Dentist = Beach Day

 That's right! When we go to the dentist, it means we're going to the beach...among other things. He's in Laguna Beach, so it's a moral imperative to do some beach activities!

Since our dentist is 140 miles away and I'm never really sure how long it will take to get there due to our lovely Southern California traffic, I always leave early. If there is not traffic, we stop at the Nix Nature Center and walk around. I meant to hike this time since we had an hour, but it was 90 degrees! 90! In Laguna Beach! Why?! So we stayed inside and checked out the visitor center instead. They had a new relief map. And we spent some time looking at it and seeing where the canyons go and where we came from, the steepest hill, the shallowest canyon. The best part about kids questions at a nature center is that if you don't know the answer, the people there are happy to help. And if they aren't and are just there to greet people...then we have the smart phone and we can educate him!

Jake grinding corn. He's happy we have a Wonder Mill!

 I caught Tom reading some poetry. Both the boys have recently become very interested in this form of writing. They aren't interested in doing any themselves, but they like to read it. I love seeing their faces when the "get it". The symbolism has been lost on them until now and they are rediscovering some pretty cool song lyrics.

 Here is is close up. I thought it was pretty too. What else did we do there? We identified plants and birds. Learned the names of some of the mountain peaks we can see from there. And some of the Native American stories about creation and animal spirits. Jake says Tom's is the coyote.





And then on to the dentist office. We love the big Eucalyptus trees in Laguna Beach. They look like Dr. Seuss trees. This is Tom being a tree hugging koala bear and Jake is his baby, riding on his back. This was hilarious to them, mostly because of the strange looks they got.

One of the things I love about the dentist office too is shopping in the area. I had no money to spend, so we did not do that this time. And putting extra quarters in people's parking meters. That's fun.








While we were sitting outside waiting for our appointment, we could see the "bell tower" at the church across the street. It tolls the time and we listen for the hour, quarter, half, and 3/4 sounds while we are there. But this time, Jake noticed that there were no bells, just speakers. Cheaters!


On to the beach! We went to Balboa this time because the boys wanted to use their boogie boards. Last time we did that at Laguna there were too many rocks to run into. I love Balboa because that's the beach I grew up going to. We had an early dinner first because we were starving!

Ruby's at the end of the pier is my favorite and we got to sit up on the roof this time, extra special. There are signs all over saying not to feed the birds and you are surrounded by pigeons and sea gulls. They would start to screech and I told the boys that was the sound they made before the fed on human flesh! Jake got a Hula Burger, which used to be my favorite until I met the Mushroom Swiss! And, of course, we had to have coke floats!


I went to pay the bill and found this on my twenty. Cool!

Had to take our time back to the beach. I was watching the little fish swim around the pier. And got mesmerized by the water again. Mermaids! We saw a big sea lion swimming around scooping up the little fish. Jake says they look like having a lot of fun. I got to show them how to tell the difference between seals and sea lions and that the one we were watching was a male. Later we saw more of them and the boys found the females porpoising out of the water a little way out from where they were boogie boarding. The big male was poking his head out of the water watching the kids. He probably thought they were doing it wrong!

Watching the sea lion.

Then we found this big pelican! He just sat there preening. This was as close as he would allow them to get. He would watch them inch close and then snap his huge beak at them in warning. Watching him fly off was amazing. His wings are huge!







Had to climb this for a minute. Looked like fun, but it was pretty warm in the sun if you were fully clothed and running around. It didn't last long.

And then we finally got to the beach! This is my favorite part about the beach. The boys laugh at me trying my very best not to get wet in any way and not touching anything sandy. I can't stand the sand! And I was not about to get wet sand on me and then drive home for two hours! No! But I do love to sit and watch the sea and dig with my feet.

Jake!

Finally, got to boogie! It took them a while to get the hang of it while I coached from a safe distance. Balboa wave build and break quickly, so you have to get right under them. If you late...they are gone. Within minutes they were covered in sand like human sand paper! The pockets in their swim trunks were full. Tom kept coming to wipe his eyes of sand. Yick!

Stupid bird in my picture!

Jake found someones wiener dog that really like him. Babies and animals are very attracted to Jake and he eats it up. We saw a pod of dolphins swim by and some sea lions kept coming to watch. The sun started to go down and the wind picked up. I was cold! It was beautiful.

Tom!

We saw the sea gulls catching sand crabs, so we had to do that too. Jake caught one that was huge, more than an inch across! It was a monster! I remember filling buckets of them and then trying to convince my Mom to let me take them home when I was a kid. We caught them and then let them back down on the sand and laughed hysterically when they dug and disappeared in the sand. Crazy.

Time to go though. The boys showered some of the sand off themselves and then gloried in running around the truck in just a towel. They said they were going to ride home that way but put pants on later. We stayed until 7pm in the hopes of missing traffic and it worked. The drive was uneventful, filled with several Beatles albums...again. And when we got home they showered the last bits of sand off and we crashed into bed. Tired. Still have to unload the truck today. Our dentist sends us home with a large box of citrus when we come!

Disneyland!!

Surprise! We got to go to Disneyland yesterday! Yay! We have the cheapest Annual Passes, so summer is blocked out for us. But earlier this week Tom noticed that the end of August wasn't blocked out, so now all I could think about was going to Disneyland. Sick. I know. But we couldn't go because I already had too many days of driving down to the OC scheduled. I couldn't justify driving down there again just for Disneyland. But then Wednesday afternoon Dan said he had a meeting in Tustin in the morning...and he was happy to drop us off on the way. Yay! Nikki wanted to spend the weekend with friends, so she went too and we'll pick her up on Monday (one of the already scheduled trips, gotta go to the dentist). We left here at 6am! Yikes!

It was the best day though. All the lines were about 15 minutes and the weather was perfect. Here are some pictures of it.

Tom HAD to stop at the Rainforest Cafe and see the fish. He is amazed how much this place used to scare him, but he can totally see why! How can anyone relax and eat in this place?!

Jake found a new friend.

This is for Tia! She said she felt like Dory yesterday.

Cafe without an accent really bugs Nikki, so Tom took a picture for her.

On the train again. We saw Grandma's friend Joyce!

Had to stop for candy snack. They ate that Tigger Tail right in front of Tigger!

He really loved it. Marshmallow, Caramel, White Chocolate, Sugar Coated...need I say more?

And all the fun was gone.

Frozen lemonade on the deck of the Mark Twain. Yes, this was a MUST destination for them. 

Aww...the river. Good times.

Scenes from "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" are following us.

King of the River!

Now it's Mike Finks house. How many times has this cabin changed hands?!

The "rapids" we went through on the canoes.

Just around the river bend!

I swear I see mermaids beckoning me to jump of the river boat.

Naked Savages!

Native American Story Time

It's the Billies! The boys were glad dragged them here!

And there he is AGAIN!

It was the best day and just what I needed. I feel refreshed. Seriously. I know it's sick and I wouldn't want to work in that now, but I love going. And start to have withdrawals when I stay away too long. I wonder if there is some kind of twelve step program for that?

Greek?

The things that my boys come up with. Jake has been trying to learn Greek. He's watched several videos on YouTube. He has found online lessons. We even bought a "Conversational Greek" CD. But then I ran across this...

I found it here http://www.greeknstuff.com/ because of this magazine http://www.homeschoolmagazines.com/ which I found at my friends store here http://www.excellenceineducation.com/

Have any idea what I'm talking about? Well, first of all, it's cool to see my boys pick up a subject because of something they saw and are interested in and then study it to death. And second, that when you are out in the world doing things, you never know where it will lead you, so keep your eyes open.

Jake is approaching learning Greek much like he did learning to read English. When he was about 6 years old, he asked me to get him a workbook about letters. I did, for about $3 at Walmart. He grinned and ran off looking for a pencil. A couple hours later, he came back with the book all filled in and said he was done. I thought that was odd. He was just playing at "school". But sure enough, he did know all the letters and sounds and could write them all fairly quickly and well. His brother is not like that at all. Writing something is against his nature and you would think very painful to him. 

Fast forward. Jake is ten years old and wants to learn Greek. Not Greek so he can converse with Greek people during his travels to Greece (it could happen) but Ancient "Biblical" Greek so he can translate the Bible. So there he is, writing away, flipping through flashcards, and listening to the CD. It's taking a little longer than the ABC's though. It's funny. His brother likes books and things that you have to work through and figure out. There does not need to be answers and translations. But Jake hates that. He doesn't get a thing from it. But give him something to answer and memorize, he's a whiz. Give him a checklist of things to get done and he's all over it. It's fun to watch him. 

"Non-participation"

Yep, that word is still going round and round my head. To quote Pee-Wee, "What's the significance? I DON'T KNOW!" But Dan and I finished watching "Gandhi" (with Ben Kingsley) yesterday and by the end I was almost crying. I don't know much about the man, but the movie made me love him. And I've been reading his autobiography this past week as well. Lot's to learn!

Wet Summer

Yick! It's been the wettest summer ever! The great thing about the desert is that though it may be hot during the summer, it is dry and a nice swamp cooler can make it so cool indoors. And the nights cool off soooo nice. But not this year. We got the monsoons. So sad. I thought it would be like this. It was so dry this winter and fairly mild. We had no real snow at all. And I'm going on record to right now to say that we will get a big snow this coming winter!

Here are some pictures of the storm we had yesterday.

Here's one side, directly east of us.

This one was just north of us. I thought it would miss us, but it turned!

Look at the darkness!

Pretty, isn't it?

Run chickens! Here it comes!

They don't have the sense to come out of the rain either!

The best part about these storms is that you can watch them coming. Sometimes they go right by us and rain on another neighborhood. It can be completely dry one mile away. Yesterday, we saw the cloud east of us. Then started to hear the thunder get louder and louder. I went out and started taking pictures. I sat on the porch and watched. It was about 105 degrees and dead still, bright and clear everywhere else but due east and another one north of us. The thunder got louder and then all of a sudden you could hear the wind coming. It suddenly smelled like rain and was 20 degrees cooler, like a giant swamp cooler! The sun was shaded and it started to pour. It wasn't as strong as the one yesterday that we missed. Ann said the chairs all blew up into the air and she couldn't shut her front door!

It looks like we might get another one today. I sure hope it dries out soon.

Science Festival!

There are few things that could pull me down to Palm Desert in August, but this science festival was free AND at the mall, so we did it! We haven't been to a mall in forever. It was...different. It's so loud and busy in there. And full of stuff no one needs, well, except Wetzel Pretzel's which we didn't get. I can't believe I used to work at a place like this! 

Last week a friend hosted an information meeting about SMaRT Education and First Lego League and they told us about the festival. Family day! It was so fun. Jake is interested in being on a team, but Tom has wanted the Mindstorms kit for himself for a long time. He's saved up enough to pay half of it, so I'm inclined to get it. It's just so much fun to play with!

Here they are making a ultra-sound sensor. 

Jake throwing balls to a robot that catches them and throws them back.

The basketball thrower.

Race of the robots. 

Coachella Valley Water District Demo

This was their favorite. Banning Science Center guys. They had cool homemade toys!

We stopped at Barnes & Noble because Jake doesn't have enough Beatles music yet. And looked around the mall. When we left we found this...

That's just ridiculous! We went to Red Robin for lunch and got bottomless root beer floats. Need I say more? On the way home it got up to 116!

When we got up to our house, it had just stopped raining. It must have poured! The chairs and bikes were all blown over. Huge puddles. Our whole porch was soaked and it never gets wet. The wind was blowing like crazy. All the trees were completely soaked but only on one side! Totally dry on the south side. We were a little bummed we didn't get home just a couple minutes earlier. :))