I love our homeschool park days in the summer--we plan days at some of my favorite places to play in the water.
Henry Cowell was better than ever this year. It's a farther drive and we've been lucky to get 2-3 families out to play in the redwoods.
But this year we had 4! Slowly, but surely, we're going to convince the other families that it's worth driving 1.5 hours to hike through the big trees to play in the river.
Despite the chilly overcast day, the kids went right in.
And a couple hours later, the sun came out! Playing on this train trestle was one of the hits this year. I love that our group of kids who have grown up playing together the past few years are now hitting those tween and teen years where we can let them explore a little farther and more independently.
Such a fun day!
And then there's the end of the summer swim party--where I took exactly one picture, haha. We had about 25 kids from 10 families and fun was had by all. It's always nice to spend one of the first days of public school at a pool just because we can. And the 5 hours can cross off the PE requirement for the week!
First day of school--driving himself. No seminary for day 1, luckily--it's nice for them to have a couple days to get back in the swing of things.
And while he was at school, Peanut and I went to a museum with friends for our "first" day.
It was kind of a random assortment of exhibits.
A bunch of classic cars in one room,
Asian art in another.
The staircase going down to the natural history section was pretty cool.
This area really blew me away. It would be worth getting a membership to be able to come back once a month to study the different habitats and animals represented here.
They really did a great job!
And the other two first day of school pictures--which were actually both taken on Tuesday. Bean's classes were all online the first day because they had concerns about the hurricane (which ended up being completely unfounded, but they had to plan ahead).
And Peanut and I just didn't get a picture between field tripping and lessons and errands. But here he is--start of 7th grade!
Hard to believe the summer is over, but we made the quick trip down to SD to drop Bean off for year 2 at SDSU (and then get back in time for Bug to start school the next day.)
Her new place has this gorgeous pool that feels very San Diego. She's still on campus because SDSU requires two years of on campus housing, but now she's in a suite where she has her own room, but has 8 other roommates who share the living room/"kitchen" (only a fridge, microwave, and small sink with almost no counter space) and two bathrooms. It's a great change from the dorms! (More pictures to come when she's done getting settled in.)
We moved her in Thursday afternoon and did a little shopping so we could spend Friday and Saturday playing. First up--the SD zoo!
It had been a few years since we'd been, and Bean has a pass right now, so we wanted to help her use it.
I love the botanical garden feel of the zoo as much as all the animals. It's just such a beautiful place to walk around. (Can you find the crocodile?)
The aviaries are a favorite--so many different birds. I tried using my identification app (Merlin) but since you have to download bird packs for different parts of the world, it didn't have much luck finding most of the birds we saw.
It's a long day walking around the zoo--we rode the tour bus in the morning, but then walked all around the middle part which we'd rushed through last time, and then rode the skyfari back across the zoo and walked back through another section.
Love when the animals are having fun.
And when they're just hanging around.
Glad we've raised 3 kids who love animals and are game for some long, tiring days.
We left a couple hours before it closed, which was a challenge for the die-hards, but the friends we were staying with had planned dinner.
And of course I got no pictures of our friends, just their gorgeous backyard.
The sunset was pretty and the weather was perfect for dinner outside.
The next morning, my friend Ruth and I went for a walk at the beach. We used to walk or run together when Bean and her son, John, were toddlers, so it was fun to fit this in.
Low tide at Torrey Pines meant a few minutes to explore the tidepools.
Lots of snails in this area.
And some beautiful anemones,
and on the walk back we saw a fisherman who was about to release the leopard shark he caught!
It took a few minutes to get oriented and swim the right way. So cool to see!
I love being able to walk at the beach--our neighborhood at home is fine and all, but this would be my pick if I could every day.
Then, we had another beach trip with another set of friends. We only had a couple hours because we had more errands to do with Bean, but they were nice enough to meet up with us at La Jolla Shores which was the beach we always went to when we lived nearby.
It was funny because we were getting texts from both the grandmas worrying about the hurricane on the way and we were headed to the beach where it was mostly sunny and the waves were pretty small. Hard to believe there was a storm on the way.
And according to the old sailor's addage, "Red at night, sailor's delight", we had nothing to worry about. We picked up Bean's cubbies, took her grocery shopping, and then said goodbye--and drove back to University City to find this gorgeous sunset.
This goodbye was easier than last year--Bean's living situation seemed great and we all felt a little more sure of what to expect. Of course we'll miss her but we know we'll be chatting regularly and see her in a few weeks.
And then, Sunday morning, we woke to rain--the start of Hurricane-turned-tropical storm Hillary. We had been watching the weather on Saturday and decided we needed to get through LA before 11 a.m. when the rain was supposed to get a lot harder, so we took off at 7:30.
And I'm so glad we did! It drizzled and rained the whole way through to the north side of the grapevine. It wasn't hard most of the time, but the roads were wet and we did hydroplane for 1/2 a second a few times. The plus side of the storm was that the freeway in LA was the emptiest I've ever seen it.
On the other end of our drive, we found blue skies!
We beat the worst of it--from pictures and stories we heard from people who left a couple hours later, the roads got a lot worse--muddy water flowing down the freeway on the grapevine and really hard rain. It wouldn't have been fun driving, for sure. And Bean survived the storm in SD just fine--they actually only had hard rain for a few minutes, but it was a weird way to start the school year.
