Golden Gardens

We enjoyed a spur-of-the-moment mid-day outing to Golden Gardens. We decided to begin at the pond at the n. end of the beach and work our way south to the creek. The girls spotted turtles, became fawns (that I was encouaged to hunt with my gun....those sneaky deer are so fast!), ran in the field, rolled in the sand and worked hard to dam the creek and divert water elsewhere. I tried to use this teaching opportunity to explain how water from one large river can be diverted to supply water to many areas. I don't think anyone was listening.....but we had fun!

Joanna Allinson, a highschool friend of mine (and fellow homeschooler), recently came to visit us. Her 5 kids and and my 4 sure had a lot of fun. Lot of kids, lots of noise, lots of fun. All my girls seemed fascinated with Josh who is 11. Thanks to my mom for letting us meet at her house. I think the floor was covered with food and mud by the time we left.

Our little Louisa is a busy gal! She never sits, but rather prefers cruising along furniture, climbing the stairs and searching for non-food items to taste. Baby toys are too boring to bother tasting; She prefers shoes, rocks, dirt, zippers, plants, furniture, wood and small toys that her sisters leave around......we are doing our best to keep her safe! She does her best to communicate and has lots and lots of interesting sounds. Her favorite attention-getters are clapping and making a sound while running her finger back and forth over her lips. Louisa is a great eater and now joins the family for all 3 meals. I can't think of anything she has tried that she doesn't like - she seems delighted with each new taste and texture. The sisters wouldn't eat their beans tonight (without a little dessert bribe), but Louisa couldn't get enough of goulash and green beans.

We enjoyed great weather, lots of pool time (except for Louisa who didn't want a drop of water on her), tons of beach time (include night runs with cousins, Lola and Violette), a swim with dolphins, a visit to San Jose del Cabo, a horse ride through the Cabo freshwater sanctuary to the beach and too much food. The best part, in my opinion, was not having to cook or clean for 9 days!

Eva and I enjoyed our swim with the dolphins in Cabo San Lucas. Eva was the only child in our group. Young, but brave......when the instructor asked who wanted to go first, she jumped in the water shouting, "me!".

Another Try

I'm definitely NOT doing a good job keeping up this blog....one entry in December and then nothing. I'm going to make another attempt at submitting regular entries, as I do not have time to hand write a journal. Sooo.....2010 is going well. In a nutshell, homeschooling is wonderful. The girls are learning, happy, participating family members. We do some schoolish things, but mostly we live and learn together. Lots of living, lots of learning.
Winter highlight: We visited Mexico with the kids end of Feb with Derek/Wendy and family and had a wonderful trip....and we were all healthy.....bonus! The trip was flanked by flu, but who cares......we were healthy in Mexico.

Today we went with the athomeinSeattle group to the Arboretum to learn about trees. And it was soooo fun! We ran in to Dia, a friend from the homeschool resource center and the girls had a great time with her. Kaia just wanted to stomp in mud puddles. My mom took care of Lulu who has a mild fever. Thank you Grandma!

New Blog

I'm not sure if I'll have time to maintain a blog, but I'm going to give it a try. I've been wanting to keep a diary to record the cute things my kids do/say. It takes too long to actually write everyting down so maybe blogging is the solution for me.
Today was a bit crazy (as many days are), as we are battling colds and serious coughs. I'm just hoping to be past the worst of it by Christmas Eve. Despite our poor health, we enjoyed many happy, laughing moments today. One moment that comes to mind happened when the girls were playing hide-and-seek. Kaia was trying to find the girls. Eva was hiding in the main level bathroom. When Kaia was standing right outside the bathroom she heard Eva's loud voice coming from the bathroom claiming, "I'm in the living room". Kaia looked toward the bathroom and then toward the living room and ran for the living room.
Elsa also made me smile when she appeared with her snarled, unbrushed hair (we were having a relaxed, pajama kind of day) full of hair clips. Elsa is our fashionista and likes to be fancy. She had also applied a generous amount of perfume.