Tag: volcanoes

My son’s media of the moment

Yoto. He uses his mini Yoto audio player every day, which is an excellent screen-free source of “edutainment”. He’s always ready to spout facts he’s learned from the many nonfiction cards he enjoys. (Some terms he’s learned and repeated: hominid, pyroclastic flow, and bioluminescence among others.) Current favorite cards on repeat these days include Volcanos, Creepy Crawlies, Ancient Egypt, and many more.

Prehistoric Planet. This Apple TV+ documentary series is just Planet Earth with dinosaurs (David Attenborough narration included), therefore it rules.

Floor Is Lava. Since he was really getting into volcanoes, we gave this Netflix game show a spin and found it to be goofy fun. He started making his own courses at home and implementing the rules and tropes from the show, like the teams cheering for themselves.

Paw Patrol. Welp, it finally happened. We’d avoided exposing him to this until he listened to a Paw Patrol Yoto card, and now he’s all about it—even sometimes above Bluey.

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak. This isn’t a new one for him but we checked it out from the library recently and he’s fallen in love again.

February 7, 2023 Add Comment

Rockin’ Guat 2009: Episode 9

HIKING, HOT SPOTS, AND HARDCORE PATRIOTISM

Hey all, we’ve been in Antigua for the week helping Hector and wandering the town. We connected with Gerber, mom’s friend down here whom I will hopefully be accompanying to the jungle in northern Guatemala sometime during this trip.

Yesterday we visited a school where Gerber’s sister is the principal. Elise and I sat in on a math class for a few minutes. We were both brought back to the good ol’ days of learning how to add fractions. Well, for Elise it was more like reliving a nightmare…in Spanish. It was cool, though, because we met a team from California there who was painting and building stuff for the school.

That meeting turned out to be a great thing because we were able to tag along with them today to the Pacaya Volcano. The first part of the climb was a pretty leisurely incline, but once we hit the lava part, it became more interesting. It’s an active volcano, but the ground we were walking on was all old, crumbly lava. Elise and I enjoyed the fact that we were pretty much the only ones in the group who were not huffing and puffing and opting for horses that were provided for weary hikers. We trekked the whole way up and down. Take that, Californians!

Some John Denver would have been appropriate right about then.

The view was spectacular. We weren’t allowed to go to the very top of the volcano, but we stopped at the next highest portion where the rocks were hot from the active insides of the volcano. The mountains in the background are also volcanoes–some active and some not.

Mmm, lava marshmallows... — Mmm, lava marshmallows…

People were roasting marshmallows over some pits that exuded some very hot air. They roasted crisp in a few seconds. It was very windy up there, but I wholly enjoyed the stunning view once the clouds cleared. And since today is Independence Day, Elise and I sang our own a capella version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” when we reached the peak. Here’s to you, America.

We were thoroughly nuked but refreshed from the hike, so afterward we did some laundry and visited a cool little bookstore/cafe called the Cafe Rainbow. Tomorrow hopefully we’ll be going to church with Irma, another one of mom’s Guatemalan friends. After that, who knows what will happen…

July 4, 2009 Add Comment