Weekend Dates

Every other Friday, Shawn gets the day off work and now that the kids are back in school, we can use that as our date day!

Last Friday, we headed to Eggs-N-Things for breakfast.

(If you come to visit, I'm sure we'll take you there.  It's delicious!)

After breakfast, we headed to Point Mugu State Park for a little hike.  I found it online and it was rated moderate because the first 3/4 mile was straight uphill.  I am a lot out of shape.  

Almost all of the plants look like they are painted brown because  are coated with brown dust since it never rains here.  

I loved this little marshy area because of how green it was.

You can see that I am directly under Shawn.

Straight uphill.

 

That is the base just behind us.  

 I just happened to see this sticker on the way up and stopped on the way back down to get a picture.

#gladtobehere

I thought it was fitting!

 Saturday night our church had a date night, so we dropped the kids off, then headed out to dinner.  We have been wanting to try Korean bbq, so we went to Gen.  It's a flat fee of $20.99/person and it's all you can eat.  But, you cannot take any left overs home and they will charge you if there's too much food uneaten.  You order 4 meats at a time, then cook it at your table.  No forks or knives (unless you ask),  only chopsticks, tongs to cook with and scissors to cut your food.  It was really good and it might also be a place we take visitors.  Other than that, we tried Korean potato salad, spicy pickles and kimchi, which were all good.

 Two dates in two days.  A girl could get used to this!

Riding the Bus

The principal made the comment the other night at the Newcomer's Meeting, that we would probably be bringing our kindergarteners to school for awhile.  At least until they were ready to ride the bus.  It's so hard for kindergarteners, so some people think.

I asked Amelia if she wanted me to take her to school, even for just the rest of this week.  

Her answer was, NO!  I want to ride the bus!

(And there goes $556 down the drain!)

We only have to walk to the next door neighbors steps to catch the bus.

Amelia said that she made 2 friends yesterday, but can't remember their names and Caleb said he made LOTS of friends…like 15.

 Caleb said, I'll walk Bitty to her class.

To which Amelia said, Why can't I just walk to my class all by myself?!

These independent kids!  I told her that Caleb will make sure she gets to her class today and tomorrow and then next week she can go all by herself.

 It's here!

There's one other kid who rides the bus with them, Riley.  They live across the street and his dad works at Anthem and just so happens to fly to Indianapolis a lot for work.  

 And there they go. 

Amelia will also come home on the bus at 12:30 (the little kindergarten bus:o).  And Caleb will be home a little after 2.  

(Did I mention that?  K-3 goes to school until 2:05 and 4-8 goes until 3.  This school does crazy things.)

Taking Caleb to kindergarten didn't get me teary.  It was putting him on the bus for the first time.  Putting Amelia on the bus this morning didn't get me teary.  It was saying goodbye to her at school yesterday morning.  Funny how each kid tends to bring different emotions to you.  I am so glad they transition so well!  It would make this life a lot harder if they were not so willing to be put into different situations and just try.  I know they're scared to do new things and be at a new school and a new house and neighborhood and church.  But they try and for that, I am super proud of them!

1st Day of School

It's finally here!

The first day of school!!!

They couldn't have been more excited (along with a little nerves).  

They were both up at 6:50 asking if they could get dressed.  

 We really can't believe Amelia is in Kindergarten already!

(She told us that we should call her Bitty Big now, since she's not so bitty anymore.)

The school they are attending has half day kindergarten until after Thanksgiving break, then she'll go full days.

Her teacher this year is Mrs. Morgan.

 Caleb's teacher this year is Mrs. Webster.

 Is it just me, or does Caleb look entirely too grown up in this picture?!

 It was here before we knew it.

They both are attending the same school and will be riding the same bus.  The days at home with babies, are now over.  

We are so excited to see what they will learn this year.  Who their friends will be.  To watch them grow into their personalities more and more.  Man, we love them so much!

Happy 1st Day of School!!

Wings Over Camarillo

Saturday we headed over to the Camarillo Airport to the Wings Over Camarillo Airshow.

This was a more laid back, old plane airshow.  No fighter jets racing by.  

 They both flew in the simulator. 

There was even a car show.

 They got to drive some robots around and fly some drones.  A lot of the high schools here offer aerospace and robotics classes.

(P.S. Our kids do not own video games, therefore, cannot figure out how to fly drones without moving their whole body in the direction they want the thing to fly).

 Friday night, as we were watching Shawn play soccer with a bunch of old guys, this plane flew over.  I had no idea what it was. We actually got to see if fly at the airshow.  It's called the Flying Wing and there are only 2 of these.  The other one is in the Smithsonian and they trade them out, when they need to fly them.

 We also saw the C-17 fly into the airport on Friday.  We were driving down the road - and if you've never seen one of these in the air...it's amazing! - and we saw this thing come in to land at the airport.  It looks like it's falling out of the sky and that there's no way it's able to land at this tiny place.  So cool!  

Waiting to look in the cockpit.

 Flying the C-17.

 We met the pilot (a woman) of this plane as we were waiting to fly the simulator earlier in the day.

 After that, we were all tired and decided to leave early.

For some reason, Wrigley stinks here.  All. The. Time.

We're not sure why.  He never stunk like this in Whidbey, and it was wet at all times there.  We think it must be the bushes he lives in when he's outside.  Whatever it is, we cannot afford to get him a bath every week.  So, Shawn headed out to get some dog shampoo  and give him a bath.

 Poor wet dog.

Shortly after, Shawn let him off the leash so that he could dry him off out of the puddle of water…..and where do you think he went? Straight through the doggy door, running around the house like a mad man.  Note to self - lock the doggy door before the bath next time.

 And finally, we are still using up oranges.  I made orange scones with orange glaze the other night (did I already mention that one?).  Saturday night it was pan seared salmon in an orange glaze (do you think it looks like the Pinterest picture? No.), and then Shawn juiced about 20 oranges.  I took the peels of about four, scraped them clean, put them in a glass jar, poured vinegar over them, and sat it in the frig to sit for 5 days.  Our own homemade cleaning solution.

Underwood Farm

We've begun the countdown to the first day of school, so we are filling our last few days with lots of fun before early mornings, homework and schedules tie us down.  

Friday, the kids and I went to the Underwood Family Farm, about 20 minutes from here, in the valley below the Ronald Reagan National Library.

This is a u-pick farm and everyone's been telling us we needed to go.  

 The combine is a slide.

 They had lots of animals to feed.  Next time I'll have more quarters.

 The kids were so excited, they couldn't even stop and pose for a picture.  Pointing to the next fun thing they wanted to go do.

 The farm was a little like a carnival too.  You could purchase tickets to ride the rides. We decided to take a ride around the farm in the cow train.

 The bare fields behind Caleb will be ready October 1st.  They have a huge fall harvest and I'm sure we'll be going here to pick our pumpkins!

 They are serious about their avocados here.  We were told that if your neighbors have an avocado tree that hangs over your fence, that fruit (is it a fruit) is actually yours.  They are supposed to keep their trees trimmed to their yard.  Sadly, we have no neighbors with avocado trees.

 Learning about bees.

 Playing on the playground…watching the goats walk above us.

 Amelia wanted to take a pony ride.  She rode Phoenix.

 Giant cow bouncy house.

 After that, we headed out to the fields to see what we wanted to pick.  There was so much to choose from and it makes me sad that no one in my family really loves veggies.  I could have picked a ton of things, but we stuck to a couple of orange tomatoes (I can't remember their name), green and purple lettuce and blackberries.  We also bought a yellow watermelon from their farm stand.  

 We had an awesome day!  I have a feeling we'll be going back here a lot and we think it'll be a great place to bring little guests!