Our trip to Idaho for Spring Break & Easter was a smashing success!

11 kids for the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday



Standing on that snow we are a solid 3 feet above the grass. I could easily reach up to the top, second story, deck off to the left. After a few hours it got soft and if you tried to walk on it you fell in to your knees at least. Good thing we had our hunt before the sun hit the snow/ice pack!

Then Easter dinner on Sunday with Stacy & Christi's families at Mom & Dad's house. It was great!
The kids table is always a fun place for teenagers to sit, and even some of our college age grandkids ;o)
Mom and my sister Stacy's girls are just waiting for dinner to be served.
That is my sister Christi, pregnant & so cute, with her daughter Kennedi! I know, you can hardly even tell but there is a nice ball shaped belly under that sweater. And, they are having a girl! Let the pink & brown festivities begin! I love those 2 colors for baby girls.
Oh yeah, more pictures.


Mom was hoping we'd get a chance to go for a ride while I was there so she had her ferrier come over to trim the horses. I love horses. I am not sure many of you know that. When I was younger I rode dressage, English style and even did a little competition. Mom's horses are always so well trained and fun to ride, even if they are western.This picture of my Dad & I makes me very happy! There are a few more Tracy took in color and sepia but this one stood out the most. My family, we are a bunch of talkers so this one with both of us talking is very appropo.
Tracy brought 2 quilt tops with her to quilt on mom's machine. One was finished and ready to quilt, the other was close but never got finished. Mom had an 'ugly top' that she let Tracy learn to quilt on. It ended up coming home with me because I love it! She had a lot of fun of fun on that quilt top trying all kinds of different designs. She even incorporated all of our names into it.
Of course it made Tracy a little nervous to have any of us hanging over her shoulder whilst she quilted so we all just hung out downstairs with her.
Mom, George and Tyler all got cozy and relaxed the day away.
After Tracy got comfortable with the machine she decided she could tackle her quilt and finish it the way she wanted. It turned out more beautiful than I could have ever expected!

That is enough for tonight but tomorrow I promise many pictures of snowbound kids, dogs and other fun things. Good night!

Trevor & Dad

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Tyler

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Trevor

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Surf & rocks

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Waves~ Haskell's Beach

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George & Chauntel

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Here we are, Haskell's Beach

Throwing rocks

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Kids at Haskell's

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We were at Haskell's Beach this afternoon for a walk and I thought I would snap some photos of the kids & us. Here they are!

The boys needed hair cuts and after 2 weeks of dragging my feet I finally gave in. The stated style was, ' Just like Daddy's!'
Thus, short hair. Shorter than Trevor has had since he was under the age of 2. Shorter than I prefer. I don't feel it suits their personality until you see this requested styling (the real reason Trevor wanted it as short as Daddy's hair was for this style).

Here are all 3 kids on the couch in the playroom relaxing after a hard day of school.

That face you see on Sadie makes a regular appearance these days. I will give her this; she fell off her scooter so she does have a reason to be a bit grumpy, roadrash on her hip. I plan on doing a full on photo session with them soon. Especially since the haircuts and I am not shelling out $27 per kid for the crap school photos. That's the cheapest set you can purchase, $27 for a total of 8 photos including the class picture. I will spend $10 on the yearbook instead.

Blogger is about to do a scheduled outage so this is all for now, more pics to come I promise!

Beach days, what 75% of my days will consist of this summer.

First things first, Tyler & Sadie go straight to the water. Trev stays onshore most days.

Then they come onshore after boogie-boarding for a long time. Most days they stay in the water the whole time. This day, it was pretty cool out with a bit of a breeze, about 68degrees out. Summer here is not so hot until about August.

The kids call our beach the "Chauntel" beach because it's the beach that I always opt for. It's about a 2 minute drive from the house. If we all had bikes, we would ride. But since walking would be on a road with no shoulder or sidewalks, we drive. Plus, we take a lot of crap to the beach, who wants to carry it all further than we absolutely have to??

The beach is actually named Haskell's or Bacara, since the high falutin' Bacara Resort went in.

That's it right up there on the hill overlooking my beach. It's where the likes of George Clooney & Gwyneth Paltrow frequent. JLo & Ben were supposed to get married here at one point. It's a hot spot, really, can't you tell?

If I swing my camera the other way you will see how the resort has bribed the city to make the beach their own. An actual snack bar/bathroom/shower building. You can see the roof in the picture. We have to park in the Bacara parking and walk quite a ways instead of pulling up right on the other side of that building & parking within a stone's throw of the water. Whatever, it's still the closest & least occupied beach around here.

It's too rocky, tarry and seaweedy for most folks, but that is what makes it just right for us!

Kindergarten was quite the year for Trevor. He found out that there are really kids his age out there that don't know anything about Godzilla or Thomas the Tank Engine! Imagine that! So by the time the end of the year rolled around there were many thank you's bestowed upon Trevor for introducing Godzilla to the play repetoir.

Kindergarten ends with a flourish; gifts, memory books & dvd's compiled by class moms and of course a commencement ceremony.

Trevor is on the far right in yellow.

Trevor gettin' down to an Alphabet song, not one I had ever heard before!

Trevor waiting for his final dismissal from his Teacher Amy. (or you could call her Miss Welbourn, I was just informed)

One last hurrah on the playground!

Good bye K, here we come 1!

I have been told that I suck at keeping this blog up. Yup, you are right, I do. But since I have hopeful thinking that some people might drop by & actually read and/or comment I think I will start posting more family stuff. Starting with some camping pictures from our Sequoia trip.

You can see Sadie & Trevor playing in the small swimming hole right down the hill from our campsite. Luckily there was only one other family with kids swimming that we had to contend with.
There were a couple floating logs that the kids played chicken on. That water is snow melt runoff & it was freakin' freezing! Do kids care if it's cold? Not until they get out & complain.

George watching the kids (and secretly hoping for another sighting of the 2 year old bear that meanders around camp by day)

We did make a few hikes during our stay. The first hike we just followed the creek.

Sadie & Tyler patiently awaited the rest of us before we all took off.

Photos of the hike courtesy of Tracy, by the way.

We had a fantastic time, it was a well needed camping trip, real pine trees and the mountains!

Oh, the annual jogathon. The kids had a great time, with all 3 running this year I was there from 8am-1:30pm. It was quite the day! They all did their personal best with 27 laps for Sadie, 35 laps for Tyler & 19 laps for Trevor.
The Santa Barbara Bagpipe Band started out the morning since they were running the day before St. Patty's day. It was a fun touch with the men in their plaids and sporan. I love the Scottish.

As you can see by the weather it was totally socked in with marine layer fog & 53 degrees. Kinda cold for us in SB.

First the Kindergartener's ran. And oh, did they run! Most of them didn't stop to walk, they just ran around & around for their 30 minutes. Unfortunately for you, all those pictures are on 35mm and I haven't had them developed yet. But I do have pics of Tyler & Sadie.

Here is Tyler coming in to be marked by Tammy, his full time aide.

In case you don't know, that is Tyler's ridiculously proud face. He has a strut to match it. Every round after getting marked he would strut off for the first few feet then run.

The classes made shields from different Irish areas (counties maybe?) for the event. Tyler's class was from Dublin (yes, I know it's a city I just know that other shields were not city names).

Sadie & Maya got out of class just for the purpose of cheering the 2nd & 3rd graders on. They did a good job & danced a bit in the process.

Sadie's class was too cool to show off their shield so their teacher walked the entire jogathon carrying it.

Notice how she has her fingers up signing 2, yeah she is pregnant so her laps get counted twice!

So here is the start of the race for the 4th grade, notice how they are all running? Yeah, that lasted about 2 laps then we had to chase them to get them to run!

Overall it was a great day, the school raised a bunch of money to support the aide's and the kids burned some calories!

Tyler is ready for his zoo trip today! RAAARRGGHHH 

Trevor very happy to have me take his picture  

Sadie drinking (because she refused to let me take her picture normally) 

Our sea lion enclosure has now become a penguin habitat. Kinda funny to watch these guys dart back and forth, over and under. 

Big ol' elephant strolling along. 

George, Sadie, Tyler and Trevor aboard the zoo blue train. 

Family on train ride. Me, George, Sadie, Tyler and Trevor. 

View of East Beach volleyball courts from the train ride next to the giraffe enclosure. George was playing ball just a few hours before. Nice. 

Out of control rolling... 

Sadie & Trevor conquering the rock 

Lion sleeping. Little too close for my comfort. 

Happy, deformed giraffe with the ocean in the background, Tyler in the foreground. 

Here is a look out at the bird sanctuary from the poop covered deck. You can see the Santa Barbara hillside and mountains out to the left.  

Snow in Santa Barbara? I think not, more like bird poop from the avian sanctuary next to the zoo. It's like dodging bullets walking through this section of the zoo! 

Trevor, Sadie & Tyler on a safari truck at the playground 

I escorted Trevor's kindergarten class on a field trip to Art from Scrap and Chase Palm Park in Santa Barbara last week. It was really very fun to see the kids create things from stuff we consider trash or junk with no use. They had a great time and it's amazing to see what scrap comes from local manufacturers.
The park was a great release of energy before getting back on the bus to go home. The class photo has to be one of my favorites of all times!

Trevor ready for his first field trip to Art from Scrap in downtown Santa Barbara. It's a great program that kids can see first hand how much trash we produce that could be used for other things, namely art projects for kindergartener's. 

This is what you see when you walk into Art from Scrap. A lot of bins, did I say a lot, I mean A LOT! 

Christmas is coming... 

Wheel trimmings cut off of skateboard/rollerblade wheels 

The classroom making their art from scrap. 

Trevor cutting plastic wheel edging to decorate his creation. 

Some of the bins of scrap the kids could choose from. 

Trevor with his Art from Scrap creation, using an envelope, video tape ribbon, a cup lid, two sided tape and random stickers, bits and pieces. 

Oh the slide. How they love the ramp slide! Face full of sand? What could possibly be better? (a little seaweed mixed in for Trevor's liking) 

Trevor eating lunch next to Sebastian with his mohawk. 

Trevor's teachers, Amy and Alex  

Moira, Moira 

How fantastic is that class picture?? Chase Palm park playground, gotta love kindergarten! 

The class doing their best to walk single file back to the bus. 

The bus to go home. What a great trip! 

Sadie and I took a trip about a month ago to Carpenteria State Beach with her 4th grade classes. They had just completed reading and studying Island of the Blue Dolphins. The true life story took place right here, on our coastline on St. Nicholas Island in the 1850's. The kids were thrilled to be able to do some hands on experiments and studies of what it would have been like back then to be all alone and surviving on an island.

Clamshells and redwood to smooth logs for use in a canoe or shelter. 

Oh and who could forget the fire!  

She found she needed a little bit of help from her friends. 

Sadie trying to make herself a shovel using driftwood, seaweed and a flat rock.