Sunday, July 27, 2008

We Be Pirates!

Nature Girl's first job aspiration was to be a pirate. She's also added being a cook and a baseball player to her list of job aspirations but we thought it would be fun to be a pirate for a day. Pirate Adventures in Hyannis, MA. was on our summer fun list. We've already checked off a bunch of items on our list so Saturday we drove to The Cape and boarded the Sea Gypsy.The kids got to be part of the Sea Gypsy Crew. They wore pirate vests and got pirate tattoos. Nature Girl asked for a flower tattoo, she's a real tough pirate- lol! After heading out to sea the crew had to put together a puzzle to get the treasure map. Here's Nature Girl checking out the map.
Then they had to look out for sea monsters, a message in a bottle, a bad pirate named Slash who wanted to steal their treasure and of course the treasure. When they found Slash they had to do battle and try to sink his ship with water cannons. Nature Girl had fun but was a timid pirate! She wouldn't squirt Slash with the cannons and some of the pirate talk was too much for her. But all in all it was a fun adventure! All of the kids went home with a handful of treasure.
We had to rescue the bad pirate Slash from his sinking ship and he shared his grog(orange soda) with the crew. Nature Girl says the whole thing was her favorite part. My favorite part of the adventure was when the crew had to put their right hand over their left eye and swear to keep both feet on deck at all times, to take turns with the water cannons and to share the treasure with their crew!
I had the great idea to make us pirate shirts for the pirate adventure. I had planned to paint the skull design I had drawn but I discovered that I'd have to paint a lot of layers to get it dark enough to show on the black tee shirts. Of course I started this project the night before the trip so time was limited. In my defense we moved the trip up a day in anticipation of bad weather. In the end I decided to cut the skulls and crossbones from felt. I stayed up way too late working on these shirts and in the end the only Nature Girl wore her tee shirt. It was 90 degrees so we opted not to bake in the black tee shirts! Nature Girl was happy with hers and my husband and I can always wear them for Halloween.
Saturday morning I went thrifting with MB and found a bag of Potato Heads and accessories. When we cleaned them up we found this Potato Head Pirate. I also found a few other toys I plan to take to school with me this fall. I accepted a teaching position in a local school district. I'll be teaching special ed at the preschool and early elementary level. This job is similar to what I did in my before child life. I start teaching at the end of August so if I seem to disappear for a bit this fall that's why.