Pinewood Donkey

Who would have thought the year Bug just goes for creative design, instead of speed, would be the year his car performed the best at the Pinewood Derby?! 3rd place for Webelos, and 4th best average time overall.  

"The Donkey"

He really, really wanted to make a donkey car (still hasn't outgrown his love for all things yellow, and donkeys) and designed it on his own and figured out how to carve it with a Dremel tool. It's kind of awesome to watch this kid take the ideas in his head and figure out how to make them come to life, no matter how doubtful his dad and I are about the feasibility of it all.

Last Pinewood Derby for a couple years! 

Beach Day

Day 2 in San Diego--Beach time!

It wasn't really warm enough for playing in the water, but it was a great day for tidepool at La Jolla Shores.

It was good practice for me to see if I could remember what anything is.

Lots of sea cucumbers.

Some were even pretty colors.

Such a beautiful day!

 

Every time we come to San Diego, we wonder why we ever moved away. The weather is almost always perfect, the ocean is gorgeous, La Jolla is one of the most beautiful places on earth and it all brings back so many amazing memories. 

But, while all that is true, the traffic is truly horrendous and if you can't afford to live right where you work (and if that place isn't within a few miles of the beach), then I'm not sure the quality of life would make up for that. 

So we just have fun visiting and spending time with our friends, doing what we love, in a place that will always feel like home.

We finished off the night with a bonfire and dinner up at the Oceanside Pier with more friends we knew from our time in SD. We got to see so many people this trip. One of my old roommates happened to be visiting the same weekend and met up with us two different days, as well as all the friends and family who still live down there. We love to visit SD!

San Diego Trip--SJC Mission

A friend from our San Diego days was coming into town which gave us a good excuse to plan a SD trip. Not that it takes much for us to want to go to San Diego.

And a road trip to the south meant a bunch of missions for us to explore as well, continuing our study. Our first stop--Mission San Juan Capistrano.

This mission was a lot of fun--our first with ruins from the original chapel, which was destroyed in the big earthquake in 1812.

Statue of Father Serra and a native boy in the background.

The architecture of the missions is pretty similar in many cases. I love these long, arched hallways.

The new chapel, (which has been around for almost 200 years.)

I am so impressed with these reredos. Most were made in Spain or Mexico and brought up to the missions.

A couple of these bells were original.

The courtyards and gardens are amazing!

Beautiful fountain.

There were a lot of lilypads and flowers in the fountain.

I kind of want one of these ovens.

Some of these books were original to the mission from it's early days.

They had this area set up as the living space may have looked in the early 1800s.

Learning about history by visiting the places it occurred is so much more fun, and meaningful.

14 Years

14 years ago, we were here, getting married, surrounded by family and friends. We didn't make it down to San Diego until a couple days later, but then we got to take the kids to our special places.

Goldfish Point Café, where we went on our first date almost 17 years ago.

We got hot chocolate, and then sat down on the rocks at La Jolla Cove and talked for hours. And a couple years later, we got engaged in the same spot.

Love this guy, and San Diego, and everything it represents for us and our family.

Spring has Sprung

We celebrated the first of Spring with a local hike at Brushy Peak. The weather was more spring showers than spring sunshine, but we made it home right before the rain came down.

As we hiked, I told the kids about the first year I did a Spring Day hike. I was 23, and a friend and I headed out for a longish (I think we planned for about 8 miles) hike in the Marin Headlands, only we took a wrong turn and ended up adding several miles to our hike. I can't remember how many we did in the end, but it was a lot more than we'd planned and we were so tired and hungry, but it still felt like an awesome way to welcome the new season. Love the years that I can make this happen.

Then, of course, we had to dye eggs. I tried something different this year--the egg painting did not go over very well with the kids. Oh well. We'll go back to the normal dunking next time.

Backyard egg hunt was more satisfactory, and the smaller yard does help--we actually found every single egg!

 

We love spring!

Sunset Beach

One of the beautiful things about homeschooling is being able to travel without worrying about the kids missing school. We've been taking advantage of this--Bean and Bug went to Disneyland with the grandparents in February, and we took a couple family trips in March.

First trip--camping with Grandparents and Uncle Jake and Aunt Kim's family.

The kids had a great time tearing around the campground and beach for a couple days with their cousins.

Peanut had a great time--he hasn't really gotten too many chances to hang out with cousins in his life, and he's loving getting to know them better.

(Molly stares longingly at the food--that's pretty much what she lives for and she did not like being tied up where she couldn't reach it.)

And of course there was a beach at Sunset Beach. The campground is up on the bluffs above the beach which means it's just a short walk down the hill to get to this.

It was a fantastic beach for collecting driftwood and sand dollars.

And finding tiny little crabs.

Kids had a great time down by the water.

 

The beach lived up to it's name. 

Glad we got to hang out with this fun bunch!