I love cats...

By now I'm sure ya'll have heard about the mountain lion attack last week in California. In Humboldt county to be exact. And yes, that's where we live! The attack took place @ Prairie Creek State Park (I think that's the name...I know how to get there, but I never really paid attention to the name...) where we've hiked several times. There are many Roosevelt elks there and the hike is very pleasant and easy, so we like to go there with the kids. Well, well, we need to rethink about this now! We always made sure that kids don't go too far from us, in case of a cat attack, but I wasn't too seriously concerned. Now I know was very wrong!

I thought about arming ourselves with firearms (is that legal?) but Devin reminded me that if the cat is attacking, by the time I get the gun out, it's probably got one of us in its mouth...and that might make it rather difficult to shoot just the cat and not the person! So perhaps the pen would work better. Of course in the case of the Fortuna couple, the pen broke, so I better take a very strong pen...hmmmmm.

Kepler always likes to collect big sticks and carry them along the trail "in case of a cat attack." I guess he was much better prepared than I thought one ought to be!

I can't believe I've been gone so long!!!

This really is becoming a monthly update!! I must get better at blogging!!!

So, Christmas came and went. We had a great time opening presents and just enjoying the family time :)

Some of the other Christmas-y events we enjoyed include Ferndale's annual tractor parade. Ferndale is a little victorian town nearby. It's the town seen in Jim Carrey's movie "The Majestic" (the movie was not great, but it really does show the town if you are curious!).

Another event was Tesla's first ballet recital. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take flash photo during the performance, so here's a picture I took before the show. She was one of the elves. We should be getting a DVD of the show in the near future....

On Christmas day, the kids really had a blast opening all the presents. Tesla is one of those people who would open ALL the presents first before really looking at each one carefully. Kepler on the other hand takes time looking at each present before going on to the next present so needless to say he took 10 times longer to open everything!!

As for the new year, we started the school back on the second, so Kepler didn't get much of a break. We finished our study of the ancient history and now we are into the middle ages, though we are still at the very beginning. Here's a picture of a Celtic ax we made in class. Of course it's only paper, but we had fun making it :) Speaking of school, we found a new (to us) math program that we really like. It is called Math-u-see. Many homeschoolers are familiar with it but we had been using more 'traditional' textbook (like in a classroom setting). But you know how boring some of those can get sometimes!!! So I decided to give this a try and Kepler absolutely loves it!!! Highly recommended for all kids! It uses blocks as a teaching aid and I didn't realize how much kids LOVE to play with blocks!! I'm planning on starting Tesla soon with the first grade level math very soon!

And speaking of Tesla, we're really doing school with her too these days. She is whizzing through her Kindergarten workbook so fast, we should be done before March! So we'll go right into the first grade stuff before too long! Why wait just because she's not 5?! She seems to be ready and eager to learn!

Reagan still LOVES trains and plays with them all the time. He does make different voices for different trains and makes up a story. It's quite amusing. I don't think he'll be reading yet, but he sure loves his abc's.

That's it for now~! Devin and I have been quite sick this past week. :P We're finally up and out of the bed, but Devin had to miss his conference in Santa Rosa today(to which we were going to go so we can visit Charles Schultz museum, but that'll have to wait for another day...Santa Rosa is where Charles Schultz lived and there are not only his museum, but many Snoopy stuff all over town from what I hear...).

I don't know about including photos all the time, but if you don't mind the photo-less blog, I'll try to update more often at least to let you all know that we're alive!

T'is the season

Can you believe it's DECEMBER!!!!!!

Time sure flies!

A week ago, we visited one of Devin's facilities to see Santa!

Yes, he works with skilled nursing facilities.

No, Santa is not one of the residents.

Every year Santa comes to visit the residents for their tree decorating party! And the children are greatly encouraged to attend, so we went! Kepler was happy to see Santa so he could personally ask him for ... petrified wood?! Yup. He asked Santa for a real petrified wood. Oooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Santa was not too sure about this request, but we'll see. Reagan was a bit bewildred by the jolly old man in the red suit. But he was really good with this strange man :) Reagan probably couldn't tell the difference between all the other old people in wheel chairs and Santa. So he was polite and friendly.

On Satuday, we went to the annual truckers' parade. And we mean TRUCKS. 18 wheelers. Some with long red wood logs stacked up! And they are all beautifully decorated with many lights! Unfortunately it was pouring rain all day, so we staked out a good spot on the street where we can watch from our car. Luckily the rain let up just as the parade started! It was quite a sight!

Today, we are continuing in our holiday spirit and decorated ginger bread house! Tesla's is actually a ginger bread train. They are so quietly decorating, I thought I'd take this opportunity to blog! I'll post the completed photo later. I guess I should go and check up on them to make sure they are not icing the table!

Belated Thanksgiving Pics!

So, I got sick right before Thanksgiving! Yikes! It seems like I didn't catch a cold after all. It was just a sore throat and runny nose. Probably some sort of allergic reaction to something or another. It's been very damp so maybe it's mildew.

Anyhow, Devin went shopping the day before Thanksgiving to get ready for the Thanksgiving dinner. This year we wanted to make it more kid friendly, so all the kids helped in making the meal! It was a great fun!


After Thanksgiving, days are just rushing by as we prepare for Christmas!
We just got a new couch (the last one became a trampoline for the kids, so it was retired to the play room)! No more jumping on the couch! :) It's such a big couch + our living room ain't exactly large, so it's taking up most of the room. But it's in a U-shape with one side of "U" being a chaise. We love it!

But before the couch came, we had to move the old one out (meaning make some room in the play room) and steam vacuum the carpet! And while we were at it, we steam vacuumed the entire house! SOooooo, that's what we've been up to these days.

I'd love to write more, but the kids are practicing there circus routine. So gotta go!

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!

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....

I'm getting better!

It's only been 2 days and I'm posting again!!!

Yesterday was tuesday, which meant that there was Kepler's soccer practice!
The practice is held at an elementary school in a nearby town, so while he practices, Tesla and Reagan get to play at the play ground. As soon as the soccer practice was over, Kepler ran over to join them at the play ground.

I saw other children running over to their parents with big envelopes in their hands.
?????
It was the official photos they had taken weeks earlier!!
Sure enough Kepler was holding his envelop with all the photos falling out as he tried to maneuver the jungle gym.... Well, the photos are not the most flattering of Kep, but I thought I'd post anyway. His uniform is bright, neon yellow, so it is very easy to spot his team :) Comes in handy on the game day with hundreds of little kids!

Well, well, I'm off to Tesla's ballet lesson! Gotta get all the kids ready!

it's been almost 2 months!!!

So sorry to have been gone for so long!!!!

For those of you who assumed that I went on a long vacation to the Mediterranean, I didn't ;P Sorry to disappoint ya'll, but we were actually in Eureka the entire time I've been away from the blog.

Was my computer dead, perhaps??? Nope.

So where was I??? I wish I could answer...but the time just flew!

So what have I done in the past two months???

Kepler's golf lesson ended and he actually went out on the course!!
Then Kepler joined a soccer team! He is currently playing in Mad River Youth Soccer league, which is a group north of Eureka, but we heard good reputation about the league, so we opted to go with them instead of Eureka league. He is really enjoying the game as well as time with other boys.

We also continued school till the first week of September, then took a week off for "summer vacation" so I can put everything away from last year and get ready for the new school year. Kepler is officially in second grade and Tesla is pre-K, but Kepler is doing third and fourth grade material and Tesla is doing Kindergarten work. Kepler is studying the Roman Empire now and he is really liking it! He seems to love history! He is also very excited about learning chemistry this year. For English he is beginning to diagram sentences :) Isn't that fun?! :P

Oh yes! Almost forgot to mention Tesla's birthday!! We had a birthday party for Tesla on 9/9, since 9/11 was a monday. We invited 2 homeschooling families that we enjoy spending time with and there was a total of 10 children in our modest home! But the kids were super and it sure didn't seem like there were that many people here! I should have photos from the event, but I was so busy chatting with the moms, I forgot to take pictures! Devin took a lot of pics, but I'm not sure what he did with the film.... If I see any pics, I'll post them!

September is also the beginning of cub scout year and this year we are NOT the den leaders. Since Devin's job is keeping him super busy with little sleep, much less any time for himself, we had decided that it would be best to pass the job on to someone who might have more time to devote to the scouting. We were fortunate to have found a nice parent to lead the den. Kepler is now a wolf cub and we are looking forward to more adventures this year.

Kepler and Tesla are both starting new AWANA year as well. AWANA is a church program that meets one night a week. At Tesla's level, the child is to memorize one verse a week, and at Kepler's level, the child would have to memorize at least 5 verses a week in order to complete the book and receive an award at the end of the year! So we've got a lot to work on!! It's not a serious thing to study the Bible, though. It's more for the fun in positive atmosphere.

Last but not least, I am planning on blogging much more often this year. I'm hoping to do so every day, at least to say 'hey.' Sooooooo, stay tuned for the next episode of "Days of My Children Turning."

Blueberries, anyone?

Have you heard how HOT it is in California lately?? Since the end of last week, most places in California have experienced 100+ (some 110+) temperatures! Needless to say, we are experiencing unusually HOT weather here in Eureka too! OK, don't kill us. Our HOT temperature actually barely goes over 70 :) heh heh heh. But it's hot enough for us to actually wear tank tops and shorts!!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Unfotunately, with the warm weather came mosquitoes... and I seem to be allergic to any sort of bug bites, so they swell up a lot and leave scars for months....

Changing to a more pleasant topic...we went blueberry picking on saturday.
There's an organic blueberry farm about 20 minutes from where we live (for those of you more familiar with the area, it's in Mckinleyville, just past the Eureka-Arcata airport). The kids had so much fun picking AND the berries tasted sooooo sweet!!! I didn't know blueberries can taste so good!!

We just got back from golf lesson today, so here are some golf pictures of the kids!
It's actually Kepler's lesson, but Tesla brings her bag too so she can practice putting. This time Reagan took his bag too. Kepler seems to enjoy the lessons, but then again, he enjoys everything... They are actually getting ready to go out on the golf course next week!! On the last day of the lessons (Aug 24), there will actually be a little tournament!! That should be very interesting....

I think it's finally summer!!

But how long will it last?? Well, I should enjoy while it lasts! It's been so warm this week, sometimes it might actually register 70 degrees (or maybe not...). In any case, it's soooooo nice, we had to go out!! So, we went for a little walk. This is the first time I actually didn't feel COLD by the water!! The sun actually felt very nice!

We also went down to a hotel meeting of ABEKA books. They make homeschooling materials and are affiliated with Pensacola Christian College in Florida. Definitely worth looking into for those homeschooling parents out there!! We used their whole curriculum for the first year and branched out slowly. Now we're using their math, reading, and health curriculum. The readers are full of great character building stories (very Christian too). They come out to hotels in different cities (if they come out to Eureka, they must go to your town too!!) and if you order at the hotel meeting, you get free shipping! Plus you get to actually look at the books and browse through textbooks and teacher books, so it's a great way to see what you are getting into!

Since we spent the day going to the dentist (poor Tessie!) and walking around town, we didn't do school yesterday. Today, Tes had her ballet lesson! As requested, I FINALLY got the photo taken of Tes in her ballet outfit. She's really enjoying the lessons!! We also went to the library today! I got Kep some easy books to read so he can meet the goal of reading 22 books before the end of August. Well, maybe they were too easy. Last week, I got him the Magic Treehouse book (great for 1st graders), which has about 70 pages. So we took that to the dentist while we were waiting for Tes. Well, he finished that in 45 minutes. what? hello?? you're done?? ooooookkkkkkkkkkk. So he was bored stiff for the rest of the time we were waiting (hey, I didn't think he'd start AND finish the book before she's done!). Then I got him another book of about the same length to take to ABEKA meeting. He started and finished that before I could process my text book order! So we went back to the library to get MORE books! He's also reading Tom Sawyer right now. He started that during Tes' ballet class, but by the end of the class (1 hour), he was almost done (he was on page 164 out of 200 or so). I guess he likes to read.

Here's a bonus photo of Reagan and Devin. We found some cute Chinese outfit online. As you can see, Reagan didn't want to stay still :)


Not much schooling done today either, but we did get a lot of books at the library AND they had a story time with arts & crafts! Tomorrow is Kep's golf. Maybe I'll get some pictures of him and his new club set.

Is it really summer?

So it felt a bit warmer today, but it's only about 63 right now.
That's Eureka for you :) Today Kep had his golf lessons so we, Tes, Reagan, and me, just hang out at the club house waiting for Kep. Fortunately, Kep's friend has sisters and a brother waiting for him too, so Tes and Reagan got to play with them.
After Kep's class, though, Tes had to practice her swing. Yesterday was Tesla's ballet lesson (sorry, still no photo...). She is really loving it! Interestingly, Tesla's friend brought her cousin to the lesson yesterday and his name is Reagan too! He is 15 months old, so Reagan met another Reagan, a younger one at that, for the first time!

Whatelse have we been up to lately? Well, the first weekend of July, we went to the city of Ferndale to go hiking. While we were there we encountered a dog show! We got to meet several Irish Wolfhounds. They are taller than Tesla! But they are so gentle and mild mannered. The dog show went on all weekend, so we went back on sunday to see them again! It was a great fun and the kids just loved the dogs.

For the Fourth of July celebration, we went back to Ferndale. It's a small, Victorian town with lots of cows. They had a parade preceded by fire engine rides for the kids and followed by a barbecue at the town hall! The whole town probably showed up! It was so quaint and cute!
Of course we got to ride the fire engine. It's not the newest model they have, really! This one is actually from the 20s I believe. The parade consisted of mainly old cars. These are really not the only cars available in Ferndale. Jim Carrey's movie "The Majestic" was shot here, though parts of the town were created by CGI, I think. If you do see the movie, the diner is not where it is supposed to be. I'm sure it's digitally put in there, instead of builing a whole facade. But I digress as usual...

After that we bought some little fireworks and enjoyed our own little show. The kids loved to watch and they even got to hold some of the safer fireworks. Even Reagan got to hold some and he was really excited! (is that legal??)
At night we went to the bay to watch the fireworks. Because we get to see it so close and there aren't that many people (compare to say, SF), it's so beautiful. It starts pretty late, because we are so far north and it doensn't get dark early. So it started at 10PM. By the time it was over, the kids were sooooooo tired, they couldn't sleep! And Tes had her ballet lesson the next morning!!! After the firework show, Kep, Tes and Devin got to see the inside of USS something or another that is a WWII ship. It was docked where we were watching the fireworks, so they let us in for a quick tour.



As for our summer school, we are doing really well. I decided not to do too much. I just wanted to keep Kep's brain going. So we are studying biology 3 days a week, history, math and spelling everyday, and we are studying about different countries too. Right now we are studying the exodus in history and for a foreign country, we are studying Egypt. And of course, there is the golf lessons, ballet lessons and we go to the library and to the river once a week. that's enough to keep us busy! Tesla is beginning to read very simple books, so we're keeping her busy there too. Yesterday at the library, she actually got on the computer herself and looked up "Tesla books." She found one that was in the children's section, so I got it out for her and she checked it out. Apparently she knows that she is named after the scientist and she was interested in finding out more about him. Kep and Tes both signed up for the summer reading program at the library. They are to read 22 books to get a prize. For Tes, it's not so bad, since most of her books have a lot of pictures. But for Kepler who is reading much more advanced books, 22 books in 2 months will be pretty interesting. So for now, I'm trying to pick out books that are not too long and easy to finish. We'll see how it goes, but knowing Kep, I'm sure he'll somehow manage to finish 22 books before the end of August.

Well, I'll try to come back soon...

oh yeah, I found out that my friend's due on August 8. My cross stitching project may have to be for the baby's first birthday! But I'm working on it! I got a bit busy and couldn't get to it for awhile, so it doesn't look like I've made any progress!!! yikes! But I'll keep working and update ya'll on the progress next time!!!

Vacation??

Well, this week was supposed to be "summer vacation" but it turned into a field trip week! Monday, we spent the day at the river. We collected some mud for art project as well as for geology study.

Tuesday, we went to Arcata Marsh. It's a wildlife preserve kind of place. We got to study different kinds of birds that visit the area. There is a little station where you can study about the area and the history of the marsh etc.... The kids loved the outdoors and the freedom to run! We heard so many different kinds of birds while we were on the walk.

Wednesday was Tesla's ballet class. She is really enjoying the class! And Kep is being really patient just sitting in the lobby and reading while waiting for Tes. Reagan is wanting to participate, but he does really well waiting too.

Thursday was Kepler's golf lesson. For this we go 2 towns over to Mckinleyville. Fortunately Kep and Tes's new golf club sets arrived the day before! Kep got a full set of junior pro clubs and a cool bag. Tes got 3 clubs and a bag and they are all pink! Right before we left for the lesson, there was a knock on the door...and Reagan's clubs arrived!! His set is a plastic one but there are three clubs and a bag and they all have snoopy pictures :) I will remember to take a picture next week ><
Kepler really enjoys the lessons and so does Tes. Though Tes is too young to join Kep's class, she did practice putting on her own. While we were in Mckinleyville
we stopped at their farmer's market. In the parking lot there is world's tallest single tree totempole. It's really tall!!!! check it out next time when you are in humboldt county.

Today, Friday, we went to Humboldt State University's Marine Laboratory in Trinidad. It's about 30 minute drive from where we live. It was a cute little place with several aquarium tanks and 2 touch tanks! One tank had sea urchin, sea anemone (green variety), and sea cucumber (red ones). The other tank had many different kinds of star fish! Tes loves to pick them up, so she dove right in. We got to see star fish eating fish! It was really neat to see star fish slowly sliding over the fish and just eat it up! After a few minutes, we lifted up the starfish and saw its stomach sticking out (apparently its stomach comes out of the body to swallow and digest the food whole!) and the fish slowly being digested. yum! The kids thought it was really cool :)


Well that's it for this week! Next week we should resume studying at home...
It's gotten cold again lately. Today, it was probably in the low 50s. We were freezing in Trinidad! Hopefully, we'll start to feel like summer...soon!!!!