for the wind blowing on the sand.

white-sands-couple

Here’s a picture with my husband at White Sands National Park.

grass-tuft-in-white-sand

Here is a weird shrub on an outcropping. It looks like an enormous chia pet.

white-sand

You can see how bizzare this place looks. Its unusual white sand makes it a unique place to visit, and my kids loved it!

Tour of Panajachel, Guatemala

Monday, August 28th, 2017

tour-of-panajachel-guatemala

Another highlight of our trip was our tour of Panajachel, Guatemala. Growing up as a missionary kid, my family used to go to Panajachel once or twice a year to rest. The mission had a property that could be used for missionaries and other Christian workers. I loved this time we had as a family–without television and phones–to connect through conversation and card games.

Tour of Panajachel, Guatemala (video)

We ended up going on another boat ride to Santiago, which is right across the lake. This was the only lake town I ever visited as a child, so it was fun to go on the longer boat ride a few days before with my friend Christie’s family. Each town is unique and beautiful in its own way.

Guatemala is famous for its volcanoes, and Lake Atitlán is surrounded by them! Here is a picture of my family in front of a volcano:

family-panajachel

The lake reflects the blue of the sky, and it is tranquil until the late afternoon winds. As a child, I would sit on an inner tube, waiting for a boat to come by and make some waves.

lake-atitlan-guatemala

Through the clear water on the shore you can see pebbles and rocks, which is why we wore flip-flops when entering the water. When I was a kid, I would collect different-colored rocks and seashells along the shore.

rocks-at-panajachel

We walked through Panajachel and realized that the town has grown in size and become more commercial, especially along the lake shore. It used to be that there were no shops on the shore of the lake. Now there are several rows of shops and restaurants crammed along the entire length of the shore, sometimes on stilts.

market-panajachel

Each of the places we stopped had many booths filled with typical Guatemalan cloth and souvenirs. Shopping at Guatemalan markets is fun because you are able to bargain with them about the price. If you have white skin, people think you are rich, so they start the price higher than what they are expecting you to pay. If you think the price is too much, you can offer a more reasonable price.

panajachel-panorama

When leaving Panajachel, you must stop along the mountain and take pictures because the natural beauty of the area is breathtaking! This was a wonderful conclusion to our Guatemala Adventure!

Did you miss our previous Guatemala Adventure posts?

  1. Our Guatemala Adventure
  2. Río Dulce Boat Ride
  3. Tour of San Felipe Castle, Guatemala
  4. Tour of Tikal, Guatemala
  5. Tour of Flores, Guatemala
  6. Tour of Cobán, Guatemala
  7. Coffee Plantation Zipline Tour
  8. Meeting Our Compassion Child in Guatemala
  9. SETECA Seminary, Guatemala
  10. Tour of Antigua, Guatemala
  11. Lake Atitlán Boat Ride

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