Around the house - JUNE

these jump ropes were a great investment. tons of kids play with them daily!

ky made us lunch as a treat

a swarm of bees made their home on our playground for less than 24 hours - adventure comes to us

the triple decker chicken fight! jo, ky, sy

Sister for a week

Kaatje & Ky

it was a treat to us to have this dear one with us for a week while her mama & sisters went on a missions trip to South America. Ky got to share her room with another girl and do girlie things. she was so happy.

on church soccer night, there were two goalies during the dads versus kids game. nothing was getting by them!

our daily schedule was...
bike to VBS. play hard there. bike home. eat lunch & watch some world cup. swim. eat dinner. play soccer. sleep!

VBS

Super fun week of VBS. kids learning to SHINE and give God the glory.

we biked to VBS everyday

jo worked with me in the nursery.

crazy creative snacks!

kik with friends

Homeschool Conventions

Worked the PlaygroundPass.com booth at 3 conventions. and finally took a photo at the last one.

Happy Father's Day

Kids gave gifts

this t-shirt is what happens when there's a homeschool conference right before father's day

at the father's day horse show at the oaks in san juan capistrano

Star sighting

Me and our Latin movie star

Not latin movie-star, Latin-movie star. From our Latin curriculum. My kids see him daily on our TV so it seemed appropriate to get my picture taken with him at the local homeschool convention. (:

Last family dinner before mom and dad head out

 BBQ by the pool to see them off.

The grandpas "watching" the kids in the pool.

Last minute food prep

Kids enjoying hanging with the cousins

Yummy shish kabobs

(:

CC Practicum

Tug of war at lunch.

Love it!

Finished our vacation

We finished the puzzle that we started at the beach house and finally got in a couple games of nertz that we meant to start at the beach house.

Sand soccer

Ky played at huntington each in a tournament this weekend. Super fun. Definitely hones some in the air skills since dribbling and passing on the ground are worthless on the bumpy sand.

Jo got his bike!

This kid truly impresses me. He got a bike for his birthday 4 years ago and it was stolen from our garage. We picked up a junk one for him to ride at a garage sale and he's made his way for a couple years with that, but for the last 6months he's been saving for a new bike. His only means of getting money is finding it (in coin returns, etc) which yields him about $5 per week and recycling bottles he picks up at the soccer field every weekend.

He had chosen a bike about a month ago as he had over $100. Tonight he collected the last small amount he needed, traded in his recyclables, and bought his bike!

So excited for him!

Exploring the sea

This morning we got up "early" to get to the tide pools at low tide. The low tide time was 8:42 but the lowness was only .8 so it wasn't very low. I'll have to coordinate our vacation with low tide next time!

We still found lots to look at: crabs of all types, colors and sizes; sand fleas, tons of anemones, a bright orange sea star (thanks dad!) and a nudibranch.

Line of anemones in a crack. Jo's hand next to his fun find. 

After tide pool exploration, we got lunch and headed to the other side of the breakwater to rent some kayaks. All the kids were super excited after our experience at Easter.

Sy rode with me. 

Grandpa and Jo

Grandma and Ky

Scott and Kik (though the k's switched when he rowing got tough and the tough needed to get rowing :)

And can you tell from this photo that Sy is actually just laying down in our boat and relaxing!?!

After a pleasant trip out of the harbor and a crazy punt of exercise to get back,

we hung out on the sand and built castles and played a volleyball-ish game but the kids morphed it into SOCCER, of course.

Back at the house, we started dinner (my first time cooking in an over the range convection  oven) while the kids went back in the pool,

played table tennis, and billiards.

Dinner turned out to be fine to my surprise. 

Later that night after heading out to the beach for a bit,

 we further exhausted ourselves with round robin (run around the table) table tennis.

It was super fun and some strangers joined in the game though I'm pretty sure thy thought we were crazy. (:

Vacation!

We had an opportunity to go to the coast for a few days with Scott's parents.

Grandpa and Sy spent some quality time throwing rocks.

Kik enjoyed exploring.

Grandma and Ky had fun watching the boys.

After a trip to the local nature center, we went on a little hike and could view all of Dana Point Harbor.

Ice skating with grandma!

Grandpa and Grandma are here!

Kaia was invited to an ice skating birthday party.  The rest if us went along as I thought the grandparents would enjoy the coolness of the rink in contrast to the heat of Southeast Asia.