Because it makes me laugh

I took Maya to get her nails trimmed and stopped by Home Depot on the way home.  I ran in the store for just a few minutes and left the windows open.  When I came back, she was sitting in the seat with her head poking out the window.  Her whole 9 years of life, she always curls up in a ball on the floor and is a nervous nelly the whole time.  It was like she turned into a person this day and she wouldn't get out of the seat!  It cracked me up the whole day.  Also, the abundant neck rolls that she has in her old age keep us laughing.

 

Christmas time :)

A happy accident=our new coffee table turned out to be much bigger than we thought and was perfect for our first Christmas puzzle.    Way too many Christmas movies were watched as we put it together.

We made sugar cookies one evening and it was a lot more fun than gingerbread houses.

 

Maya's 9th birthday

Alison got Maya a birthday outfit to celebrate the day.

We gave her some new bones and a toy and then took her to the trail for a walk.

I have no idea why, but if Maya is near a picnic table, she will go under it.

 

Decorating for Christmas

Nana and Granddaddy came the day after Thanksgiving and were here to help us decorate for Christmas.

Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving, Ben and I hiked San Jancinto mountain.  It was epic :)

I was thankful that I had pretty much all of the Thanksgiving food cooked beforehand, because I was super sore and tired from the hike.

Alison had to work in the afternoon, so after I dropped her off, I went to sit on the beach for a little bit...a perfect way to spend Thanksgiving if you ask me.

(Also thankful that I made it back up the stairs from the beach!)

Ben taught us how to play Settlers of Catan while we had appetizers.

Then we ate when Alison got home.

Forever thankful for this family of mine!

 

Some house pictures

We are so thankful for this rental house.  There are definitely some things that scream "rental house" but overall, we are really enjoying the space.

Guajome Park

Guajome Park is just a mile down the road from our house.  Ben and I will often run here, but. we've also gone on family walks there and stop to watch the ducks.

Trying to get a selfie with Maya that failed at getting her in it :)

 

Saturdays

Saturday's have been for basketball playing and the farmer's market.  A pretty great way to spend the weekend if you ask me.

 

A few of my favorite things

 

Halloween

Here's to our last year of trick-or-treating.  And here's to our neighbor who saved the night.  Thankfully she gave me the heads up that our neighborhood doesn't get trick-or-treaters, which makes sense because we are at the end of a cul-de-sac at the top of a steep hill.  And while I remember Camarillo being super low key with Halloween, we were thrown off by coming from New York where everyone trick-or-treats and they start at 3pm and it's a huge thing everywhere.

Alison ended up going to Carlsbad with a work friend.

We told the boys they could walk around the neighborhood, but then we realized that they didn't know the neighborhood yet and would be walking for miles up huge hills.

We ended up driving around searching for houses and while it was Halloween, it was creepy how quiet the streets were.  We found one block that had action and that was it.  Thankfully the boys got just enough candy and then we hung out at our neighbors house the rest of the evening.

Oceanside Beach

Not that many posts ago, I said it would be interesting to compare Long Island beach to Oceanside:

A week in Florida does not really compare to a day in Oceanside, but we still had a really fun time.  Alison was even able to come down for a little bit before work.

The boys boogie boarding.  I have zero idea how they are in the water.  I couldn't even put my feet in.

Digging and finding rocks and then pretending those rocks are in a war.

Playing football:

 

USS Midway

The White's have had a vacation to their favorite spot in Florida planned for a year and Laurel has been counting down the days.  This has been the hottest summer in Yuma in forever; hasn't been below 100 since May!  Sadly, Hurricane Milton cancelled all their plans at the last minute.  I was so sad for them, but selfishly happy for us...they changed plans to come to San Diego for a few days.  

Colin and I met up with them at the Midway.  Colin and Tolson talk almost every day and it's usually about aircrafts and the military, so to say they were in heaven would be an understatement.

We had to pry them away from this spot.  They were pretending to be in charge of an attack and I am confident would have stayed there all day if we had let them.

Colin didn't remember going to the Midway a couple of years ago, so he gained a whole new perspective of what it was like for his dad to live on a ship during his deployment.

 

Pumpkin Carving

Wanna hear something cool?  My friend Laurel connected me with a friend who also just moved her from Yuma!  Turns out, we have a LOT in common.  They only live 10 minutes away, have kids about my kids age, have also lived in Michigan, Virginia and Arizona and homeschool the same way we do, which is a unicorn to find.  We've hung out twice already and this week they came over to carve pumpkins.  Coming from Yuma, it's been a hot minute since they've done this and they were happy to do anything that was outside.  I remember those days well.

Alison's pumpkin