Random stuff and a parachute cake...

So, nothing earthshattering going on. Just home-schooling away, and Meg and I are doing our best not to drive each other nutso. So far, so good...most days, anyway.

We decided not to go anywhere for Labor Day. Bummer, but we have a ton of stuff to do around the house and we'll have a little fun in between projects. It'll be good to get some of them done. If anyone wants to take a last minute drive up here, the loft is open and we'd love to see you.

Oh, wait, the cake contest. THAT was earth-shattering, though I'm certain that wasn't the sponsor's (my niece Jespy) intent. She and the Smart Remarks Bookclub had a "Hunger Games" cake decorating contest. It turned into a hilarious soap opera and everyone did whatEVER they had to do to win. Jen got 800 hits on her blog with friends of bakers and friends of friends and then people we don't even know all voting. Lysa came over and helped me with my cake. I don't have any cake decorating stuff, so this was sort of necessary. This was our cake:


It was OK, the basket was upsy-down because it wouldn't cooperate any other way, but whatever. Sam engineered the parachute. We lost the popular vote because my other niece, Amy, has WAY too many friends, and I didn't think to recruit my Polynesian sister, Selai until the last minute. Selai has 1200 facebook friends, swears she actually knows them all. However, in the private vote, with just the cakemakers voting, I tied for first place! Cool, eh? Totally undeserved, there were are least three cakes better than ours. You can see all the cakes here.

Tonight we went up to San Juan Bautista (just up the road) to watch the full moon come up. There's an old cemetery on a hill that gives you a great view of the valley and lots of sky. We took a few pictures. This one is cool though. At first glance it just looks like three blobs. Actually, at last glance it does, too. HOWEVER, it's a picture of Jupiter with two of it's moons. Cool, eh?



Here"s the awesome shot Sam got of the moon. Look for it to be photoshopped into all kinds of things in the future. :0)

The Homeschool Thing...

So, after agonizing over this decision for several weeks between about April and June, we decided to homeschool rather than send Meghan to the gang-infested scary middle school. For more reasons, actually, than that it is kind of scary. However, when I got the list of what colors, brand names and sports teams she was NOT allowed to wear, it kind of sealed the deal. There was a charter school in Pacific Grove that we considered for awhile, it's a Waldorf-style school (which I won't explain here) and I wasn't sure it was a good fit for Meghan. And, it's about forty minutes away...we could carpool to some extent, but I just didn't want to deal with it.

We did find an excellent (so far) home/charter school organization to homeschool her through. I get an Educational Supervisor who helps me pick curriculum, etc. They had her take an online test to see whether she was a visual, audio or kinetic (hands on) learner. I was already pretty sure that she was a combination of visual and kinetic. She's never been great at listening. :0) Just kidding....sort of. So, my ES helped me pick a starting curriculum. We have a $900 budget every semester to buy whatever curriculum materials we can't borrow from the Charter's Resource Center, take enrichment classes like art, music, horseback riding or whatever, buy online courses, pay for tutoring...or just about anything else education-related. They have groups that go on field trips together just like a public school, etc. I had several friends already homeschooling their kids through this school and they all spoke highly of it. Another friend of ours is an ES, although we didn't get assigned to her.

So, school started a week ago today. So far, we haven't killed each other (which was a bit of a concern). We've only started Math, English and Science as we haven't received our books for Social Studies yet. We already signed up for the field trip to see the King Tut exhibit (which Meg is ECSTATIC about...being pretty sure at this time that she wants to be an archaeologist). She had a blast doing her science assignment online. She has to be up and ready by 8:30 in the morning. I'm a morning person...if something's going to get done, it has to be done before noon before I run out of "gas". We read scriptures together for about thirty minutes, she practices her piano for about thirty minutes. We have Math, then either Science or English. When we start social studies, that will be after lunch. She has piano lessons once a week, and soon I hope to sign her up for either Photography or Art classes. She wants to learn Italian, also. I may order, through the school, the Italian Rosetta Stone software and we'll learn it together. Since Sam already speaks Italian, it might be fun.

Meg likes some things about homeschool and isn't crazy about others. She misses her two good friends, but one of them went to a private school, so she's not at the middle school either. I'm hoping that we can arrange something so they can still get together from time to time. She didn't have a ton of friends at her last school, she's "different" (not a bad thing at all) and many of the kids were kind of mean to her. She has some good friends at church, and loves attending youth activities, so she does have a social life. I think she likes that when "school" is over, it's over, she doesn't have 3-4 hours of homework to do between 3pm and bedtime, because she has difficulty focusing for that many hours in one day. She can read almost as many hours as she can stand to read, which is a LOT. Mostly, I think we both like the arrangement, hopefully, we'll still like each other when it's over.

Unless something changes, I'm planning to send her to public high school. She has some mild ADD issues, and I think this will give her time to mature a little and learn how to manage her time and resources as she does, before she has to deal with multiple teachers/assignments. I had a great time in high school and I'd hate for her to miss those experiences.

Anyway, that probably more info than anyone wants to know, but there it is. I'll write about our adventures as we go along.

Sam Has His Movie Debut

So, a couple of weekends ago, we went down to Mojave to help my sister in law Liz, who was being "craft services"; feeding the cast and crew of my nephew, Andy's, new movie. (That is, quite probably, incorrect grammer...if you know how to fix it, let me know). Anyway...





Sam was very excited, he's always wanted to be a still photographer on a movie set. He had a great time getting to know the cast and crew and they even let him be an extra. He's part of a pseudo-military group...bad guys. Like anyone would believe that Sam's a bad guy. The story, called Phase Two is set in a post-apocalyptic world (filmed in the Mojave desert...PERFECT). There's a virus going around turning people into brain-dead zombies. (Wait a minute, I think I already know some of those....)

Sam took this pic of these actors who played part of the good guys; Jessica Erin Sylvia and Matt Thompson. She makes a great bum-kicking-babe, but is really very sweet. I kept forgetting his name and calling him Brad Pitt Jr. He seemed pretty nice, too. Actually, everyone on set was great. Other than it being just stupid hot, it was a lovely time and nice change of pace for Sam. He really wished we coulda stayed for the whole shoot, but real life goes on.

Meg goes to Girl's Camp

Ok, I'm never gonna have time for a real catchup, so I'm gonna do one story a day. At least that's the theory, we'll see what really happens. To add a couple of things to our list: 1. We finally have insurance we don't have to fork over $1200/month for but will we survive the price? 2. Grandma Bailey spent almost two weeks with us and 3. Ok, can't remember what that was, but I'll write about, I promise.

So, this installment is about girl's camp.


This was the first time she's left US home and gone off by herself for more than a night. It was weirdly quiet around here and we missed her. I don't remember the approximately six billion stories she came home with, but she had a GREAT time and made some new friends. Her camera is less than stellar, but here are a couple of pics.




They had a "Cope Course", also called a "Ropes Course" in some places. She LOVED it and did all kinds of things they'd have to drug me for. There was some accident with another girl when a zip line broke, involving a broken ankle. They closed it down after that. Meg said she was glad she got to go before the accident. I said I was glad she wasn't on it when it broke. She only weighs about 25 lbs though, so it would've had to have been seriously compromised to drop her. We can't afford broken anything right now, so I'm grateful.

Ya, I know.....

....it's been like a month. We're still alive and have even had some minor adventures. I'll try to get an update posted in the next couple of days.

Highlights:

1. Sam got to be in a movie.
2. Meghan went to girls camp for the first time.
3. My little sister is finally pregnant! With a boy!
4. We're starting homeschooling on Monday.
5. OK, I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of anything else.

Summer

It's been really hard to get to the blog. I keep thinking I'll post when I have pictures available, but then I don't get to that, either. So, this is a synopsis of the last three weeks.

My family has been here for the summer. It's been fun, but it keeps us pretty busy. If I have free time, I'm over there playing games with Mom and her sister Frances, and entertaining Keri's two little boys.

Meghan has been taking swimming lessons again. I think she may actually learn to swim this time. The whole swimming thing has been a battle since she was tiny. She HATED water in her face and screamed through lessons when she was five and six. She refused to put her face in the water when she was eight. Finally, when she was ten we made a little progress, just got her past the fear of the water. This year, she's actually SWIMMING. Not well, yet, but she can almost make it across the small pool where she's taking lessons. I've signed her up for one more session this summer, hopefully we'll have a swimmer by the time it's over. But, it's every day...about 25 minutes away. BIG time sucker.

She's also been participating in a summer book club with some friends. Twice a week for a couple of hours...(in theory, anyway. It usually stretchs longer because it's at a good friends house and we end up visiting too long)

We've had visits from assorted people and that's always fun. The latest was my nephew Andy and his cute little family. We had a great time. This weekend Sam's sister, her husband and Sam's mother are coming. They've recently returned from a trip to China, we're anxious to hear about their adventures and see more pictures.

We planted a huge garden and we're just starting to reap the fruits of our labors. We have zuchini and yellow squash going crazy, pickling cukes that no one checked on and now they're bigger than the zuchini. They're tasty just to eat, though. We got our first tomatoes last week...about a month earlier than usual, due to our unusually warm weather. The stupid squirrels/ground squirrels/chipmunks (whatever they are) are taking their toll. Everything has little teethy marks on it. Not sure what to do about them, as they can climb whatever fence you can put up. Between snails, gophers, deer, rabbits, and the d*&% squirrels, we're lucky we get to eat any of it. I was so excited to see a handful of almonds on my almond trees, but something ate them already. Sam wants a Rodenator....a system that blows up their holes, etc. But, a used one is $1500. Seems like a lot to spend to guard a hundred dollars worth of produce. I think he just wants it because it involves blowing something up. But, since emu feed has doubled in the last year, and the d*&% squirrels are eating THAT, too, it might be an investment. Now to find $1500 somewhere....I'll start in the couch cushions....

Ry and Sue came up for July 4th. Sam took a few days off and we all played for five days. We had a great time, as usual. However, Monterey cancelled their fireworks show and we had a hard time finding another one without driving an hour. We ended up buying $20 worth of sparklers and having a short sparkler party in our friends' front yard. This was after a beach bonfire and killer smores. So it wasn't a complete loss. Monterey better figure out their stupid budget and get those fireworks back on for next year...they're messing with our family tradition.

My new calling is Activity Days leader. That's keeping me busy as I figure out what the heck I'm doing, what's already been done, etc. I have twenty kids who come regularly, so it's a challenge. For me, it's mostly a challenge just to remember all their names.

Meg is going to YW girl's camp on the 27th, so we've been shopping/preparing for that. I can't believe my baby is old enough to go to camp. She was a little apprehensive at first, but her first year leader is a good friend of ours, her piano teacher is the Stake YW Pres, and her Youth Leader is her favorite Laurel. She's very excited now. I told her there had better be significant progress in the state of her room (which looks like it weathered Katrina...and not well) before she goes. I have at least one volunteer to help me shovel it out while she's gone. She doesn't seem concerned enough to do anything about it, so I imagine there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when she returns.

Just to make you chuckle: Sam takes the Apple shuttle bus up to work every day. They pick him up in Gilroy (about 20 mins away) and drive him up to Cupertino (another 45 miles or so). They have two runs, one at 6:30 and one at 8:15. He takes the 6:30 bus, because then he can take the early bus home and be home before dark. Yesterday, he got on the bus, put in his headphones with his new iPod and apparently went to sleep. He slept through the entire trip up to Cupertino, and then he woke up. The bus was going the wrong way down Hwy 85. Apparently, he slept through all the stops in Cupertino (there are several, as the Apple campus is huge, and has buildings for several blocks) and was still on the bus when it headed back down south to pick up the 8:15 load. So...he got a 2 1/2 hour nap on the way to work.

OK, I gotta clean house, etc.

Tidepooling at 5:30 am. Yes, you heard me; AM!

Sam found out a couple of days ago that the early morning low tide would be the lowest all year at 5:30 am yesterday. So, he hatched a plan to get us all up at 4:30 and drive north of Santa Cruz to Davenport, where they are supposed to have great tidepools. There are tidepools closer, but they're south and since he works north and had to get there when we were done, north was better. I was skeptical he could do it, he's not much of a morning person.



But, we all got up and headed north before dawn. We spent a couple of hours poking around the tidepools, seeing all kinds of cool critters. We had breakfast at a little cafe overlooking the ocean and still got him to work by 9:15. I think we'll do it again, the next extra low tide is July 22nd. We saw LOTS of sea anemones in all different colors, this turquoise one is my favorite.


Meghan, seeing what she can find. And, below, a couple of sea stars.




Crabby, hunting for his breakfast.



There are a few more pics on my facebook page. :0)

Too much excitement.

So, I left yesterday morning, with a long list of errands to run, expecting to be gone most of the day. Then, I was going to get home with JUST enough time to finish up my Activity Days lesson and get back to Monterey for that. About noon-ish, my sister (who is staying next door with my parents for the summer) called and said to look out my window. I told her I wasn't home to look. She told me the barn next door was on fire. And, that the road was closed because they had 14 fire trucks, two slurry bombers, two helicopters and approximately 350,000 firefighters. So, I might as well take my time. Great, I had just bought groceries. It couldn't start BEFORE I had perishables in my trunk. Usually here, it's not a huge deal, it just doesn't get that hot. But, it was hot by Monterey standards yesterday, between 75 and 80. Definitely too hot to leave milk in the car.

Keri took these pictures from Mom's house. I tried to convince the roadblock dudes that I really needed to get home, but no go, too much equipment in the way. I couldn't see my house from there, so I tried driving around the back way, down the hill on the other side of the valley. It was closed too, but I could see that the fire had burned the barn down, and then headed east, through my property and through two more ten acre lots before they got it stopped. It melted my pretty PVC horse fence on our street line, did a number on a couple of my cypress trees (although i think they'll survive, actually). But, they still wouldn't let me through. I went back to the first roadblock, and asked how long it would be. He estimated an hour. I parked the car in the shade and Meg and I walked the last mile and half home, uphill, of course. The road ended up closed for about another three hours. Some reporter saw me walking up my driveway and stopped me, but they ask such stupid questions, so I gave them kind of stupid answers. I guess I wasn't exciting enough, so I didn't get any news time. Dad did though, you can see it at the news website . You can see my house in that video, too. And yes, my giant Christmas star is still up there...it was too hard to get up to take it down.

The road opened just in time for me to make it to my Activity Days thing. I got home to a sink full of dirty dishes and no water. The pressure pump on the well was out, and when that happens we only have a teeny little trickle. It took 40 minutes this morning to fill up the sink to do the dishes. At least we still have SOME water, and don't have to have five gallon bottles to flush the toilet. We just can't go to the bathroom more than once per hour. It fills up eventually. :0) The well dude came this morning and fixed it, we won't know how much until the bill comes. I guess Dad didn't ask for an estimate, probably figuring that it had to be fixed so it doesn't matter. Between buying new fence, a new pressure pump, and plane tickets for Ry and Sue to come over the 4th, I'm officially going to be poor.

I am VERY glad, however, that I spent that $400 to have someone come mow our tall grass. Things might have been MUCH worse.

Ok, Now I'm just showing off...

Pics Sam took at sunset last night at Pt Pinos in Pacific Grove. There are more on my facebook page...

Yosemite

Pictures of our trip to Yosemite over Mother's Day weekend (yeah, I know...they're a month old, but whatever). This first one is the "gang", my friends Wendy and Jim, Sam, Meg (only her eyes, lol) and I.

This is Bridal Veil falls:

This is my Meg, taking after her Daddy:

El Capitan:

Half Dome from Glacier Point at sunset:

Yosemite Falls from the meadow:

This is the second trip we've taken with these guys and we really had a good time. They are very patient traveling companions...probably because Jim likes taking pictures as much as Sam does, so he was up for whatever. Wendy was my first Visiting Teacher when we moved down here, so she's known Meg since she was two and they are great buddies.

New post.

That's about all this is. I have about two minutes, and I'm tired of the old one, even though it was a great story.

Let's see....week before last I made a wedding dress in three days for a lady that had to get married before she got baptized. It was a simple dress, but she's six months pregnant, so it was a bit of a challenge. Took over my life for a few days. But, it came out amazingly well and she seemed happy.

Last week we just lived life. The usual too much to do, not enough time to do it. Nothing exciting.

A few weeks ago we took a weekend trip to Yosemite with some friends of ours. Jim has lived in California for almost thirty years and never been there. He's a photographer, too, so we went on a photo trip. I'll write more about it when I have time to look through some pics to post about it.

This week, Meg and I are working on Greek mythology for her very LAST stupid school project of sixth grade. Almost done...technically due today, we may have it done by tomorrow.

That's all folks!

I Love Prunetucky

So, Sunday, we're sitting in church. We sit on the front row on the side, by the organ. After I play the Sacrament hymn, I go down and sit with my family. Last Sunday was pretty hot (by Monterey standards, anyway), so they had all the doors open, trying to catch the non-existant breeze. There are a set of doors in the front of the chapel, one at the end of my row and one on the other side, by the Sacrament table.

So, as we're kind of zoning during one of the talks (early church + lack of sleep = not terribly alert) and I notice a little critter coming in the door by the Sacrament table. I look and it looks like someone's pet white rat...white with a pink nose and pink eyes. It starts scampering towards us, up against the podium. The only people who can see it are the front row people and maybe the second row people. As it gets closer, I realize that it's not a rat, it's a baby POSSUM. Just before it gets to our row, it turns and heads up the stairs to the choir seats.

By this time, the speaker and some of the bishopric can tell something is going on, but they aren't sure what. A minute after it scampers up the stairs, Brother Lente gets up, follows it up the stairs, across the back behind the podium and traps it in the corner behind the priests. Everyone is watching him, thinking he's chasing his two year old again, but the two year old is behind him. Finally, he comes down the other stairs, holding this critter. By then, half the congregation is laughing, the other half have no idea what's going on, the speaker is kind of flustered. She looks over at him and says, "Oh MY! That explains it, I was wondering if something was wrong with me!"

Brother Lente finally deposited the critter outside, but not until he held it up and showed the congregation like he was showing off his newborn baby. It was a great moment in the Prunedale ward. ;0)