Happy Halloween!

Yesterday we went to our regular park day and we had a party! Fun! What a great bunch of families. I love those kids and the Moms are so much fun to be around. The boys love it and they look forward to it every week.  The kids all sat in a circle and went around passing treats out one at a time. They were so excited.

One of the families brought beanie babies! Little did they know they would be adding to our family when they did that. The boys love their critters! And now Jake has a total of 14 different animals in his bed.

 
Jake is not in costume because he found that he could not ride his scooter with it on. Tom had no problem since his fit better. There was more than one Darth Vadar though! Jake was a clone trooper. Maybe I can get a picture of him in it tonight.

  

As for today, it has been great. This is day two of our new morning schedule. We actually get up, get dressed, and make our beds. We have breakfast, brush our teeth, and read something from the Bible. Then we talk a lot about what Mom is studying at the moment. Right now it is Ancient Greece. Love it! The boys love it too. I found a site for them yesterday and they were making and printing pictures of pots for hours

This morning we went to the library and the grocery store. It is a great thing to shop on Halloween. Everyone is dressed up in a costume! When your son yells, "A Witch!" I know he isn't being mean to some poor old woman at the grocery store!...Yes that does happen. Sad but true.

We have also made a pumpkin cake together. I let them read and mix and crack eggs. Tom even hung around and washed the dishes up with me. I dried them. It was a true miracle because I have very little patience. I am working on it though. God help me!

Now we have gone to our spaces for a bit. Tom is playing video games with Grandma. Jake is playing games on our tv. And I am here writing this. OH! And I just heard the trash truck go by! Yay! They have been on strike and haven't picked up in two weeks!

And now the Halloween carving of the pumpkins begins!

Tom is being a great helper for Nikki.

And Jake's going crazy with TOOLS!

My three little trick-o-treaters! Darth Vadar, Clone Trooper, and Script Writer!

What a morning!

My nose was so stuffy this morning and I thought, "Oh no! I'm coming down with a cold!" but then I came downstairs and went out the front door to get the paper. The Santa Ana winds are blowing! For those that read this that are not in California, that is when the wind comes off the desert and blows so hard, hot, and dry. You would think, yuck, but I love it. It is like God is calling us back to the desert to camp some more!

Tom and Jake have been playing happily all morning and I am thanking God for THAT! Tom is still in his jammies and Jake is in his usual camo garb. They have all the airplanes, trucks, and tanks out and set up all over their room. So cute to hear them playing. They talk for all the characters and make up missions for them all. It is a cross between army, Indiana Jones, and Tomb Raider right now, but I'm sure the game will pull in Star Wars some time soon!

Pringles

How does a can of Pringles start a conversation about math?

Well, first of all, I don't usually buy them because they have absolutely no nutritional value (and I can't stop eating them until they are completely gone). But today we got some because we had a coupon that made the can 33 cents and I just couldn't pass them up. Tom likes to get the Prints ones that have jokes on them but they didn't have those, they had the Guinness Book of World Records printed on them.

So there is my boy, munching away, trying to read each one before he licks all the printing off and eats the chip. He was trying words like "meteorite"! Then we had to talk about what that was. Where is the Weddell Sea? What does cm stand for? What is an anteater? And the list goes on. It was a rewarding conversation!

Camping at Joshua Tree National Park

We went camping at Black Rock at the south end of Joshua Tree. The drive out was horrendous since we had to pick up Nikki at school and drive from Huntington Beach to Joshua Tree on a Friday evening, but it was SO worth it!

This was our first camping trip with our trailer! Yay! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Tovaas! We now have one sticker on our trailer!

 

     

This turned out to be the LONGEST hike in the world. The map said one mile loop, but I think we got lost and wandered trails over two hours. Luckily, the boys are used to a lot of walking. 

Jake started to complain at the beginning but then he found something interesting on the trail, LEAD!

Ahh! Look out, a jumping cactus! 

 

  

But worth it for this view! Dad called Grandma to check in while we at the top.

 

Dinner and some evening campfire fun!

Now go to sleep!

On Sunday we packed up early and started driving further into the park. First we stopped at the Visitors Center and picked up some souvenirs and some maps. Then we drove across to Cottonwood Oasis and had lunch there.

   This was at the Oasis of Mara and the visitors center. If you haven't been on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland you have no idea what these two are doing. Hence, the look on Jake's face as his brother and sister pose for the camera. On Indy the beginning of the ride is the Temple of Mara and you aren't supposed to look into the Eye of Mara or you will die.

This is at Split Rock. That was fun. There are lots of huge rocks to climb on and trails follow. I realized how old and fat I am here. :(  But it was gorgeous. The kids really scared me here too. There are plenty of places to fall and get killed!

 

This is at the Cottonwood Oasis.

Nikki found a rock that looks like the side view of a face. Cool! 

I finally got to see a snake in the desert. All my life I've camped in the desert and every time I'm worried about snakes. I'm always searching for them wherever I go. I'm constantly telling the kids how to avoid them now and what to do if they see or hear one. And then they all skipped and ran right by the rattle snake in the road!! Ahh! I found him all coiled up and ready to strike. He was a baby one so we all stood out of striking ranged real still and watched him hiss at us and then side wind his way off the trail and under a bush. I thought, perfect, now they've seen one, and they believe me and they will be more careful. But no. Off they go running through the bushes and not watching or caring at all about where they are going. I'm bringing a snake bite kit next time we go out there. It is only a matter of time!

We can't wait to go again!

The accident!

How does this...

...turn into a trip to the library and 48 hour discussion of how blood works?

I bet you can guess! Yep, Jake ate it racing the scooter. And boy did he! Actually, it is no surprise. The kid falls off it every two or three minutes. We bring the scooters to our local groups park day and they all race around for hours. But Jake keeps trying to go faster and farther than ever before. One time I saw him completely flip over the thing and land sideways on the grass! That time I thought he did get hurt because he just laid there for a couple minutes. But he got up, got right back on, and kept going the rest of the afternoon. But it had to happen sometime and now he has a big scrape on his elbow. He was so sweet about it though. His brother and his friend tried to console him to no avail. Finally, we packed up and went home. That was after he wailed that he would never be able to eat or drink again because it would go to his tummy and then his elbow and hurt him. That is how much he knows about blood and how it works.

On the ride home we talked about how your body heals cuts and bruises. They had watched an old Disney cartoon from the World War II CD we have that tells you all about it. It is cool because it has the white blood cells as the army that protects the red blood cells on their mission to bring supplies to your body. And the evil bacteria look like big spiders. It is very well done. They haven't seen it in months and they still know a lot about the body. I went to the library today and got them a book about blood called "A Drop of Blood" by Paul Showers. Even better is that it is themed with Dracula and the kids loved it. Jake tried reading it himself but got nowhere fast and asked his brother to help him.

My Inspiration

I thought I would share!

 These are my guys! Tom Jefferson and John Adams sitting next to the Liberty Bell. Whenever I get discouraged. I just look at them. I talk to them too, but don't tell anyone.

California Science Center

Ahhh...the 91 freeway at 3:30 in the afternoon!

We went to the California Science Center today in Los Angeles. We love it there! The boys checked out some light and sound displays thoroughly. One was really neat. It was two speakers and you stand in front of them and push the button. From one speaker, a voice starts talking about isolating sounds and explaining what is going to happen. Then in another speaker the same voice starts talking about something entirely different. You are able to focus on one voice because they are separate and being able to see really helps you focus. You close your eyes and it is harder to listen to one voice. Then both voices come out of both speakers and you can't understand anything that is being said. Crazy!

They also played with light and ran a crank to make a light bulb work. They built building with Keplar blocks. They checked out how people make buildings and freeways safe during earth quakes. And we checked out the Discovery Lab. They put up some shingles and drywall, worked on some gears, and pretended to be on the news. It was a good day.

But this is the look we have on the way home. Unfortunately, we can't go there until after noon because school groups are there and it is just nuts crowded. And then by the time we leave, the traffic is pretty bad. They are working on this freeway (usually our avoidance of traffic freeway) so it was crowded. I decided to document the event! Do these boys look thrilled or what?!