M+B=E2O2

Fun day!

I had to go to SB to see my surgeon this morning, so I decided to make a day of it with the kids. I was done by 11am so we had plenty of time to play. The plan was to go to the Maritime Museum, however we got slightly sidetracked by all the random pianos on street corners. We found a place to park and went to investigate. Turns out it was a project called Pianos On State St and it was very cool! They had 12 pianos set up. We did three of them before the kids were hungry and ready for lunch. I would have loved to have gone with a bunch of our piano playing homeschool friends, too bad the installation is over on the 12th!

 

 

We headed to the harbor for some lunch, then couldn't resist a short beach walk before hitting the museum.

 

 

 

The museum was awesome, very hands on and kid friendly. We spent well over two hours there and could have probably stayed longer, but I really wanted to get home before dark. Unfortunately, we were driving while one of the most beautiful sunsets was happening. I made sure all the kids turned around to look since I couldn't.

 

 

 

I love spending time with the kids like this. This is by far one of the best parts about homeschooling. Impromptu piano street concerts, awesome lunch time discussions (we discussed which super power we would want and why, also talking about the downfalls of various super powers), walks on the beach and a near empty museum, full of amazing stuff to play and learn with. A fun filled day, capped by an amazing sunset and homemade chicken soup in the crockpot waiting for us. I don't know that it could get any better.

 

 

 

 

 

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Big Bear Birthday Fun

We spent another 4 days in Big Bear.  This was our second trip up there, last year we went mid April.  There wasn't much snow that trip, but it was a peaceful & fun-filled and had us eager to return.  This time we really wanted to go when the mountains were snow filled so that the kids could really have a chance to *know* snow.  It ended up working out that we were able to go the weekend before my birthday- not a bad present!  We were able to leave Friday afternoon, however it was not quite early enough to miss LA traffic.  It got dark before we got to the bottom of the mountain, so we opted to just spend the night in San Bernadino, there were a few sections of 18 that had snow showers, and being non snow drivers it just seemed like a good idea.  The kids are always up for a hotel sleep over so they were happy to stop. We had dinner at Denny's and were seated next to two nuns.  My kids love to eat, so restaurants are not much of a chore for us.  They are well behaved more often than not which is nice.  As we were leaving the nuns stopped me and complemented our family.  It really just made my day.  (After 4 hours of driving in LA traffic with them- well- sometimes it is nice to see them through the eyes of others!) 

Saturday morning we hit up IHOP for breakfast then hit the road.  Olivia tends to get a little green after a while if the road is too curvy.

She asked for some sunglasses as we got further up the mountain.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of her.  Not too long after this shot we put the headphones on her and she fell asleep, thereby skipping out on motion sickness. (FYI if you didn't know, listing to music on headphones can help out). 

We had the privilege and honor of using my friend's family cabin for our stay, it was home away from home without a doubt.  More on that in a bit.  We got our stuff in the house, shoveled the icy snow off the driveway and had some lunch.  After lunch we went on a mission to find someplace to do some sledding.  We found a little spot with some little hills and had some fun.  The snow was soft enough to make some snowballs (if you look close at the photo in the top right corner of the collage you can see Owen throwing a snowball- Daddy and boys had a grand time having snowball fights!) 

Evan 's primary objective was trying to fall or crash, he is such a ham!  Olivia loved the sledding, as evident by the look on her face.  Emma made friends with a mom on the same little hill as us. She is the owner of the green and yellow inflatable Evan was using and the snowball makers that Emma is using.  She spent quite a bit of time making the snowballs, but she didn't throw any of them, she just wanted to make them! All and all the kids had a blast and could hardly wait to go to the "big" hills for some snow tubing!  Saturday night we ordered some pizza to be delivered and just had a quiet night in.

Sunday we had breakfast at the house then went to Church.  It was a beautiful, beautiful church, really lovely.  The service, however, left us missing our home parish!  By the time Mass was over it was lunch time and my parents had arrived for the day.  We had some lunch with them then Ben & I went and got some stuff we needed from the store while the kids hung out with Gramma & Poppa.  My Mom had also brought a dinner for us all so we got to enjoy another nice evening in. 

Monday we took the kids to "Snow Play".  It was next to empty which was awesome!  The kids had an absolute blast on the hills.  Evan and Olivia were required to ride with Ben or me, but they were ok with that and were just fearless.  We were there for 2-3 hours I'd say.  Even though they have that "magic carpet" lift it was still a lot of work!  The kids were hoping to go back Tuesday, but that was our departure day so it was just not in the cards for them.  I can't wait to have them try skiing or snow boarding! It has been years since I have done either and I look forward to getting a chance to go again.

I put squirrel food out the very first day we arrived, but it took the squirrels a couple of days to figure it out.  The blue jay's found the peanuts right off though!  This little squirrel cracked me up, he finished off the seed in the other feeder first, one that didn't require him to put his head all the way in.  The kids got a real kick out of him sticking his head inside the bird feeder to pilfer food.  It was too cute and so much fun to watch.

The Home.  There is just not enough that I can say about the home we stayed at.  A few years ago my friend had mentioned that her family had a cabin in Big Bear and that should we ever want to use it to let her know.  I knew that a few other friends had used it and just raved, so when we had decided to use Ben's days off to go play in the snow I contacted my friend and as luck would have it the cabin was available.  The family does not rent the cabin out, it is just for family and friends of the family.  I can not tell you how honored I am to be included in her circle of friends.  When we arrived the kids were thrilled to find a few sleds in the garage and a small  pile of snow on the side of the driveway to slide down.   Let me just tell you about my favorite things.  First I have to say, it felt like we left our home only to come home.   There are knick knacks and photos, personal touches that clearly let you know you are in a loved place.  In the above photos are some of my very favorite things.  Cross stitch samplers done by my friend's mom.  The village that overlooks the kitchen, and of that my very favorite were the nuns coming out of the photography studio! The picture that was above the TV (bottom right corner). That picture just made me smile every time I looked at it.  I also just loved the arrangement of crosses that greeted you as you came up the stairs into the family room/dining room.  My favorite cross is the one singled out above.  I loved lighting all the candles each night, I don't do it enough at home and I now want to figure out just where I can put lots of candles to enjoy.  There were so many little details in the decor that just made the house so special, such a home.  Best of all, rather than take any payment to offset any costs to the family, they ask that if you have enjoyed your time that perhaps you'd like to like to make a donation to Habitat for Humanity.  We had the opportunity to spend time together in this amazing home and we get to help others achieve the dream of owning a home.  Nothing short of inspiring.  We have dreams of owning a cabin in Big Bear someday and I am more inspired now than ever.  What they have done, what they are doing is exactly what I would love to be able to do as well.

And finally my birthday.  We left Big Bear on my birthday.  Kind of sad in a way, but it was nice to come home to family.  I'm not really a cake fan, however I do love angel food cake with strawberries.  So that is what Ben got for me.  The gift of spending 3 days with my family in such an inspiring and beautiful place was the very best gift I could have received.  I am blessed with 4 beautiful children who inspire me to be a better person every day.  My husband is my best friend, I don't know  how I got so lucky.  I have a circle of friends that grows continuously. One thing Facebook has shown me is that good friends are always there- even if nearly 20 years has gone by since we last connected.  I love that. 

Getting Better

Emma is finally on the mend.  She still has a wicked cough though.  When we have left the house and gone public have have gotten a few "looks".  I'm confident she's not contagious, but the cough sounds so bad I understand the looks really.  Owen tried going to TKD today, but he only lasted 30 minutes or so.  He seems so much better, but I had a feeling he would have a tough time doing such hard work.  We've been keeping busy around the house though.  Below are a few pictures of our projects.

Emma working on her  "book".  This was taken 4 days into 6 days of the flu.  She lost 6 pounds, 7% of her total body weight during this bout. 

Olivia decides to get in on the book making.

"See right here mommy, I made this for you."

We got some acrylic paint on Saturday and did something with one of our collections.

Here's the crowd painting some rocks.

Olivia was quite serious about it.

I LOVE this one that Evan made for us! He was so careful with the placement of each dot.

Here is one of Emma's

another of Emma's

Here's a long shot of the group.  The polka dot one in front is Emma's - she liked Evan's idea.

Guess which one is mine...

Collections

 

Way back in the day (last week), we went to the beach in search of rocks for a project. (Which has not come to completion yet, thanks flu).  The kids love to collect things.  I haven't' quite figured out what to do with all of them yet.

We have

                                         our stick collection

                            our pine cone collection

                                our rock collection

                              more rocks in our collection

and shells, rocks and sticks recently collected at the beach.

As long as they don't want to collect spiders, I think I will be ok.

Look at this trick Mom!

So Evan learned to ride with out training wheels last week.  He'd been on the brink for a while, but not quite  there and there was only so much running beside him I would do on any given day.  For Christmas Olivia got a balance bike-  Evan rode that thing all over the house for 2 weeks straight.  He was flying on it really.  Last week we finally got around to going out front and playing.  Evan was eager to try out his own bike.  I helped him start out, and was prepared to jog along side when he just took off.  He did it no problem at all!  I think he was as surprised as me.  I know he would have eventually done it- but I honestly think that those two weeks flying around on Olivia's little pink bike with no pedals- made a huge difference for him.  I'm willing to bet that Olivia will soon need a new bike again.  Right now she hasn't really wanted to use the pink one- she wants the blue one because it has pedals like everyone else.  That will change though, we'll just keep it near by and ready to use in the house. 

Less than a week after learning to ride, he is now standing up and coasting.  I suspect he will be pedaling and standing next week!  Emma has not shown too much interest in her bike.  She still has training wheels and does not like that the bike wobbles.  That's ok, she'll get there eventually.  I'd love to make a balance bike for her, hmmm maybe a trip to one of the local thrift stores is in order.....

Here's a couple pictures from this weekend....

  Learning about note value etc at our monthly Suzuki piano lesson

This note is on a line!

This one is in a space! :-)

This is our new chalkboard that my parents made for the kids (thanks Mom & Dad!!)  It serves a duel purpose.  One is to write on (despite what Emma and I wrote on it!) the other is to help keep our dogs from snargulling (technical term) with the dogs who live behind us.  They were on the verge of eating through the fence just next to this space.  Dad put up some new fencing there (see next pic). 

Evan doing his new trick.   (Notice Creepy Weird Guy's lovely car front in the background...)

Ok the point of the picture is not to have you wonder how Evan can see with his helmet like that, but to point out how the mini blinds are permanently  stuck open at CWG's house.  They have been like that for all but an hour or so since we moved into this house (nearly 3 years ago).  This is one of several reasons he is Creepy.  One of the Weird  things (there are MANY, I will spare you) is that those are two of their 4 cars, they have had two other ones  as well, not sure where they disappeared to.  I know it is not weird to have 4  (or 6 cars) what is odd is that he does not drive them.  Almost never.  His wife drives one.  Every day to work (or something).  He is home All. The. Time.  ALL THE TIME. Why, if you are home  ALL THE TIME do you need 4 cars? Why? Weird. 

 This is the lovely MINT green house next door.  I am seriously considering making some chocolate chip cutouts and taping them to the house.  The car in the driveway is the previous owners.  They left a month ago- it is bank owned now- but apparently they still have the rights to wash their cars  at the house as well as BBQ in the back yard.  Nice. 

Dog Tales

Much has happened lately, both good and not so much so.  It's the not-so-much- so part that has kept me from posting.  As mentioned in my previous post, I was one of the presenters at the CHN Family EXPO this year.  First let me just plug this event a bit.

If you live in California, especially if you live in SoCal, I can not recommend the Family EXPO enough.  This was our second year attending and it was just so much fun.  We look at the weekend as a family vacation with benefits.  The benefits include the following:

• A hotel full of like minded homeschooling friends, around 1000 of them!
• A  "family village" full of  fun things for the kids to do... All Day Long:  keva planks, arts and crafts, puppet shows, dress up, various classes like paper airplanes, stomp rockets, volcanos.
• game tables set up in other hotel areas
• a little kid area with blocks, games, story times, and lots of chairs for the grown ups to sit and chat with others!
• all day chess room
• amazing and inspiring sessions, just what you need to recharge for the fall
• a packed vendor hall with all sorts of goodies to drool over
• pool fun with lots of friends
• poolside dinners
• hotel staff that loves that we are there
• Fun Fun Fun!

I also want to say that if you are not a member of one of the 3 statewide homeschool groups, join one (or all) today.  The yearly cost are minimal and they are a fantastic resource.  With all that has happened with the court case in this last year it is important for homeschoolers to show the state that we are strong, we are united and that we are a force to be reckoned with.  The best way to show our numbers is to join a group.  I am a member of both CHN and HSC, I plan on looking into CHEA as well.  Look into it.  Now.

One of the things I have not mentioned (aside from on Twitter, and as far as I know only a few of you follow me there) is that about 4 weeks ago my baby dog Bungee was dx'd with lymphoma.  He turned 15 in March and up until then had been doing pretty well for such an old guy.  A little stiff, a little slow, but happy and loving.  When we got the dx we decided that we would do chemo for him and see how he would respond.  He responded GREAT!  His throat, which had been so swollen it was hard to eat, shrank after on treatment. He had a total of 3 treatments and was scheduled for his 4th when we got back from the EXPO.  Our very good friend C stayed at our house and watched the dogs while we were gone.  I left him a long novel about his care, what meds to give and when.  Our vet office knew we were going and had Chris listed in their computers. 

Saturday evening C called to say Bungee was refusing his meds and wouldn't eat.  He's done this here and there, so I wasn't too worried.  Well, this time it was different.  Sometime around 11pm Bungee started throwing up foam.  After a while C realized that this was not good, Bungee was in pain.  He took him to our local 24 hour vet ER. 

X-rays showed that Bungee's gut was twisted.  C called us round 1 a.m. to tell us.  It was a horrible thing to be over 2 hours away.  We knew at that point that the best thing for Bungee was for us to let him go.  At that point he was on morphine and completely out of it.  It broke my heart that I was not with him the last 3 days of his life.  I know that I was with him through out his life, but still.  I missed his birth by hours, I missed his death by a day.

There is some good in how and when it happened.  The kids didn't have to be there to see him.  But they also didn't get to say goodbye.  I didn't either.  That hurts.  We were in such a rush to get out the door that I don't know if I got in a good "see ya later".  I just keep reminding myself of the good though.  I still cry, I still miss him terribly, but I know it is ok and I know he feels so much better.  His ashes arrived Friday.  That sent me over the top too, but I am glad he is home.  We are thinking of taking him to a nearby beach that he used to love and letting him go there. 

It is funny how things work.  We have some very good friends who moved up to Salinas 3 years ago.  We went up to visit them in their first year, but haven't been since.  My friend A is a dog person, she always seems to have wayward dogs.  She had known Bungee most, if not all of his life.  She was one of the first friends I called once we were home and settling in to our life with out Bungee. A week or so ago my PDA chimed me a little reminder that it would be her husband's birthday soon.  I mentioned it to Ben and he said, "What are they doing? We should go up!"  I  called up A and asked what their weekend plans were.  As it so happened, she was planning a surprise party for her dh.  We worked out the details and made our plans.  It was at this point she told me about her recent acquisition.  A 4 moth old  black lab currently named Ben-10.  Guess what kind of dog we have talked about getting in the future?  A black lab or black lab mix, puppy in age.  I don't know that now was when were were thinking we would want one but there it was.    A told us how cool and different this little guy was.  She is not a lab person (too much shedding) but they were planning to keep him- if we didn't want him.  He was just that cool.  Well we went up for the weekend and had a chance to meet him.  He was pretty darn cute.  And mellow.  He reminded me of Bungee as a pup.  Bungee was the most mellow dog ever.  He was a lab/shepherd mix.  But not very lab like in the energy department. 

After spending all day with Ben-10 and watching him interact with the kids and our other two dogs, we decided to bring him home.  We have to change his name- not that it isn't cool, but since dh is Ben, we thought it'd be less confusing.  I picked the name Buka (long u, pronounced Boo-Ka)  I got the word from Olivia.  That is what she called the computer for the longest time.  I just loved the way she said it and was sad when she finally got the word "computer" down.  It is also the name of one of our favorite restaurants in Universal City- Buca de Beppo.  In that case Buca means "basement or hole" in Italian. For those of you that know what Ben does for a living,  "hole" is sort of appropriate! 

We got home late last night- well later than we intended anyhow.  All dogs survived the drive and there was minimal complaining from the kids.  Buka traveled well and seems to be settling in.  We need to get him a tag, get him registered with the city and maybe get him a bed.  He likes to chew, so the kids are learning real fast not to leave toys on the ground.

Our weekend with our friend was great she has a horse (not on her property) and we got to go out and ride her both Saturday and Sunday.  That was a real treat!  Ben also finally got to use his golf clubs that I bought him for Christmas...8 Years Ago!  He had fun, and is looking forward to taking lessons with the kids at some point.    I had fun visiting with my friend- I miss her and hate that they are so far away.  The kids loved playing with her boys- they get along really well so it is lots of fun to be around them.

I have a picture of Bungee and me from when he was about 6 weeks old.  I need to take it upstairs and scan it in to the computer to share with you!  For now here is one of the two of us taken July 9.  You can see how puffy his neck is, this was a week or two before we got the dx.

 

We Wii, We Twitter & We Twirl

I know I know- I still pretty much am sucking at blogging.  I got issues  what can I say!

Last week Ben got us a Wii.  It is the first game system we have bought- apart from the V-smile and a leapster L-max.  Both of those game systems go in and out of fashion around here, and both have gotten quite a bit of use.  Both Ben and I have shied away from the big game systems-  we both love to play video games and know that we'd get sucked into a world we really don't have time for right now.  I have a hard enough time staying away from the computer in order to get things done around here (So you'd think I'd blog more huh?).  Any who, we both have been tossing around the idea of the Wii, mainly because it is a get up and move kinda thing.   Upon returning the birthday bike that never was (Got it put together only to realize it was defective) Ben had to return it to TRU first thing in the morning and it just so happened that they got a Wii shipment in the night before- so he was third to get one from them. 

I have to say it has been pretty darn fun!  I was sore for 3 days after the first night of boxing.  Seriously.  I've also discovered I am much better at Wii bowling than in real life bowling, and even better when I bowl lefty.  All the kids but Olivia can play it with some degree of competence, and it is easy enough to fake Olivia out since we have two remotes.  We have had so much fun creating Mii's ( the Wii people). We have made characters for every family member and several of our friends.  I even made a Severus Snape. (because you need an evil looking fellow wandering in and out of your games)  Making the Mii's is almost as much fun as playing a game.    We haven't pre-ordered the Wii Fit yet, but I am seriously considering it.  It looks pretty darn fun.   I used the boxing game today to complement my workout.  I walked 2-3 miles, then got on our spin bike for 30 min and since my heart rate was up (I wear a hr monitor) I thought I'd see if I could keep my hr in fat burning range while playing wii boxing.  Oh Yeah I can!   I boxed for 15 minutes and was truly sweating!  The kids got a kick out of seeing me use the game to "work out" too.  All in all a great purchase. 

As for the Twitter and twhirl- well if you take a gander at my side bar there is something labeled Twitter Updates.  I had heard of Twitter a while back but never got around to actually looking at it.  One of the blogs I read regularly (Just Enough Nothing More) recently posted about it and that was all it took to get me looking.  (in the past I heard about it on the radio, no where near a computer).   So now I have something else to get addicted to use regularly.  What I like about it is Twhirl- I can keep Twhirl on my desktop and jot lame quick thoughts without bothering to log in and all that fuss. 

So if you haven't already looked into it go have a Twitter and Twirl and look me up- I'll follow you!

Alive and Well Thanks!

Yikes.  I have been going full steam ahead for the last week.  I am definitely feeling better, Thank you for asking :-)  That cold sure did kick my butt.  It also threw a bit of a wrench in my holiday preparing.  I am getting back on track though.  My to do list is about 25 long.  Not all of it has to be done by Christmas, about 75% of it.  *sigh* 

Here's one of  our activities today:

I made the houses a couple of days ago,  they pretty much did all the decorating on their own.  I helped Olivia glop on the frosting, and Emma asked me to help decorate some of hers, Evan too, but I pretty much tried to just glop on the frosting for all of them and have them do the placement of candy.  Olivia ate as much stuff as she put on, Evan too.  They were too cute!

We  made Russian teacakes today too.  It rained all day- great for the county, bad for the windows that have not been completely repaired.  They finished putting up the dry wall and texture over the weekend, and they put a bead of some sort of sealant around the outside since we knew the rain was coming. Todays rain ended up leaking through anyway. Today they were supposed to take out the windows and re set them properly, now it is looking like it may not happen until after the new year.  I just don't want any sort of construction stuff going on while my parents are here. *bigger sigh*