I could gloss over the real life and just paint a picture perfect day for you on this post, but what fun would that be?

Our first trip to Santa Barbara.  It's about an hour north of us, just up the 101 along the coast...the most beautiful drive ever.  I was drooling over the scenery when out of the blue, Colin starts barfing.  I thought by 6 he would start vocalizing, "Excuse me mother, but I'm starting to feel a little carsick from the traffic we just hit.  Could you please pass me a bag to barf in?".  Wouldn't that be so nice?  No, no.  He just starts puking everywhere and then Alison freaks out because that's what sick people do to her.  She literally almost jumped out of the car while I was scrambling to find something, anything, to help, WHILE crawling along the 101 in traffic.  I was finally able to pull over into the cutest town in all creation and assess the damage.  This is the second time this has happened and he tries to hold it in because he knows we're almost there and he doesn't want to miss the event.  Of course, I was completely unprepared for this, except for 1 last children's dramamine in our first aid kit.  We were early enough and close enough that I thought surely I could find some clothes to buy for him to change into.  I mean, it's Santa Barbara for goodness sakes.  You can laugh now because I've never been to Santa Barbara, I just assumed they like to shop and I would find a store easy peasy.  Unless he wanted a latte with his board shorts, there was nothing along the lines of kids clothes within 10 miles.  He did not want to miss going to the sea center and was feeling better after the medicine (those suckers work wonders for him), so I thought maybe the gift shop would have something we could buy.  Board shorts again.

Mom's to the rescue!  This is why it is so important to have other mom's in your life...a fellow homeschool mom, found me in the gift shop and handed me an extra pair of shorts she found in her car.  They were girl shorts, but they actually fit and Colin didn't care.  She saved me life that day.  Colin quickly changed and tried not to freeze his tushy off, as it was exceptionally cold that day.  Then I had the great debate what to do with the barf pants.  Carrying them around in my purse all day was not an appealing option.  Thankfully Colin was okay with saying goodbye to the barf pants and they hit the trash.  We got him set just in time to join the tour.

Inside the sea center, we started off at the back deck, where there's a hole to the open water.  They got to help bring up water samples and set octopus traps (only to study them, not to eat them).

We saw jellyfish, shrimp, sharks and sting rays.

Our favorite part was right here:

We got to touch a sea cucumber!  They were one of the most memorable things we learned about last year in science and it was cool to feel it's texture, as it was much different than we had imagined.

Eli liked learning about shark teeth and we got to see baby sharks growing in their eggs.  I had no idea shark eggs are actually spiraled.

The center is out on a long dock.  You could see lots of ships and fishing boats, as well as the beautiful coast.  I thought it was cool, but Alison and Eli were a little freaked out about it.

Best, non-prompted photo:

After the tour, we walked around the dock for as long as Colin could stand the cold.  There were several little shops and restaurants that were fun to check out.  I might have been stalling getting back in the car as well :)

Time to get the car carsick ready as we're heading back to Santa Barbara in a few days for another field trip.  You can say a quick prayer for us!

A house tour

I tried to get Colin to be my tour guide of our house.  This is starting at the front door:

He was shy about it, but I felt like a video gave a little bit better idea of the layout of the house. It's basically shaped like a 'H', with the front door on the side of the house. The living spaces are in one line and the bedrooms are in another line, connected by a itty bitty hallway with an odd cabinet.



With the exception of a few things to hang and the great contact paper project that needs to be finished, I'm finally feeling settled and done with the house.  It was a ton of work!  Here's why: every.single.room needed a complete overhaul.  I will say, that this is the first time that we committed to truly making the space work and how we want it, instead of just making due.  We were diligent about saying goodbye to anything and everything that didn't have a home or that we didn't want to try and find a home for.  It's been amazing to see the house go from empty and dreaming about what it could be, to crammed full of boxes and playing tetrus with all of our belongings, to a lovely home.

Living Room:

Real life=mom cleans the house how she wants it and tells the kids to not move or touch anything so she can enjoy it for 10 minutes...which is why the boys are watching TV :)

The bay windows in this room really threw us for a loop.  I envisioned really cool things with it, but nothing worked for a family of 5 that might want to all watch a movie together.  The couches we had overpowered the room and camouflaged in with everything, thus they were gifted away and we   bought this new couch online (we like to live life on the edge) and it has worked great for us so far.  We rearranged this room 1,000 times and then laughed when it ended up basically like it was in Arizona.

The theme was; out with the old, big thing...in with the new, small thing.

The (cheap Walmart furniture) china cabinet we were using would stick out into the hallway here, so it was out and in came this lovely punch of color.  You can see the little hallway in this picture and it stores all our games and extra kitchen supplies.  I'm not sure what the intended purpose for those cabinets was, but they're too small for linens and too far away from the kitchen for essential supplies.

Dining Room:

Our rugs looked ridiculous in this small house, yet we needed something under the table.  It was a hard task finding the size of rug we needed!  The debate is still out on the windows.  We feel like it needs some kind of treatments, as the room is still a little echo-y, but apparently Californians don't do window treatments...that must be why the builder made all these crazy windows.  Don't you love that 80's chandelier?!?!

We seem to have a thing with weird nooks in our rentals.  This nook was the home of many random things over the last few months, but Ben wins the prize for coming up with a hanging plant.

The kitchen:

The smallest one we've ever had.  Smallest, but with updated appliances, so I'll take it.

The den:

This room.  I knew it would be the heart of the home and that has definitely been true.  We've added a bookshelf each move and we moved those suckers around the house 3 times!  Ben is on strict orders to not buy anymore books.  In the early days of unpacking, the kids were watching a movie in the living room and we were sitting by the fire on the floor, when the idea came to Ben to create a space for us; a place to sit and talk and sip some wine in the evenings or to drink coffee and read our Bibles in the morning.  We put a lot of work into this space and waited almost 2 months to see it come together, but it has been amazing to use the space like we dreamed.

The kids bathroom:

Alison's room:

Her queen bed took up the entire room, so she got a new twin bed.  She had that bedding picked out since we found out we were moving and had a vision for what she wanted in her new space.  I loved seeing her put it all together.

Three desks don't fit in the school room, so Alison had to move hers into her room.  We still need a new desk chair, but so far she hasn't minded the new workspace.  Her favorite part is the acrobatic stickers on her closet.

The boys room was the easiest and maybe the most fun.  We agreed to let them get new decorations because moving stinks and it's important to love your new home.  They wanted a shark theme, which was surprisingly easy to accommodate.  My favorite item is the middle shark decoration...we were walking through Hobby Lobby and Eli all of the sudden stops dead in his tracks and gasps.  He digs out this piece from somewhere, I'm not even sure how he saw it, and said, "THIS IS PERFECT!"  Colin equally loved decorated their space and picked out a little cactus and star fish for their bookshelf.

 

P.S. they did an incredible job saying goodbye to a LOT of toys before we moved.  It made this space easy to move into.  

We did have to buy them a rug so they can play Legos and not lose all the pieces in the shag carpet. 

 

School room:

It has been an adjustment having just the boys in the school room, but it was either that, or not be able to walk into the room.  Kent, I'm sure you are laughing right now to see your old armoire in yet again, another random place, not being used for what it's intended for.  Well, this beast in our small house didn't fit anywhere else and is now our craft/pictures/school supplies cabinet. 

Master bedroom:

We finally got new bedding!!!  The comforter we had was literally disintegrating but Ben refused to get a new one.  I guess the Target here has magical powers because we were just walking through one day and Ben randomly throws in this bedding.  I didn't even question it...it's not falling apart, so I'm good.  Another downsize adjustment was our closets.  We went from a huge walk-in plus another small one we used for storage to 2 tiny, sliding glass door closets.  Ben handled purging a ton of clothes and shoes well, but missed the chair in the closet that he would sit on to put his uniform boots on.  The end-of-bed chest did just the trick for a little extra storage plus boot putting on seat.

We do have a bathroom, but it's not picture worthy.  The absolute hardest part of moving for me was buying new bath rugs.  Somehow we moved in with ONE rug...where did all the rugs go?  I have no idea.  You would think picking up a new rug would be easy, but apparently not.  I think I bought a zillion different rugs before settling on what we have and I can't even say I love what we have...but does one ever really love their bath rugs?  I'm not sure.  Maybe I over analyzed it; I want it to feel nice and look nice, but don't want to spend a lot of money on something that is just going to catch toothpaste and hair and be lost by movers in a few years.

So far, I've actually liked living in a smaller space.  Cleaning it is immensely easier!  I was actually able to delete a whole category of our chores and I've noticed that the kids want to keep their space picked up more/aren't overwhelmed by the job when I ask them to do it.

The best

You have a pretty good life when your sister can be a human bridge for you

Watching Colin play soccer is the.best. We've had so much rain that 3 practices and 1 game have been cancelled...he hasn't had much coaching but his enthusiasm makes up for that. Can't figure out which one is Colin? Just following the bouncing boy.  His coach always tells him to hang back, that's why he's out of the pack.

Eli has also been loving soccer games; warm blankets and Calvin Hobbs is a winning morning in his books.

After this game, we went up to Ventura for the first time.  I ran my first 10k race and we had to pick up the race packet.  The beach was calling us, so we made a little stop to say hello.

Ventura has a much more beach town feel to it and I'm excited to do some more exploring there!

The following day was the race and it was the most beautiful route I have ever been on.  I tried to get a video and only got a picture of my finger.  Don't worry, we'll be back and I'll get some good pictures one day.  It was a great jump back into the racing world for me; I mostly just loved being by the ocean and with fellow runners.  I was surprised to cross the finish line to find I had placed 4th in my age group!

Also the best:

hiking trails galore.  Ben has been running these trails once a week and I've gone several times with "new Laurel".

Valentine's Day

We had the best Valentine's Day!

Our homeschool group was having a party, so this was the first year the boys have passed out Valentine's. 

Signing his cards like a champ

Trying to explain to them the whole process was hilarious and definitely one of those moments that makes you think, "How did this tradition start???".  I tried to explain how a party would work if they were in public school and Eli looked at me with a shocked look and said, "Wait.  Kids have to go to school on Valentine's Day?!?!  Boy, I sure am glad I'm homeschooled and then I can have the whole day to celebrate."

Alison spent a lot of time on her box; making a little door at the top to put treats in and each side had a different decoration.  The boys did not understand the point of the box and were happy with decorating bags (which thankfully fit right in with this group of kids).  Somehow Alison's room has become somewhat of the craft room and she took them in there one day to teach them the ropes of Valentine's crafting.

Valentine's Day morning, I made the kids heart shaped pancakes, eggs with bacon (what else says love like bacon) and hot chocolate.

Then we were off to the party!

Colin had on a cute red sweater, but got too hot.  Eli did not understand why he should wear red, so he chose to wear his current favorite outfit.

The kids decorated cookies and made a craft.

I was so impressed with the mom who made the sugar cookies; Minecraft ones for the boys!

The party was on base and Ben came over to surprise us :)

Eli may not have decorated a box, but he turned his box of candy into a car.

After everyone passed out the candy, it was time to discover all the treats; the favorite was the Valentine robot.

My favorite quote of the day was from Alison.  We got in the car and she said, "Wow.  Homeschool kids are SO creative!".  I was also impressed; there were a lot of non-candy treats that they were just as excited about.

When we got home, Colin meticulously looked through all of his goodies.  I love how much he appreciated each one.

Then Daddy came home with even more treats!

Alison has been dreaming of getting a box of chocolates :)

And I have been dreaming about these flowers!  They have had them set up at Target from a local farm and make me smile every time I see them.

We ended our day with a charcuterie and some games.

Ha!  I'm just now noticing that you can see Maya's nose popping up on the table in that last picture.  She must have smelled that yummy meat...