Evan's Fifth Birthday, and Death Valley

In February, my littlest boy turned five years old!  He went with Dad to pick out a cake, and came home with an awesome Porto's fruit tart.  For gifts, he got a bunch of Rescue Heroes with their vehicles (hooray for garage sales!), and a Nerf bow and arrow set, which he was actually pretty responsible with.  Evan brings so much energy to our family, and so many "great ideas!"  He's super friendly to everyone he meets, and loves sports more than any of the rest of us.  We love you, Evan!

 

The day after Evan's birthday, I finally took our New Year's growth-chart picture and measurements.  Apparently, they all grew!
   

Two days after Evan's birthday, we went to a BYU volleyball game at USC.  They didn't win, but we had fun anyway.  Outside of the sports complex was an awesome sign we thought somebody might appreciate.
   

  

Over Valentine's Day weekend, we went with all our camping buddies up to Death Valley.  We spent the night in Bishop (not camping,) so we could enter the park the next morning from Big Pine and see the Eureka Sand Dunes - the tallest dunes in California.  The drive took longer than we expected, and the last ten miles of road were badly rutted and washed out, which was kind of exciting in a minivan.  The hike up made some of us grumpy, but we all made it!
   

Top of Eureka Dunes

Sliding Down

  
After a restful night of tent sleep, we took an even dodgier road up to hike this really cool canyon (sorry, I can't remember the name of it.)  
  

She got stuck.

That afternoon we went and visited Scotty's Castle.  We didn't pay for a tour, but still got a chance to look around.  It would have been a fun place to stay back in the day, as long as you came in winter.

   

 On our last day, we stopped by Devil's Golf Course, and revisited the pupfish in Salt Creek.  On the way home, we (along with the Walches and Menssens) helped a couple of stranded German college students on the road to Trona.  We're going to miss having the Menssens around to arrange all our camping trips!
   

  

Ryan and Elise in the Devil's Golf Course
  

Grandpa Brian, and Glendale Police Station

The first week of February, my dad came down from Oregon on the train for his annual Superbowl Week Visit.  We spent a lot of time hanging out in the backyard, and the kids went crazy dancing to music on the portable speakers he brought.  We watched the Superbowl, of course, and I have to say, our Superbowl lunch was pretty awesome.  Ryan grilled Italian sausage outside, and I did baked zucchini, grilled peppers and onions, homemade guacamole, and marinated portobellos.  At halftime, we left my dad alone and spent the second half at our friends' house (he was invited, but preferred to stay put,) which was good in retrospect, since it allowed him his period of mourning when the Seahawks lost!  The rest of the week we spent mostly running around to our usual lessons and activities, although we did do an afternoon at the zoo.  I was "encouraged" to purchase an iced tea maker, since it's basically the only non-coffee liquid my dad drinks, but in the end I actually learned to love herbal iced tea!  It's pretty healthy, too.  It was nice to see my dad and spend time with him.
   

   

Dance Party Intermission

We found a salamander in our pool!

    

    

Superbowl Food

    

Cub Scout Soap Carving

Los Angeles Zoo

I reached BOTH my sleep and exercise goals!

Slobbery Connor

     
The following week we had an awesome Joy School field trip.  Mason's dad works for dispatch at the Glendale Police Station, so he arranged a VIP and rather lengthy tour for all the Joy School kids, plus the babies and Connor and Elise.  I was really grateful they let me drag my homeschoolers along, or we wouldn't have been able to go.  We got to meet the Chief of Police, see the dispatch area and listen to the police radios, get everybody fingerprinted, watch a police dog find somebody's keys, and sit both in a squad car and on department motorcycles.  We also saw the area where they unload prisoners from cars.  The jail was too busy, or we would have seen that, too, but the kids were all getting hungry and tired.  It was pretty amazing.
      

January

Just prior to our (ill-fated) November trip to Utah, the kids and I made the decision to go back to homeschooling.  I told them that they could choose to remain in public school, or come back home, either at the end of the grading period, at Thanksgiving, or at Christmas.  Elise said she was ready to come home.  Connor, however, wanted to stay indefinitely.  I told them that was fine, and made plans to pull Elise out in two weeks' time.  A week before her last day, Connor changed his mind and asked to come home, too.  His reasoning was kind of surprising to me.  He said, "I think I was learning a lot more with homeschool, and I'm afraid I'll start acting bad like some of the kids at school in order to make them like me."  We had all enjoyed the time at Lincoln Elementary.  The kids had wonderful teachers and good classmates, and it was overall a positive experience for them, which is exactly what I was hoping for.  I feel like the stakes aren't as high anymore.  I know that they'll do great in whatever educational setting they choose, and we can freely decide year-to-year without worrying.  For now, we're really liking the freedom and fun of homeschool!
  
So, in January Elise started back with her Girl Scout troop as a Brownie.  They earned their snack badges, in part by learning how to make California rolls!
  

  

Evan started a soccer class on Friday afternoons.  These are the same coaches that did Connor's basketball class - there were lots of games and silliness, but a ton of skill-building as well.  Evan jumped right in and loved it!
  

Waiting for Evan

Connor and Elise started attending a co-op on Friday mornings, put together by other homeschooling friends of ours.  Connor studies Latin, Grammar, Composition, Greek Myths, and Astronomy, and Elise's class does Science, Literature, Art, History, and Music.  I babysit my friend's kids while she teaches the younger class.  Evan and Corinne love the regular playdate.
   

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we went with our friend Tomomi and her family down to Torrance, where there is a giant Mitsuwa supermarket, and a Daiso (a Japanese dollar store.)  She shepherded us around, putting stuff in our cart.  I was proud of Elise for independently finding most of the ingredients for more California rolls.  We had several meals from Mitsuwa that next month, including rolls, fried tofu wraps, Japanese curry, stir fry, and lots of ramen and snacky things.
  

  

I don't think I mentioned either Ryan's or my Christmas gifts.  Ryan got me a great wireless pedometer/sleep monitor called a Jawbone UP.  It allows my phone to nag me to exercise more, and lets me prove just how little sleep I get!  Actually, it has been an amazing motivation for me to take better care of myself.  I can finally say that I have a regular exercise program, for the first time in years.  Ryan got a Jellyfish Art kit.  It comes with a specialized jellyfish tank (regular fish tanks will suck them up and kill them,) and all the chemicals, food and instructions needed to get it up and going.  Then you receive the jellyfish via overnight FedEx.  It took him half a month to get to that point, though.  He cleaned out, painted, and built a shelf/cabinet in our unused fireplace to hold the tank, which looks pretty awesome.  We're happy to say the jellies are still alive after over two months!
  

Connor did a Cub Scout project on Dad's new pets.

The kids continue to love their occasional kid yoga time.  I got two more yoga mats at the Japanese dollar store, so they don't have to fight as much.
  

Evan's Joy School did a Fire Station field trip.  The firefighters were super nice, even though you could tell a few of them hadn't spent much time around kids.  The main message was not to be afraid of firefighters in their gear, even if they look scary.
    

Evan got to check the strength of this respirator.

Wiley celebrated his ninth birthday on January 27th.  The kids thought he deserved a party, so we took him to the dog park for a couple hours, then surprised him with a chili dog from Weinerschnitzel.  We lit a candle and sang to him and everything.  As far as I could tell, he didn't even get sick from eating it.
  

Other stuff that happened in January:
  

Evan continued to make awesome art on his easel.

We found a morel growing near our Apricot tree.  We didn't pick it.

The kids enjoyed the fancy mini-trampoline we got for Christmas.