New Car Smell

About a month ago on a trip to Morro Bay our 1997 Astro van's fuel pump went out. To get it back up and running would cost just a little less than what the van was worth so we decided to just sell it and get something new. We have been saving for a few years as we knew this day would be coming, but it is always scary taking such a huge part of your savings out of the bank. We were very fortunate to have family close that let us borrow a vehicle while we looked. It allowed us to wait for just the right car at the right price.

We bought a 2007 V6 Ford Fusion SE as a certified pre-owned vehicle. It is a great car and best of all James fits nicely into it. James took it up to Lake Arrowhead for a City of Hope retreat and it got a little dusty, so we took the chance tonight to show the kids how to wash a car. They loved it!

I am thinking that Ethan is going to want to wash the car everyday. He loved splashing and throwing bubbles all over the place.

Here is Megan with the kids and a clean car.

The kids were very proud of all the "hard" work they put into getting the car all cleaned up.

Here is a quick clip of the kids working on getting the car and themselves all wet. Note that Ethan tries to take a bite out of the pot. Crazy kid!

So Cal Ragnar 2010

The second annual Ragnar Relay in support of the Ferguson Education Fund was run this past weekend. The race was a little over 200 miles (from Ventura to Dana Point). 12 runners stepped up to the challenge and did a fantastic job. Here are just a few pics from the event. There is a map below if you want to take a look. The yellow pins are the exchange points with the blue pins being where one half of the team switched to the next half.

View Ragnar 2010 in a larger map

These are the runners from the first 6 legs. They started at about 8am Friday morning. The race would finish (after running through the night) roughly 32 hours later.

Ed and Helen Ferguson with great granddaughter Brielle hang out with Nemo (the team mascot) who was used as the "baton" to pass from one runner to the next.

Of course Ethan could not get enough Nemo time. Any chance he got, he was with that fish. Megan Warnick was a huge help as she was in charge of all the snacks for runners as well as watching the 4 little kids.

Megan is receiving Nemo as she comes to the end of one of her legs. She (and all the runners) did a great job of training in the months leading up to the race, and it showed as they kept running with minimal/no sleep anywhere from 12 to 20 miles.

Megan and her sister Nikki pose here with Nemo as they rest a little between their respective race legs.

On Meg's last leg of the race (8.8 miles) she passed Nemo to Gavin and Brielle who were thrilled to be able to "help" out with the race.

Meg's sister and brother-in-law came from Utah to run in the race. Here are Ashlie and Nathan at the finish line. They look pretty good considering what they had just gone through!

The team crossed the finish line on the beach at Dana Point just about 5pm on Saturday. Really a great accomplishment for an equally great cause.

Wilderness Day 2010

The Vulcan Mining company denied access to their property for Duarte's Wilderness Day. This caused quite a stir. It was arranged for Mom (mayor) and Congresswoman Judy Chu to fly up Fish Canyon so that Judy could see the desctruction that was occuring as well as view the future site that Vulcan wishes to ruin. This is a picture of us in front of the LA Country Fire Dept. helicopter. It was the highlight for the kids.

Kevin (a firefighter and paramedic) showed us all the tools they use in rescues.

Here, Congresswoman Judy Chu and Mom talk about what they saw after flying up to see Fish Canyon.

Here is a shot of Fish Canyon Falls taken from the helicopter. That is more water than I ever remember flowing over the falls.

Here is a quick video of the helicopter landing at Encanto Park in Duarte. The mountain seen to the right will be lowered by 600 feet if the mining proposition is passed by the Azusa City Council. You can see Mom waving as the aircraft touches down.

They Could Do This All Day Long

We have been trying to make a weekly tradition of going to a local park and having a picnic. It is really fun because we get to have 4 generations together at least once a week. This week we went to Encanto Park and had a great spaghetti dinner with salad, breadsticks and pie to top it off. After dinner we let the kids run off some energy by playing on the toys. The park has two play sets, one for little kids and one for the older kids. Ethan and Elise were getting very good at crawling up the stairs to the little one, so we moved them to the bigger slides. They wanted nothing more than to do this all night long. Needless to say, they are getting some good sleep tonight.



Note: I uploaded the HD version of this video and you will notice in the lower right of the video you can mouse over and choose the 720p version once the video starts playing if your machine and connection can handle it.

So Long Chevy Astro!

This weekend we went back up to Morro Bay with James' parents and sister (with her family) to see about selling the Astro Van. It had broken down a few weeks ago (fuel pump) and after being told the fix would be about equal to the van's worth, we decided to sell it. My dad thought he might be able to do a quick/cheap fix, but that did not work out. We needed to sell it quickly as we were leaving the following day so we posted it on Craigslist for a fair price, but considering it was not running we were willing to settle if needed. Within 3 minutes of posting my phone started ringing and did not stop. Long story short, we ended up selling it for double what we asked and it was gone in a few hours. We are now carless, but that should change in a few days. Here is the last picture we have with the van.

Ethan and his cousin Elise loved crawling all over the backyard. We had to keep a little bit of a close eye on them as they loved to pic things (bugs, rocks, sticks, etc.) and pop them in their mouths.

After the van sold we went on a walk down to the beach. We found some great creatures including the giant (although dead) starfish as well as some baby crabs at which Ellie and Gavin were taking a closer look. Morro Bay is just such a great place to explore!

Preschool A-Z

We made it!

I've been working on a capital letter each week with Brielle and Gavin. We've tried learning the sounds, but it has been more just focused on letter recognition which they are both great at now. Next we are moving on to lower case.

One of the things I do each week is have them decorate the letter. These are all compiled in their alphabet book.

We missed doing the letter for some of the weeks, so we'll have to go back to those ones. Here is what we do have though (as pictured above):

A-apple (painting w/ apples)

B-bike (bike stickers)

C-candy

D-missing

E-missing

F-food (collage from newspaper)

G-green grass (glued on shredded green paper)

H-hands

I-insect (not finished, I was looking for insect stickers)

J-jellybean

K-kiss (I put lipstick on the kids to 'kiss' their K. It was really cute)

L-leaves

M-money

N-newspaper

O-owl (we used oranges to paint the 'o' and then decorated it)

P-paint (we painted using potatoes)

Q-missing

R-rainbow

S-striped snake

T-train track

U-umbrella (we colored the U, and then took it outside and squirted 'rain' on it to see what happened)

V-vegetables

W-missing

X-x-ray fish (used letter x stamps and fish stamps)

Y-yarn

Z-zoo (zoo animal stickers)

I know I had someone ask me how my craft supplies are organized. Here we have it!

We're not extremely structured. They're not even 3 yet, after all. Some weeks we have more time than others. I get books from the library with titles that start with the letter, we do craft activities, large/small motor activities, cooking, field trips, etc.

For my benefit, here are other things I remember from what we did each week.

(I know, I should have been posting as we did them so I didn't forget!)

A-made wooden airplanes, talked about the alphabet, made ants with egg cartons

B-ate chocolate/peanut butter covered bananas, learned the wheels on the bus, blew bubbles, kicked balls, talked about Brielle

C-we did during Christmas time

D-made donuts, went to Disneyland!

E-Ears (Gavin's mom made cute bunny-ear/head bands with them)

F-finger painting, fire station tour

G-talked about Gavin, made a guitar (also done by Gavin's mom), played games, planted seeds for the garden

H-did during Halloween time, made ghosts with marshmallows

I-went on an insect hunt, went out for Ice-cream, talked about imagination

J-tried to learn how to jump rope

K-made a kangaroo puppet

L-talked about lions, went to the library, went on our leaf hunt for our letter L

M-money-showed them coins (penny, nickle, dime and quarter) and had them match them, monkey masks, marble painting, paper bag monsters (just newspaper stuffed in lunch bags) were a HUGE hit. We decorate with markers and googly eyes. It turned into a pillow fight that lasted all week long.

N-necklaces (made multigrain cheerio snack necklaces), aslo the kids love playing with necklaces all the time, numbers-counting to 10 is good, but number recognition is still something we need to work on.

O-Talked about octopuses. Watched a BBC you tube clip which the kids really enjoyed. I thought it was intresting too! Learned song from Notimeforflashcards called Oscar the Octopus.

P-picnic w/ peanut butter and peach jam sandwiches. Blew bubbles so they could 'POP' them, popped popcorn-to eat and and t0 make popcorn tree craft, sang popcorn popping

Q-talked about queens, quilts, and question marks

R-ribbon Painting-used skinny and thick ribbons (instead of paintbrushes) to paint with, rope-walking on to balance, jump over, and use play follow-the-leader, read book about rhinoceros/watched you-tube to learn more. rice sensory tub

S-played I Spy, played in sand box, practiced cutting with scissors

T-did during Thanksgiving (which didn't make as much sense as I originally thought as we weren't focusing on the 'th' sound but the 't' sound) made paper bag turkeys, built tunnels, played with trains

U-played with umbrellas

V-did for Valentine's week. made Valentine's Cards-used heart shaped sponges to paint/stamp paper. Also traced hands to make 'I Love You' (sign language) valentine cards. Frosted Valentine-heart-shaped cookies

W-water sensory tub, walrus

X-talked about x in other words to use "ex" sound instead of "z" sound. fox, box, exit

Y-yogurt painting,

Z-zebras, zoo, zippers

Easter Time Fun

To me Easter isn't complete without making a bird's nest with chowmein noodles/butterscotch chips and jelly beans. The kids seem to enjoy the tradition too.

I saw an idea for using evaporated milk to paint food. We decided to turn our pancakes into Easter Eggs and decorate them.

Dyeing Easter eggs at the park. Was great for an easy clean up after spilling.

A visit to the Easter Bunny. Both kids were a bit weary of getting close...

until we told Brielle the Easter Bunny was in charge of hiding the eggs and to say Thank You!

We had a great time at the family Easter party out at Aunt Eileen's Ranch. Who wouldn't love finding candy all over the place...

and playing fun games!

The kids were introduced to the idea of pinatas. It turned out to be a bit hit! (no pun intended) :)