We're baaaaaaack!

Well, we've been back for a week now, but we'd been busy unpacking and getting back to our normal schedule!

So, where have we been?

Here's a hint:


Devin had a meeting to attend in Palm Springs, CA! Palm Springs is about 2 hours east of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is about 6 hours south of San Francisco. And San Francisco is about 6 hours south of Eureka! So you do the math :) We knew about the meeting but Devin's work was keeping him in Eureka. At the last minute he was able to go, so he called home on Friday, Nov. 10 and said "How would you like to go to church on Sunday?" Church here refers to our old church in Concord (SF bay area) that we used to go to. Since we had to drive south anyway, we decided to stop in the bay area and visit our old church! It was wonderful!!!! The service was so calming and even the kids liked to stand and read liturgy for over 2 hours! The real commuion we took for the first time in 2 years was great too (we have communion once a month at the church we attend here in Eureka, but it's not quite the same). Praise God. And our most amazing God had arranged so that we were able to go to our chuuch's annual Pharaoh's festival. It used to be held in September, but they had moved it to November this year!! Pharaoh's festival is held at a park to introduce our church to the community and to raise money for our hopefully-soon-to-be-built new church. They sell a lot of Egyptian goods and food :) mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

We spent more time in the bay area than we had anticipated, so by the time we got to Palm Springs, it was close to 3 AM, Monday morning. Devin's meeting was Monday morning at 8 AM and unfortunately we had remembered the wrong hotel name, so we couldn't find the meeting in time. It was very warm in Palm Springs!! Even at 8 in the morning, it was HOT! It was probably in the high 70s at 8 AM, but to me that's hot!! So we decided to get out of Palm Springs before it got unbearably hot. On the way out, we saw dinosaurs, so we stopped to see.
I had seen these guys before but I had never stopped before. We found out that inside was a little creation store. They seem to be using these dinosaurs as an attraction to spread the word about creationism and Christ!

Of course, we couldn't pass through LA without going to my favorite Mongolian BBQ restaurant. I had been going to this restaurant for 16 years! Unfortunately, the ownership changed recently and the restaurant is not quite what it used to be, but the food was still great!! I got to see my Dad as well, since he now lives in LA.

From there it took us 14 hours or so I guess, to get back to Eureka :)
When we got back, raccoons had gotten into our trash can and turned it over, so we had a lot of cleaning to do. Those rascals. So we are finally back to our normal schedule, except it's been raining a lot and it's getting colder so I caught a cold ;P I'm not doing so bad, and I hope the kids don't get sick....

Anyhow, happy thanksgiving to all of you! And hopefully I'll be back soon to write some about homeschooling!!!

Belated Halloween Pics!

Soooooooooooooooo, I meant to come back more often..., but the time sure flies!! I need to get more organized or sleep less or something....

Anyhow, it's been a long time and we've been busy with school. But before we update you all on our school stuff, we must share our halloween pictures, right???

Well, we got some patterns with which we (?) were to carve the pumpkins! Well, well, kids picked whatever they wanted and I got to try my skills at carving them! The pumpkins were those that we picked at the pumpkin patch field trip! Once I was done carving, I was not too satisfied with the results, but when they were lit, they looked a whole lot better :)

Kepler and Tesla both wanted the picture of raccoon standing in a jack o'lantern, but since the pattern gets destroyed after it gets traced over once, Kepler was nice enough to let Tessie have the raccoon. He opted for a family of ghosts. Cute ones. Not scary ghosts. And Reagan got a simple design, since his pumpkin was tiny (the child had to be able to carry his/her own pumpkin home from the patch).

As for the costumes...Kepler wanted to be a starwars droid, but mom was not adventurous this year, so we went with the clone trooper outfit! I did make the blaster gun :) Tessie was a little mermaid.
And Reagan was supposed to be Thomas, but he didn't keep his costume on long enough for me to take a picture!! He did put Kepler's mask, though.

In the evening, we were going to go trick-or-treating, but the church we are currently attending was hosting a halloween carnival at a nearby fair ground, so we decided to check that out first!
Boy, were there a lot of people!! I think the whole town came to the carnival instead of trick-or-treating!!! There were age-appropriate games and a lot of candies! Silly Reagan slept through it all :) And poor daddy got to hold him for a few hours! Since the kids were having so much fun, we stayed there for 3 hours and didn't got door to door trick-or-treating. But we got more than enough candies, if you ask me!