Updates!!! 03/13/2012
 

Our family is growing!!!  In early December we found out that we are expecting our forth child!!! Due to arrive near the end of August or very early September.  We are so excited and feel very blessed!  The children are very excited to find out whether they are getting a new brother or sister.  We should know by the end of March or beginning of April!!!

Our garden is moving!  We have already begun to get the new garden site ready at my grandparents house.  While its a bit further to go than out the back door, we have almost doubled our growing space, and feed up some much needed space in our yard for a play area for the kids!  The seeds are started and pictures to follow soon.

I plan in the coming weeks to try and get the rest of our "Grand Southwest Adventure" trip pictures uploaded to more slide shows.  I have been meaning to do it, but Life Happens.  :)  Also stay tuned for pictures from our GOLD RUSH field trip planned for early May!


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Well, we are back. This time we went down to Anaheim/Huntington Beach area for the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) Basic Seminar at Warner Ave. Baptist Church. We left home at 5 am Sunday and arrived at our destination Anaheim Resort RV Park at 3:30 pm. The trip was fairly uneventful except for the fact that as soon as we hit the road and were saying to each other “that went smooth” that we lost one of our mirror extensions. Oooops! That’s when it hit us that we forgot our sons shoes. Double Oooops! (We loaded sleeping children in pajamas into the car). Two pit-stops and tone of junck food later we arrived and dropped of the trailer, leveled it out, and found a nearby grocery store to stock up for the week. That night we grilled up some ‘dogs’ and heated up some baked beans, and enjoyed our ‘camping faire’ with the sounds of cars and a view of The Matterhorn at Disneyland. The girls were wiped from getting up so early and being in the car all day, so just hubby, son and I watched the fireworks display from Disney that night. It was spectacular!!!

The Seminar was a week long and for the first 4 days was only for a few hours in the evening, so we had all day to goof around. Monday, we went to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, which was incredible! We only had 3 hours to explore (we thought would be plenty of time - we were wrong!) We only saw the first floor and the butterflies. Being that we home school, my husband and I got a teachers discount by showing our HSLDA cards and got in FREE and the girls were FREE due to age, so the only cost was $12 for our son, oh, and the cost to park.

Tuesday, we went to Huntington Beach to walk the pier. While there we had the opportunity to watch the filming of a hidden camera TV show…I guess the point is to see if they could get people mad, and secretly film their reactions to a shill in the crowd stirring up trouble…It was fun trying to find all the disguised camera men & women. We were also able to watch the surfers. The weather was great, very warm and breezy at the beach. We had a picnic lunch at the car, and then headed off to go visit family.

Wednesday, was supposed to be the coolest day, so we decided to go to the Los Angeles Zoo. We had about 3 hours and we check the map and decided to just do the main loop, making sure to see the elephants (for dear daughter) and the Komodo Dragons (for dear son) but the main loop was bigger than we thought, and in 3 hours we only scratched the surface. We hope to go back and see the rest of what we missed, and to see new exhibits as we could see lots of construction going on around the Zoo. Only bummer at the zoo was NO Discounts! L

Thursday, we did some housekeeping, and then went for a swim with family. Then we went out to dinner at this amazing place called Olive Pit Grill. Everything there from their grilled cheese on pita to the wraps and kabobs was AMAZING!!! The hummus was to die for, served with warm pita. It was such a treat to eat out after cooking all week, but the food here made it extra special, that and our company. We had dinner with my step-sister! This place is a must if your in the area.

Friday & Saturday we were in class pretty much all day. The seminar was great. We learned so much, and met so many new friends. The church itself was just as amazing, I guess it was built in 1906, as a Japanese Methodist Church, when that part of Huntington Beach was called Wintersburg. Not many renovations have been done, but its charm and grandeur still shined brightly despite visible damage and disrepair. It would be a very fun project to bring it back to its full glory!

Class wrapped up Saturday evening, and we made it home (back to the trailer) in time for the fireworks show at Disney, again… It was a nice evening to end our time in the Los Angeles area. Sunday morning we pack up and headed for the second leg of our journey, Pismo Beach.

It was about a 4 ½ hour drive from Anaheim to Pismo…We were supposed to stay at Avila Hot Springs…But when we arrived there we found the park to be overcrowded, and they did not leave us adequate room to park our trailer in the assigned and last site available. We called around and found a site at Pismo Coast Resort RV Park. They were very friendly and accommodating, despite our last minute reservations. We went back to Avila Hot Springs and got a refund - and decided not to return there ever after conversation between the front desk clerk and my husband, during the refund transaction.

Anyway, we settled in quickly to our site, and found that for just a few more dollars a night, we were in a MUCH, MUCH better resort. We picked up pizza and brought it back to camp and enjoyed the cool ocean air (after a long hot week in L.A.). Monday we went and played n the beach and flew our kite, and BBQ-ed steaks for dinner. We sat around the campfire and made S’mores, and decided that we had had so much fun at the beach that we should stay another day and do it again!!! So Tuesday we headed out to the beach, and had a blast collecting sea shells and sand dollars. We had lunch at Splash Café, clam chowder in a bread bowl!!! And later after a long, much needed nap for EVERYONE, dinner at Hoagies!

The trip was awesome! We learned a lot, and met tons of new people. We are glad to be home to see our dog and chickens and our Leopard Gecko “Cody”, now to do mountains of laundry and get ready for our next adventure: The Canyon Trip - coming soon!

Institute in Basic Life Principles: Basic Seminar
http://iblp.org/iblp/seminars/basic/
Warner Ave. Baptist Church
http://www.warnerbc.com/wb/
L.A. Natural History Museum
http://www.nhm.org/site/
L.A. Zoo and Botanical Gardens
http://lazoo.org/
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Thursday June 30th was day one on our 3 night maiden voyage in the trailer, our home sweet home on wheels. We finally have blinkers again on the Expedition (Our BIG red 2005 Ford Expedition, I sometimes refer to as our “Home-school Bus“)

(A Quick re-cap: December 2009 I wrecked our 2005 Ford Escape. By the time we got it fixed and returned to us almost 4 months later we decided that a bigger car was needed for our growing family. We bought the Expedition used, and pretty much as soon as the warranties were all expired, everything broke on the car! I really think that is why they do durability testing on cars so that they know when things are going to break, and they make the warranties last until the day before the car self-implodes. The passenger window stopped rolling up, the AC went out and the blinkers stopped all in the same week. The week after our warranty expired, when we called Ford they tried to sell us another car!!!!)

Okay back to the maiden voyage. We loaded up all the passengers, 3 kids, Mom, Dad & 3 live chickens, yes, I said, “chickens“. We got a late start and despite towing such a large load, we made good time. We had a brief stop-over in Davis, time to stretch our legs, go pee, chat it up with good friends, oh, and drop off the three chickens to their new home. Then it was back “on the road again”.

We pulled into to Thousand Trails Lake of the Springs in Oregon House, CA around 7, started the BBQ while we set up camp…level the trailer, hook-up all the wires and hoses, bump-out the bump-out, and just make things cozy in general. The kids roasted us some hotdogs over the BBQ and Dear Husband fried up some bacon to add to the vegetarian baked beans (the last 3 cans they had at the store). Visited with Dear Hubby’s parent who were joining us for the weekend. Before bed Dear Husband, his father and I took the kids on a night walk, that is one thing I love about that campground it has awesome views of our galaxy. A few shooting stars and off to bed we went.

Day 2 was just more settling in, a trip to Ace Hardware for a few odds and ends; some trailer stuff, bubbles, sunscreen, an Arizona Ice Tea, and a 5 dollar plastic bow and arrow set and we were off to our next destination, Ice Cream at Collins Lake (a perfect way to beat the heat), then back to camp to get ready for dinner. The kids helped assemble teriyaki chicken kabobs, and Dear Husband made rice. Then a little fishing for Dear Son and Dad and they came back with Dear Son’s very own story of the “one that got away”. After dinner we took another night walk. I just can’t get over how many stars there are, no matter how many times I look at them. And to think that our Lord calls every single one by its name. (Psalm 147:4)

Day 3 Breakfast: Homegrown-eggs; scrambled , and fried potatoes with onions, bell peppers, and bacon. As the day got hotter we got ourselves ready to go down to the lake to go swimming. Swim suits, water socks, huge inner tube, ice chest with cold drinks, towels, life jackets for the girls and off we went. This year there is still a ton of snow up in the Sierras, so much in fact that a few of the ski resorts were open for Forth of July skiing with 80-degree weather…(I’m not sure why that conjures images of the 1980’s and thoughts of girls skiing with those big furry boots in bikinis?) Anyway, we all thought that the lake would be freezing, but it was actually perfect, cool, not cold, refreshing yet comfortable. We all had a blast!

Steak dinner with the in-laws and some other company a family friend who lives at the campground, then off to the campfire for a sing-a-long. It was actually fun, it reminded me of Barney, only minus the big purple dinosaur, with the kids singing songs with hand motions. I loved to watch my girls really get into it. After the campfire we (Dear Husband & I) headed to the lake with Dear Son & Littlest Daughter to do some cat fishing, only we got skunked - not literally - that would have been NO fun! Then it was off to bed knowing that tomorrow we would be returning home.

Each morning we had a fantastic view out our window of the mountains, and both of us just sat there staring and wondering at what was over the other side. Anxious, excited and a bit scared to begin our Cross-country Adventure, what ever is beyond that mountain range would have to wait for another day. With mixed feelings we loaded up our trailer, making notes as to how to streamline our packing-up time. We gave hugs and kisses, and waved-goodbye, and pulled-out. On the way home we stopped at my Mom’s house to stretch and use the restroom, but it was so hot that we decided to stay for pizza and swimming which was a total blessing. We pulled onto our street around 8pm visited with our Dear Neighbors and then marched off for bed.

All-in-all the trip was wonderful. While it gave us a taste of what it will feel like to miss our home-home, it also whet our appetites, and peeked our curiosities for what’s to come!

Next Adventure Operation Garage Sale!

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Gearing Up!!! 06/05/2011
 
So a couple of days ago, after much debate, we settled on a "rig".  We purchased a 24-foot, 2012 Forest River Wildwood Travel Trailer...SUPER EXCITED!  So far we have just been loading it up and dreaming of ALL the places we could go.  Our maiden voyage will be a 3 night stay at Thousand Trails Lake of the Springs.  COMING SOON: To a Blog near you.  Pictures are on the main site.
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