A Snippet of the Last Three Weeks

A lot more has been going on around here than I will ever have time to catch up with the blogging about, but oh well, here is some of our crazy lives (whatever I happened to get pictures of).

We went on one last before-school-starts day trip, a couple of weeks ago (before school started - smile). Now that we have both a teenager and a toddler, with five cute kids in between, it is harder to find one activity that makes everyone happy, so we compromised. First, we went to Vons and used a gift card I won to buy bagels, cream cheese, water, grapes and candy (doesn't that sound like a balanced meal?). Then we headed to the coast. First, we went shopping in some of the boutiquish shops near the beach (to please the older kids). Summer and Rachel each went halfsy with me on some clothes. Summer picked a dress...

...and Rachel found a skirt.

After we were done shopping (well, some of us were done...) we headed a few miles north to a small municipal aquarium. It is just the right size to see in an afternoon. We started with lunch on the beach and then headed over to see the fish and tons of other ocean life. I was surprised at the variety of creatures they had!

Naomi was fascinated with everything in the tanks.

This part of the trip was especially for the younger kids (but when pressed I think everyone would admit that they enjoyed it) and they really liked the tide pool that you could touch things in.

Rachel and I both took our cameras and both had fun using them. Summer borrowed mine quite a bit, too and used it to take pictures of both the wet and dry wild life around her.

I'm not sure if Summer or I took this, but isn't it nifty?


And here is a slide show of more creature pictures. These are my favorites of the ones I took.





Here are a series of three pictures Summer took.

Michael tends to end up at the back of the line of women he has to follow around wherever he goes.

Sometimes he gets more interested in other things besides being the last in line. I have to keep an eye on him, or he'd get lost.

Heather, Gwen, Kelly Michael and Naomi had fun being eaten.

Gwen and Mo liked this big whale head statue.

I thought the Whale Graveyard was a good place to get a picture of everyone.

Then, the Monday after our last big shebang, Summer, Rachel, Heather, Gwen and Kelly all started school. Summer is in a public high school, Heather and Gwen (this is Gwen's first year) are both in the same public elementary school and I am home schooling Rachel and Kelly.

Here are Heather and Gwen on the first day of school with their shiny new clothes, shoes and semi-matching backpacks.

Finally, to end our catch-up, a funny story. The other evening, I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, with whole wheat sesame bread sticks on the side. I went ahead and gave everyone a couple of bread sticks before they sat down and when Michael saw his sitting on his plate, he asked, "Why do my meatballs have seeds on them?"