First Day Of School

So today was kind of momentous: first day at the new school, and Ian started kindergarten. We're a little anxious about Ian and how he'll handle sitting in class all day without hitting anyone. We're also dreading the call home about an "accident" and a change of clothes. We'll see how it goes. But Tara's pretty excited to be home all morning long with just the girls.

The other kids in the picture are a family in our ward that we've become friends with. They walked out of their house as we were walking past and their little girl Patricia is in Ian's class. He seemed pretty excited to already know someone on the first day of school. We saw several other

families from church that live in the area (not all in our ward), which was kind of fun. California isn't considered one of those conservative-values states, so it's nice walking into a new school seeing people of similar values there. While I'm sure there are families of other faiths with similar values (NP is pretty conservative itself), I just haven't met any of them yet - good thing we've got Boosters (PTA) as a chance to get to know them! (Yes, Tara's already signed "us" up for some class activities and "fun"-draisers.)

California Cars

We were driving to Callie's a few weeks back and we pulled up behind one of the local cruisers in our neighborhood...a bright yellow Lotus Elise. Not sure why you would adorn such a nice car with such a horrible spoiler, but I guess money's not an issue if you own a Lotus.

And in case any of you are wondering, I'm WAAAAAAAAY out of my tax bracket here. This picture was taken while driving either my 2000 Toyota Sienna minivan or my 1996 Civic, both of which are paid off and still run. Seriously, I was pretty happy in my previous post about how excited I was to get a used surfboard on craigslist. But at least I can take my kids on a surfboard, right?

(BTW...Aaron stood up the other day on the Anderson at Mondos. He's pretty excited to get out and try it again. Pretty soon he'll be joining us on those family dawn patrols when everyone's in town. Maybe he can join Brayden and Owen on the Jr Jones Pro Circuit.)

My new board!

So I wasn't planning on buying a new surfboard AT ALL this year. Yeah, I had hoped, but it was more wishful thinking. And then, this nice girl named Kirsten down in West Hollywood decided to deliver me Christmas early at a PHENOMENAL price. Gotta love Craigslist.

For those interested, it's a 9' 6" pintail, knifey rails and a nice little rocker in the nose allowing for late take-offs. The board turns super smooth and is pretty fast. The color is a lot prettier than the picture - it's a really light green, almost a mint cream color. And Dad, yes you can try it out but you'll buy me a new one if you ding it.

BTW...this picture was taken with my camera phone. Until Tara picks a new camera, that's all we'll be posting for the next little bit.

So, you may have noticed...no pictures in awhile. That's because Brad broke my camera...again. I'm kind of having withdrawals without it. I'm afraid if I don't actually document what we're doing we must not be doing anything. Well, that's not really true.

We did make it to Silverstrand and I'm not a huge fan. Part of it may be that I didn't like the whole trek with the kids by myself. Parking was limited, the walk was pretty far, and the beach break scared me with the kids. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

At the beginning of August, I went to Indiana with just my girls. I had so much fun with my sisters and my nieces. I can't believe Taylor's going to college! Despite the humidity, I loved being there and talking to my sisters, hanging out with my grown up nieces, and eating from Sara's lovely garden! I'm sure a few more weeks and Melina would've let me put her down:P I'm pretty sure my boys enjoyed a break from mommy, a dodgers game, and just hanging out with their laid back daddy. Thanks mom for taking a picture!

We also went to Zuma a couple weeks ago. It's always great to see Uncle Chris and Aunt Lu, and Kristen and Josh were there, and Justin, and Gabby, and their new baby Liam, and Chels and Dave were in town, and Callie amazingly brought her clan all on her own and my brother and his wife even showed up. I'm finding here in California someone is always in town. It's great because it gives us an excuse to get together.

Honestly, although I love discovering new things here, I can't wait until school starts. I'm counting down the days until I can go grocery shopping during the day without 4 kids. It is exhausting to go to a store and have to say no and stop touching things and please stay next to me that many times. School starts late here date-wise (to me)-not until Sept 1. Also, time-wise, early 8:15 am! No more 9am school. I hope I can get ready early enough:) I'm excited and nervous for Ian to be in school for 5 hours. That's a big difference from 2 1/2 hrs two days a week. The first few weeks may be rough.

Hopefully, I will have pictures again someday... or else Melina will be one of those last children who say their parents never took pictures by the time they got to her...

The Adventure Continues...

So a couple of weeks ago my sister and brother were in town so we headed to the Getty Museum. It was cool and great hanging out with the fam, but not really a kid place. They did have a small kids area plus an amazing rolling hill, but the security guard kept having to come tell me to keep my kids away from the water. What can I say we love fountains. Plus, we have discovered the Janns Mall Fountains which you can run through-not quite as spectacular as Gateway's fountains (SLC), but pretty good!

My mom took us to the Sylmar Wildlife Learning Center last week and the kids had a blast. The macaws said hello to us, we were introduced to Walter the porcupine (who modeled for Over the Hedge), and the kids touched four year old tortoises which were smaller than our hands and pretty cute actually. Overall, fun trip and we all learned something:)

Still on my list of things to do before the kids go back to school are:

Temescal Gateway Park, and Bennet Honey Farm

Stay tuned for more adventures.

Birthdays

June 21st we celebrated Ian's 5th birthday. I still can't believe he is 5. We had a Pokemon theme and he had a big party. He had cousins, aunts and uncles and mema and tutu man. This smile pretty much says everything about Ian. He is a crazy ball of energy, but he is so cuddly and lovable too. He plays hard sometimes, but he is also very protective of his family.

June 29th Lani turned 3 years old. We had a Care Bear party with a princess cake and celebrated with different cousins, a different set of aunts and uncles, and mema and tutu man. We love parties! I have a tradition of taking diapers away when my kids turn 3 years old (with some training beforehand). I was a little unsure of how this would go since I tried it with her a couple months ago and it didn't quite work. I guess she just needed more time because she is doing great now! She is such a doll. She loves to help mommy, sometimes even disciplining her brothers.

Today, July 5, Melina turned 8months. I haven't blogged about her in awhile so I wanted to give a little update. Melina has been crawling for a couple weeks now. Currently, she not only crawls pretty fast, but she is pulling herself up on chairs. We keep looking for a walker for her, but by the time we find one she'll probably be walking. She's 2-3 months ahead of the rest of my kids. She's definitely trying to keep up. Either that or she is trying to catch me to pick her back up. She's been through a lot of changes with moving and meeting new people so she's a little nervous around people and wants to be held by me most of the time. She grabs at everything and gets the best smile and little laugh in anticipation of food. It's the cutest!

California Adventure

I call this the California Adventure because even though we live here now, it still seems like we are on vacation (especially with the amount of family coming and going and well, Brad working from home). I told Brad that since we live here we are actually going to go out and explore this state of his. So we've been doing alot of exploring.

.I guess Mondos isn't really exploring since we end up here every year, but I did realize I've got to get a little bit better at my "get ready for the beach routine" since apparently we will be going alot. And, maybe I'll have to get over the don't get sand on everything mentality.

We also hiked to Paradise Falls. It wasn't exactly Paradise, but good job kids for walking about 3 miles and good job Dakota (our friend/cousin) for carrying Lani a good bit of the time.

Last week we joined Callie and her kids on their fieldtrip to Leo Carillo. This was very cool and a perfect day for a trip to the beach (sadly, we didn't take bathing suits). The kids saw all kinds of sea creatures and had a blast. Owen's ability to touch anything has really encouraged my kids to be a little braver.

Today we went to the Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. I didn't take pictures, but imagine my kids in front of a pier with a ferris wheel in the background or crowded around a bunch of street performers. Aaron actually won an overpriced game and I got a sincere "thank you for bringing me here mommy." This was preceded by a "why did you bring me here to the beach without my bathing suit and why do I have to wear a sweatshirt that is too big for me?"

All in all, I think that is a good start for our adventure. Hopefully, we can take a day off before we check out Silverstrand Beach on Thursday:)