Indian Summer!!!

(is this not an acceptable expression anymore?? maybe it's not very pc...)

Anyhow, it's been beautiful in Eureka this week!! On Monday, it actaully went up to 80, which of course is hotter than our summer days! Since we get a lot of rain in the winter, we must get as much sun as possible while we can! So, we cut back a little on the school work and enjoyed the outdoors this week!

Monday we also had Reagan's 2 y.o. check-up. He meaured 35 inches and 29 pounds. He's right about 50% and growing healthily :) Oh and Kepler had a cubscout meeting too. He's a wolfcub now. Tuesday, Kepler had his eye check-up. At this age, he is supposed have check-ups 3 times a year because the eye shape changes rapidly. Apparently his eye sight improved! Tuesday afternoon Kep has soccer practice so the other two get to play at the playground while Kepler practices with his team, King Cobras. Wedneday, Tesla has ballet lesson, so Kepler gets to read while he waits :) Then we go to the library to get MORE books ;) His goal for this month is to read 900 pages, which I'm sure he's about to reach very soon, if he hasn't done so yet.

Thursday, yesterday, was our field trip day! We belong to Christian Home Educator's group. It's a local group but very big!
We meet monthly for a park day, mother's night out, etc. etc. Yesterday we went to a nearby pumpkin patch! It was a lot of fun! We parked the car behind a large barn and from there we took a hay ride to the patch. There each child picked a pumpkin and took it home! And it was only $1 per child!!! I felt bad that that wouldn't be enough! I'll put the picture of the pumpkins after we carve them for Halloween :)
After romping around in the hay, we were off to a nearby park for more play!! In the evening Kep and Tes were off to AWANA. Last night was a Parent's night so we got to stay and watch what they do. Reagan actually enjoyed being part of the class, so I might consider letting him play there every now and then. The official starting age is 3, but Tesla has been so well behaved in the class since day 1, her teacher thinks Reagan can come to the class too (little does she know that Reagan and Tesla are two completely different people :) Though I'm sure Reagan would be just fine too.

All in all, we didn't do too much school this week, but there aren't too many beautiful days left! So we need to enjoy the sun while we can!

Oh yes! and here are the pictures from Reagan's birthday party!

I left my ____ in San Francisco...

(a sample of some stuff the kids got from daddy when we arrived in SF)















So we arrived in SF. But ironically Devin's luggage had gone to Eureka! Don't ask me how Devin got stuck in SF and the luggage didn't. My guess is that the luggage did get stuck in SF too, but the airline was too lazy to find it. So Devin had no clothes or shoes to change into nor did he have his glasses or contact lens solution! He ended up wearing his contacts for like 80 hours straight so I hope his eyes are ok. Saturday we rushed to a nearby shopping area to get Devin some new outfit. Then we went to ToyRUs which we don't have in Eureka. Kids had so much fun there (and so did the parents :) Saturday evening, as we drove around, the instrument panel went dark. uh-oh. Then we were told by kind passer-bys that our tail lights were out. uh-oh. Well, it turns out the fuse was blown. So we replaced the fuse but in an instant it was blown again. Hmmmmmmm.

Shortly before this happened, our CD player was making a funny noise. So my guess was that Reagan had put a coin in the CD player, which fell down somewhere and caused the fuse to blow. Unfortunately, it was not easy to get the CD player out, so we had to wait till the next day to do anything. The next morning, Devin took the car apart and found a nickel in the CD player!! That fixed the car problem, except the CD player is still now working. WE are still working to fix this one :)

So Sunday night we went out to SF to enjoy the touristy things at Pier 39. There is a two-story carousel at the pier and Kepler remembered. So Kep and Tes enjoyed the ride a few times. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so there is no photo to show this :( Sorry. Next time I'll do better!! I just realized that my phone has a camera too.... oops. forgot about THAT!

Well, it got late, so we stayed another night. On Monday we took a 'field trip' to California Academy of Science. They were having a special exhibit on dinosaurs. Kepler should work as a docent! He told me all about each bone-what it belongs to, what type of bone it is, whether the dinosaur was a carnivore or an herbivore etc.,etc.... There's also an aquarium there so we got to see lots of interesting fish and a bunch of penguins.

Well, that's about it for our weekend excursion! I'll begin writing more about the school next time. Speaking of school, I must get back to school now!

Surprise!!!!

so I've been gone for a while AGAIN. But this time I have a really good reason!!
Last week, Devin was gone on a company trip to Arizona. It's their sort of annual get together to have fun and relax for a few days. This time they met at a nice resort in Scottsdale. So he left on tuesday of last week and was to return on friday. Kids were really looking forward to Dad coming home (so we can go to a restaurant as Dad promised before he left). We were getting ready to welcome daddy home by cleaning, vacuuming, scrubbing the floor etc. when I got a call from Devin.
His flight back from Arizona was to connect to another flight in Ontario and then in San Francisco before landing in Eureka. Well, you know how those flights are! Let me give full credit here to THE UNITED AIRLINES for really messing things up!! Especially those employees out in Ontario who REALLY WERE NOT HELPFUL at all!! :( First they told Devin that the flight to SF from Ontario (that's Ontario, California, not Canada) was delayed for an hour, so he'd miss the flight out of SF. When he called me I told him to just take the flight to SF and see if he could maybe catch the flight to Eureka. Afterall that could be delayed too, right? But the United employee told Devin that there is no way he would make that flight so just give it up. And since there were no other flight out of SF to Eureka that day, he got a seat on a flight the next day (saturday). But I told him that if he flew to SF on friday, we would come and pick him up in San Francisco. So he went to exchange the flight again. Now it had only been maybe 20 minutes, but when he went the United agent told him that his seat was already gone. To quote her "it's called supply and demand." Anyhow, I researched and found out that there was a flight to LAX from Ontario, then to San Fran from LA. So he got that ticket and safely made it to SF~! In the mean time we quickly packed for 3 kids, 2 dogs and a crazy mom :) and headed south to SF!!! It normally takes about 6 hours to get there because of the windy mountain roads. We didn't leave till about 5:30pm so by the time we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, it was about 11pm. Boy how the city looked so busy!!! I can't believe I used to maneuver that traffic!!! And all those people still dining in fine restaurants at 11 pm!!! Eurekans would all be asleep by 11! Anywho, I got to the hotel Devin checked into and was finally able to reunite the family ;) But the trip had just begun....