How Did Three Weeks Go By?!

We've been so crazy busy this month. Not all with "work", but there has been a LOT of that.

Luckily, spending a few hours on the Bay falls under my homeschool work, haha. We still had such hot weather at the beginning of October that our park days were moved to water--either the pool, or one day, we met up at Crown Memorial Beach on Alameda to paddle board and play in the water.

These kids loved it and stayed so busy.

It's hard to see in the background, but there's a nice view of SF from that beach.

And I even got to steal the paddleboard for a few minutes. It's the first time we've actually gotten it in the water since we bought it, I think 2 years ago.

One of the best park days of the summer (and not-so-summer).

I also got up early one Sunday morning and went up to Springtown to check on the bird situation up there. Not too many of the winter ducks are back yet, but it was a beautiful morning and I did see a few birds besides the dozens of mallards that live there.

I'm so glad we have this spot so close to home.

And then there's all the work. . . I got to learn how to wire lights this month!

It looks like a mess right now, but someday soon, all the wires will be behind walls and the ceiling,

and we'll just see the working lights! It's kind of exciting to try something new and have it work. We'll ignore the fact that I've had to rewire two times because we realized I didn't cut them long enough to actually come out of the ceiling holes, which makes it a million times easier to actually hook them up when installing the ceiling. Oops.

And, Daddy-o cut another hole in the van. I think he secretly likes making holes all over this thing, but that should be the last one, at least for awhile.

He installed our fan and it works great. 

We snuck in one last day over at the property to empty the last of the buildings we want to tear down for now. We got a ridiculous amount of metal out of this last one--about 20 motors, so many large cables, and so much more.

Peanut and his metal recycling friend worked together on this one, and then met up at the recycling place during the week to cash it in.

This load set a new record--over $1100--not bad pay when you're 13!

Peanut has also been so great being one of the older kids at our homeschool park days. We've had a pretty small group the last 3 months or so. Not sure if we'll get more people out as the weather finally cools off, but he's really taken some of the younger kids under his wing and been so sweet with them.

Mixed in with all the evenings spent working on the van, Peanut and I went to the 4-H Trunk-or-Treat. We went with a simple, but fun trunk, with a bean bag toss that the kids seemed to really like.

And Peanut's Where's Waldo costume was a hit!

And Daddy-o and I made countless trips to hardware stores. Ace is my favorite, but Home Depot is where we go for wood. And some many days, we make 3 trips, sometimes to all three different ones (Lowe's isn't the favorite, but there are times that we just don't feel like going back to the same store, haha.)

I really haven't taken enough pictures of the van progress. This box is much farther along, but this represents the first of the walls for us. And for this particular stage of the van, the only semi-complicated wall structure. I was supposed to build a second one for the other side once we knew how this fit in, but it's still not in the van and we're down to crunch time, so for now, the other side will just be closed up and we'll finish this in the winter. Still crossing fingers and working long days to get on the road before it's too late for a long trip!

Just Another Week in the Life

It's funny how I go back and forth between feeling like our life is slower now that we only have one child at home, to feeling like it's flying by with so many things on the to-do list every day. This week has been full, but also had many slow moments.

We started of with a ridiculously warm Monday, so decided to have dinner at the pool with friends and the kids swam until 8:30. It was a fabulous evening and while it seems crazy for it to still be so warm at the end of September, we're soaking up the pool days. We went back the next afternoon with the same friends and a couple others from our normal park group because it was just too hot to be at a park. The water was fabulous though--it's holding strong at 84 degrees.

Wednesday, we skipped out on the typical school schedule and drove Daddy-o up to Mariposa where the truck had gotten a new transmission put in. We walked around downtown, talked with a rock collector at a little rock and fossil shop, met up with Grandma for the pizza buffet, and then stopped by the house to see Grandpa who wasn't feeling up to lunch. And of course, the only picture I got all day was of the cat, haha.

Thursday was much cooler and the kids had fun at the park. I love it when they play together--ages 6-13, all involved in something. This is one of the beautiful things that happens so organically with homeschooled kids that I think is a little tougher to teach when the kids are divided by age all day at school. I'm glad that Peanut has the chance to be one of the older kids here, instead of always being the baby at home.

When we finished up there, we hurried over to the library for their tarantula program. I learned a couple of new things and we both got to have the spider crawl over our hands.

Friday was a van day--we now have our power system hooked up to the solar panels! And we've planned out and ordered the wiring for all of the outlets, lights, and appliances. Slowly, but surely! Peanut and I cut out early for his swim team party, but Daddy-o did a great job finishing up.

And Saturday, we were back at it at the new property.

We have one building down

And another one gone (used to be in front of the red one in the middle of this picture. It doesn't really look like a lot in these pictures, but it feels like big progress.

We spent the day breaking down all the old furniture that we've pulled out and getting the dumpster full so we can have it picked up on Monday.

And we finished emptying the back porch. This was full, just like every other covered building, and now only has our collection of wheels and casters.

We finished up a little early so we could go listen to the Livermore Amador Symphony which had their free POPS concert in front of the Bankhead. And it turns out that one of our new neighbors is in the symphony, and we ran into another couple from our neighborhood, plus a family who I used to teach science to. It was one of those small town moments that I really love about where we live.

And then we finished off the day with another night swim and dinner at the pool, this time with Daddy-o's brother, J, and his family who were in town for a Giants game the next day. It was a little cooler--not so fun for those of us sitting outside the pool, but the water was at least 10 degrees warmer and the kids were happy!

By Sunday, I was really glad that we hadn't invited anyone over for dinner. We're going to try to plan more dinners with other families because it's nice to have friends over and Peanut appreciates the other kids being around, but I thought we might feel like we'd socialized enough for the week, and having a slow afternoon with time to read, nap, and hang out with the animals in our jungle length grass was really nice. We didn't even have to cook dinner because it turns out we haven't quite figured out the amounts of food to feed only 3 of us and had enough random things that needed to get eaten that we just had a snacky dinner. Honestly, it was perfect. We're figuring out this new stage and finding the balance between all the busy projects, and embracing the quieter house. 

Getting Home

We took 2 days to drive home, just like we did to get up to WA at the beginning of the week--13.5 hours just makes for a REALLY long day, and doing it this way, we didn't have to rush out of Seattle on Friday, and we had time to squeeze in a quick hike on the way home.

Hedge Creek Falls is just of I-5 in Dunsmuir CA. Bean and I stopped here on our van trip last May so I knew it was a great place to stretch our legs for 1/2 an hour and see a beautiful little pocket of nature 1 minute off the freeway.

The view above the Sacramento River even gives you a peak of Mt. Shasta.

We made it home mid-afternoon and had time to do our first grocery trip for only 3 of us (we'll see how I did--it was a little less than normal, but not as much as I'd expected, so we'll see how long the food lasts. But I'll just say it was super weird only buying 2 bananas and skipping half of the bread products, haha. Bug always needs lots of snacks and I'd gotten into a regular routine of things that he'd go through each week which the rest of us just don't eat much of.)

And then we got cleaned up and went to the pig roast in our new neighborhood put on by one of the many new neighbors we've met this summer. Everyone is so nice and we got to meet a couple new people, and then spent the evening getting to know everyone a little better. It's fun to be in a neighborhood that seems pretty social, and people are definitely looking out for one another.

And speaking of the new place. . .we were pleasantly surprised to see that one of the buildings has been taken down! We hadn't heard from our demolition guy so we didn't know if he'd made any progress this week, but when we pulled in to check on things, we found a pile of rubbish and no mobile lab. Slowly, but surely. . .

 

Making Progress

Our first building is empty!

This one was pretty full of furniture and electronics, and a couple of model airplanes, when we started this whole project.

But now, it's ready to go! We've got a couple of different people interested in this one, since it's portable and can be moved to a different location. Hoping to get rid of it soon and be on our way to a cleared out backyard!

And the e-waste pile just keeps growing.

 

Property Work

We got a container and dumpster delivered to the property and have been over there working a couple of different days now.

Dumpster just waiting for all the garbage, and there is plenty!

Our work space, before. . .

Just a little of the buildings we need to clear.

We've had friends join us--some collecting metal for recycling, some helping to haul all of the things that are filling each building.

And the yard is getting full of stuff.

Lots and lots of stuff.

Some of the coolest finds are the skeletons we're finding around. We have 3 skulls, a jawbone, and a whole carcass of something small. Those are honestly the only things I personally have wanted to keep--it's all so gross that even things that should have been nice aren't anymore. Hoarding is sad--such a waste of space and things.