How Far Will You Go?

Just how far is too far to go for food? Some people might think that driving for 3.5 hours to go to a farmer's market is a little crazy,

but if it means I can visit this apple stand, it's worth it!

Because they are the only place in California that I've found that grows the Gold Rush apples I love. We got them from our orchard in NC last year, but I was ready for more.

And while I was there, I made a little trip of it. I'd been wanting to do a solo trip in the van, so this was the perfect excuse. I booked a site at Pismo Beach, got there just at sunset after hanging out in downtown SLO for a few hours, and enjoyed a nice evening of reading in bed.

And the next morning, I took a hike out to the beach,

and bird watched for a couple of hours.

I watched a few elegant terns, seagulls, and cute little sanderlings for awhile.

And practiced my nature journaling. Birds are still hard for me, but every now and then, I'll get a quick sketch that feels like it captures the shape pretty well. I liked how a couple of my snowy egret sketches turned out.

And on the hike back, I found what appears to be the first monarch to show up for the winter gathering. There's a grove near the campground that gets quite a few, but it was a little too early for them, so I was lucky to find one at all.

I'd say my first solo trip was a huge success!

 

In Other Happenings

Warning: These first couple of pictures are disturbing--no blood and gore, but still hard to look at if you don't like that sort of thing. So scroll past if you don't want to see!

This summer/fall has felt like it largely revolved around Bug leaving us, but we have had other things going on. Starting with the biggest thing--

Daddy-o took a nasty fall off a ladder at work and ended up spending a day in the ER. It ended up not being broken, just a severe dislocation which they had to put him under in order to reset.

The doctor told him he was lucky that he didn't die since a lot of ladder incidents end up much worse. He was about 8 feet off the ground when the ladder slipped down the wall it was balanced on so he had about 1 second to try to figure out how to land to inflict the least damage (and have the smallest chance of hitting his head), and he did fall pretty well, just got his left leg tangled up with the ladder.

Orthorpedic surgeon decided he didn't need surgery, just a boot and physical therapy. Swelling was so bad at his first PT appointment that they couldn't really do anything. Over a month later, it's still swollen, but not nearly as bad. His orthopedist is really happy with his progress (he's walking in normal shoes already!) and has hopes that he'll recover full range of motion, but he's got a lot of work to get there. We're just glad it wasn't his right ankle so he's been able to drive the whole time.

Peanut had an awesome swim meet where he got three PRs, which finally broke through a plateau he'd had for a while. He's got a new coach, and is swimming 3-4 times a week now and it seems to be making a difference.

Property news has been frustrating. There should be a house in this picture on the right, but this is still what it looks like (but at least there was a nice sunrise!) We are waiting on the final permits and they have been sending us back with something to change over and over. We've submitted the final change they asked for, so we *should* have our permits any day now, but I'm not holding my breath.

I couldn't get a great picture, but all three animals were snuggling together the other day and it was just so sweet. We kind of can't believe that the guinea pigs are still holding on. They're both about 5.5 years old which is about as old as they get. We've already started talking about what we're going to have to do for Poppy when that day comes--she'll miss her piggy friends.

Pool time ended with some weird days--Bug's last day of lessons was totally raining. I showed up to swim laps during his break, but there was thunder and lightning, which is really weird for us.

Science classes have been going pretty well. Chemistry is a fun topic with some good labs we get to do this year and a lot of the kids are pretty into it. (and shh. . . don't tell anyone, but I have a couple favorite classes for sure--it's just so nice when they can follow directions and really seem interested in what we're doing.)

Nature hikes have also been fun. We've got a smaller core group this year, but the families are a lot of fun.

We're revisiting some of my favorite topics since none of my current families were around when I first started. So we learned about woodpeckers and returned to the redwoods.

The banana slugs there were a hit. And I had to laugh, but also felt really legit when a random hiker stopped to listed to me when I was talking about the redwood root networks with my group.

I went to see the movie release of the new Taylor Swift album. After missing out on the Eras tour and regretting it, I decided I wasn't going to take any chances. I'm loving the new album, and it was fun to see the making of the music video.

And in other music news, Peanut and I went to the symphony at Temple Hill in Oakland for the Star Wars night.

The music was great and we got to watch a friend from church in her inaugural night as the conductor. 

It was fun meeting up with homeschool friends and pretending that we're still living that life. I think that once you're a homeschooler, you're always a homeschooler.

And finally, I got out for a hike after dropping Peanut off for his Ranger Explorers day today. 

It was a gorgeous morning and I did the new trail which has some incredible views. Also got to hike with deer, watch a white-tailed kite hovering and diving for food, and a red-shouldered hawk take off with a gopher in its talons! All in all, it was a really great hike and I still had time to spend the rest of the day with gimpy Daddy-o ;)

 

Saying Goodbye

The last couple of weeks have been a slow goodbye to Bug as he made final preparations for his mission. Bean flew home for the weekend and we went to the pool for one final dinner and swim,

and Bean decided that she needed to illustrate all the adventures that Bug is going to have on his mission--sad Bug as he watches someone surfing,

celebrating Carnivale (haha--guess this is why they pretty much lock them up for two weeks during that time.)

Being chased by a flock of birds,

hanging over the Amazon (which isn't actually in his mission area),

being attacked by a monster,

and saving his companion who forgot his parachute.

She was cracking me up with all of these, which will hopefully not be true.

Bug's farewell talk at church was great and we appreciated having family join us for the day.

Always love a chance to get the cousins together.

Bug had all his grandparents there, plus a couple of uncles.

Bean had to say goodbye this weekend, too.

She stayed to see him set apart that night, and then headed back to school Monday morning.

I wish we'd gotten a family picture--I don't know why we didn't, but we're so bad at getting pictures when we're all together.

And then, Bug had a week of home Missionary Training Center--lots of online classes all day long where he started learning Portuguese and how to be a missionary, and we got to see him for meals and short breaks (and getting in a final back cracking--hope he has companions who can do this for him!)

He played the piano for us a few more times (and practiced playing with the kazoo, too, haha. I don't think he'll be taking that with him.)

Saturday was his preparation day, which was mostly spent watching General Conference, 

but we did sneak in a walk at Sycamore Grove between sessions. 

Conference means all types of good food--and we've been making all Bug's favorites, too. Cinnamon rolls, German pancakes, french toast, tacu bowls, gnocchi, and salmon with grilled peaches and onions. We've been eating way too much good food!

And then, it was time to say goodbye for real. We had to be at SFO by 6 a.m., but even Bean woke up early enough to do a video chat with us at the airport.

I'm so grateful for technology that lets us be together even when we're not. It's going to help these next 2 years not be any harder than they already will be.

Had to get a photo of these two because I'm pretty sure that Peanut is going to change quite a bit before Bug sees him again.

Brothers

I love that these pictures all just show Bug's face and how excited he was.

I promise that the rest of us were not smiling quite as big. May have been a few tears shed.

But this kid is ready for this. And we're so glad that he gets to have this experience.

And so glad that he was willing to indulge us with a few waves as he walked away. I think we're going to miss him a lot more than he misses us.

And again, with the technology--he had a long day of travel, but called us the next afternoon/evening to let us know that he made it and was getting settled into the training center where he'll be living for the next 6 weeks. He will be able to call home one day a week and keep us up to date on everything he's doing which will be really nice, for us, and for him to be able to share the adventure with us as it's happening. 

And now, we're back to having our family spread across 2 different continents! If Bean ends up in Switzerland for grad school in the next year or two, we're going to be really far flung!