Feel asleep eating - again. This time she left her hand in the bowl.

 

We took my Mom on a little tourist run through San Diego. After visiting my work (American Specialty Health), we drove to Coronado and took a ferry to San Diego.

Sunglasses are so fun.

We walked along Harbor Drive and walked past the USS Midway, which is an aircraft carrier converted into a floating museum. Pictured below, Mom was helping Rebekah down next to a memorial to our sailors.

And in this area there were huge leaves.

Last stop was Anthony's Fish Grotto. Good food!

Then we took the ferry back to Coronado.

 

My Mom is staying with us for a few days. We went out for lunch at Acapulco and then went to Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

When waiting for our seat, the kids "played" together.

Here is my Mom and Rebekah

Mom brought Hoover. Rebekah loved being in charge of walking the dog.

 

Les and Laura took the kids to the "bridge" where you can be in California then run to the other side and be in Arizona.

 

It sure was nice of Gramma to let us stay at her house. Good thing homeschooling is portable! It also plays nicely with other families who are also schooling from home. We brought along another family to help them get out of the smoke.

All the kids just slept in the living room

Their toddler

Our toddler

 

Video removed
 

We left San Diego, because we weren't sure the fire would jump highway 54 and get closer to us. We had been planning to leave because of the smoke and ash, but... you saw the picture of the fire, so we left. I'm back now.

Here are a few pictures looking South from I-8 at the highway 79 exit. These are of the Harris fire at / near Campo & Jamul.

 

Our location
Check out this image that our friends Jer & Shanelle fixed up for us. Map

You can try this web site to see the fire's estimated location. Be patient, it sometimes goes offline.
http://media.signonsandiego.com/fires/

 

The moon at about 1 am.

Picture from our bathroom's window, looking west at about 2am. That mountain (Mt Miguel) is about 6 miles away.

Ash as of almost 10 am

Yes, we're leaving!

 

 

Our Sunday school class, which included a bunch of our friends, went to a new (to us) ranch for apple picking - Corcoran ranch in Ramona, CA.

Do you see the Yellow Jackets in the apple? They eat the insides of old apples. Isn't God so smart to make this recycling system.

Rachel romping in the orchard. She had a GREAT time, and was filthy by the time we left!

The orchard proprietor told us to eat all the apples we wanted while we were in the orchard, so Rebekah & Leslie took advantage of it!

Taryn directs Elijah to the *exact* apple that she wanted.

Leslie tries to get the PERFECT apple!

Rachel just kept sticking her head into the tree. I don't know why.

There were several very cute little girls. Here is one of them. I regret not snapping a picture of them all together.

Elijah holding 2 month old Luke. He's quite enamored with the baby!

Buddies Elijah & Evan

Boys using the apple pickers as staffs

 

 

One night, Les tells me the dryer is not spinning anymore. A family of 6 needs a functional washer and dryer! Les did all the research and found out how dryers work and operate. Basically, the belt that wraps around the drum to make it spin broke. I just replaced the belt. It was pretty easy.

I was so impressed with this clump of lint that was in the outflow that I weighed it: 6 oz!!!

 

 

Leslie took a class to become certified to teach archery. At the end of the course, the participents held an archery event, with about 20 young archers!

 

Joanna was sleeping over with her best buddy, Zoe, and wanted to pack her things by herself. So Mama made her a picture list to aid her packing--she was very proud of it, and did a great job packing all by herself!

 

 

Newsboys "Everywhere We Go"

Les wanted me to say that the girls learned all their skills from her

This was recorded back on 6/10/2007

Video removed
 

I had today off from work, so we decided to do a quick field trip to the world famous San Diego Zoo.

We let the kids have one camera and I kept the other.

Photographer: Les

Photographer: Mike

Photographer: Elijah

Jaller, from Bionicles

Photographer: Rebekah

I drove the family to the zoo. As I was exiting the freeway, this little car was behind me and didn't want me to exit in front of her. She honked her horn and when we stopped at the next street light, Rebekah snapped this picture. She exclaimed, "I took a picture of her."

Animals

 

 

Rebekah loves the coach's wife who is also a Sunday school teacher.

Goalie Rebekah

She plays defense and also goalie sometimes. She does great as the goalie. She attacks the ball and isn't afraid of it.

Cheerleader?

Triumph tunnel

Labels: Soccer

 

We had our annual trip to Oma's Pumpkin Patch at the Van Ommering Dairy out in Lakeside today. It's a really fun place! We met up with several other homeschooling families (and one preschooling family!), and had a great time. As you'll see from the kids' cheeks, it was VERY hot there today!

Joanna & her favorite person in the whole wide world, Zoe

Elijah sledding on the "cottonseed mountain"

Rebekah sledding

Rebekah not sledding

While the bigger kids played, Rachel enjoyed herself in the petting area.
Video removed

Can't..get...this...thing...started!!

After a hot day, Les got the kids a treat - ice cream from 7/ll.

 

Rachel just loves the Leapster. I'd love to say she understands everything about it and loves to read and interact with it, but, um, she's 2 and I don't think that is completely true. She does love the little gadget.

 

Elijah and I went with our church as part of Royal Rangers to Camp Wynola in Wynola, CA. We camped Friday night to Sunday morning with over 110 other boys from about a dozen different churches. Saturday was filled with games and mud (keep reading). I took a bunch of pictures, but I didn't really capture Elijah in all the pictures, so I'm showing you the pictures even though it might be kids you don't know. Sorry.

Elijah is in the back. At the camp, I ran the sling shot competition.

The boys helped build a Chippewa kitchen.

Mud Begins Here

One of the events was an obstacle course. The boys had to work as a patrol to apply first aid to one of the boys who had a simulated blinded eye and sprained ankle. They had to assist him through the course and safely evacuate him to the awaiting (invisible) helicopter. Along the way was a thick mud pit.

The mud was front...

... back

... and bottom.

Washing off was really rough, because the pit was warm while the clean water was FREEZING!

You have to end a campout with fire. Here we are roasting marshallows and Dough Boys. Notice the very large dough ball on the boy in the blue's jacket? A Dough Boy made by taking a biscuit from a refrigerated can of biscuits, and wrapping it around a very large dowel. It is browned slowly over the fire and then removed. Once cooked it can be filled with any standard pie filling or pudding.

Labels: Royal Rangers