Family Campout

We live at the base of San Gabriel Canyon, only a couple miles from the Angeles National Forest.  This campground is about 30 minutes from our house, but with no city lights and no cell phone reception, it makes you feel like you have traveled far away for this weekend vacation.  Our weekends have been packed, so when we finally had a weekend that was mostly free, we jumped at the chance to head up the canyon.

The kids favorite part was the river that goes through camp.  They collected rocks to throw in over, and over again.

The Warnicks joined us for dinner.  We roasted hot dogs and had a baked potato bar. (I cooked the potatoes in the crockpot before heading up the canyon.  They were wrapped in foil, and I planned to warm them over the fire, but they were still hot when it was time for dinner.) And then of course roasted marshmallows for s'mores.

James was very proud of his fire.  In the times we have been camping together, fire-building has not been his strongest talent.  I remember one camping trip we took (in Michigan?) when it had been raining and starting a fire was proving to be a difficult task.  I recall him saying we were close enough to town we could order a pizza for dinner.  I think I finally got a fire started, using lots of paper from our AAA travel books.  We now carry those books in our camping gear.

Our air mattress apparently had a leak, Ethan joined us in bed, a dog barked for what seemed to be all night long, and it was light out by 5:30am, but we got what sleep we could.

Because sleeping in a tent under the stars is an exciting adventure.

We made scrambled eggs for breakfast that we ate with rolls, (and had left over potatoes for those of us that are potato lovers).  Enjoying hot chocolate by the fire in the middle of the forest is a pretty great way to wake up.  As a side-note, the gas was leaking in our camp stove, so James started a big fire, in a place were we weren't actually supposed to have a big fire.  Luckily he got it out, got the stove fixed and working so we could make breakfast.

We then took some time hike around and explore the river a bit more before heading back to reality. 

Fish and Grunion Run

Brielle requested a week to learn more about Fish.  I've had a Grunion Run on my list of things I want to do, so I planned the Fish week to correspond with the Grunion Run for our field trip.

Grunion are a type of fish that lay their eggs in the sand.  It happens at high tide during Full or New Moons between the months of March and July.  The problem is, that it takes place in the middle of the night, between 11pm and 1am.  

We had a picnic on the beach, and then did some geocaching while waiting for it to be time.

During the months of March, June and July you are allowed to catch the fish.  It is interesting to see the wave come up and the beach covered in little silver fish.  You can grab them off the sand, but you have to be quick before the next wave come and they go back in the water.

As for some of our learning time activities:

We've done graphing with goldfish before.  I added an extra challenge for Brielle to do more math by adding her rows together.

We worked more with patterns

and I had the kids work as a team to line up the fish in ordinal sequence

We got out the chopsticks (working on finger dexterity) to sort fish

learned how to draw fish (I forgot to take a picture of the books for the week.  But, I liked that this one had facts about the fish on one side, so I could teach the kids more about the fish as they were drawing. This was called How to Draw Fish, by Justin Lee.)

And we practiced number recognition by playing Go Fish

Food

I have a fish shaped cookie cutter, so we had a lot of fish shaped food for lunch

and even tried to make fish out of our snacks (idea from here...which is much, much cuter.)

Morro Bay

We went up to Morro Bay over Memorial Day Weekend with some of James' family.  There was a renter in the house for the past 6 months or so, so it had been awhile since we had all gone, and it was exciting to get back.  We got to do some old favorites as well as some new adventures.  

Some New:

Dinner at FMcClintocks in Pismo Beach.  Well, new for the kids and me, the rest of the crew had been before.

We all braved the waiters pouring water on our heads.  For Uncle Evan the waiter stood on top of a chair and blind-folded himself.  The kids have been requesting 'waterfalls' since then whenever they need a re-fill.

They got a chance to play on the toys outside of the restaurant.

and Ethan, discovered that he thinks he is hilarious when he sticks out his tongue for pictures.

Also new for us was trying out Dinosaur Caves Park in Pismo Beach.  The kids loved pretending to be dinosaurs hatching out of the eggs.

And we all enjoyed the view from the park.

We also did some geocaching while in Morro Bay, a new activity for the area.  There are still a lot left to find on our trips back.

James has a picture with his siblings and all the cousins on this same log with his grandparents.  We carried on the tradition with the next generation.

And, we of course took time for some of our old favorites:

Going to crab beach to pick up crabs from under the rocks.

I thought about getting Ethan dressed before going, but his pajamas already had syrup all over them from waffle breakfast.  Knowing how dirty he can get, I decided he could just stay in his dirty jammies for the walk.  It turned out to be a good decision. This picture was before we even got to crab beach, and he'd already gotten his shoe stuck in a mud puddle he'd been jumping in.

We drove up the coast to see the Elephant Seals

And, got some running in.  By far, my favorite place to run.  James and I ran together for the first time in our lives.  (He is taking the picture, which is why we are not actually together for this shot.)

Egypt

Gavin requested to learn about Egypt.  I love having the kids requesting things to learn about.  They get very excited about the projects and all the books that way.

Most of our project ideas were taken from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  Thanks for the great ideas Erica!

We started at the beginning of the week with this project to 'embalm' apple slices.  The kids suggested different things to put the apples in.  Gavin suggested Vinegar, and was very excited everyday to check on the process.  Salt and water worked the best to keep the color.  Vinegar kept it from shriveling.  Pickled apple anyone?

We practiced making pyramids

turned ourselves into mummies.  

By the way, it is hard to explain mummification to little kids.  I didn't want to gross them out or scare them, so we read books, talked about it, but tried to keep it interesting and fun.

turned rocks into scarabs

and did some hieroglyphic cave-writing

Field Trip

We braved taking the kids to an Egyptian Art Exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art.  We got there early enough to picnic and let kids run around outside.  Megan Warnick designed a 'treasure map on ancient Egyptian Papyrus' that had pictures of items that were at the exhibit for the kids to find.  The Egyptian exhibit was a 'look with your eye's only, and be quiet' section.  The kids did great and loved putting stickers on each item they found from their treasure map.  After the exhibit we went to the kid-friendly room where the kids could paint as many pictures as they wanted.

Books

I'm not a Scooby-Doo fan personally, but Gavin likes it.  So the kids get really excited when I get a Scooby-Doo book.  They also loved the book in the shape of a pyramid, because it was something different.

Also, the pictures in the Karnak book were beautiful.  

Frogs

For Christmas, we were given a kit that allows you to order tadpoles and watch as they grow into frogs.   I've thought about doing that with the kids, but the reviews I've read of this kit states that they frogs live for a long time.  Like 30-years long.  I wasn't ready for the commitment of a new pet.

 

Luckily we happen to have frogs that live in our backyard.  They laid eggs.  The kids got to watch the tadpoles.  I didn't have to take care of any frogs or worry about what to do with them.  It was kind of a perfect situation.

In addition to learning about the frog lifecycle, we also played frog games and worked on patterns.

And enjoyed lots of preschool packs on the touchpad.  (it is amazing at how exciting a worksheet can be to these kids when it is on the screen and not just a piece of paper)

http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/2011/05/pond-life-preschool-pack-free-preschool.html

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2011/08/preschool-pond-theme-free-printables.html

Books

Brielle's First Dance Recital

Let's just start by saying, I'm not a dancer.  I have sisters that are lovely and graceful dancers.  I've tried a few times in my life.  As much as I love the idea of dancing, I don't seem to have a natural talent for actually doing it.

I debated on signing Brielle up for any classes or sports.  I wanted her to be interested in doing something and ask to do it and not push her to do anything.  I did think it would be good for her to have an activity to socialize a little bit.  We looked at different options, and once she found out her cousin was doing dance, she started asking to do it too, so I signed her up.  I chose a jazz class, because it was the best fit for our schedule.

At her first class, I worried that she had inherited my lack of dance talent.  I felt really bad for laughing at her efforts, but it was quite funny to watch her.

She showed a lot of improvement over the 8 week course, and she was VERY excited that she was going to be able to perform on stage.  She has seen other talent shows on the stage at the PAC (Performing Art Center), and has wanted to participate in them.

She did great, it was fun, and she is asking about taking another dance class.  Enjoy the video:

A Wedding Cake

A Short Story:

Monday afternoon James called to see if I could make a wedding cake by Wednesday.  I've never made a wedding cake, and in fact my only cake experience is when I do my kids birthday cakes.  I did take course 1 of a cake decorating class almost 10 years ago, when my sister was teaching it...so I have some very basic knowledge of cake decorating, but that is not much of a resume.

There wasn't another option to get a cake done that fast so I agreed to try.

It wasn't perfect, but it turned out much better than I expected.

A Few Details for  Longer Story:

The good friend of James' mentor has cancer and was going to have Surgery on Thursday.  Apparently he and his girlfriend decided they wanted to hurry and get married before the surgery, so they were throwing a last minute wedding.  James' mentor (Carlotta) offered to take care of the cake and asked what they wanted.  They requested a typical English Wedding cake, which is a type of fruit cake.   She called around to bakeries and apparently everyone told her they needed at least 6 weeks notice.

I wasn't comfortable trying to make the cake (I didn't even know what all the ingredients were on the recipe).  Carlotta agreed to make the cakes and bring me the supplies if I would decorate it.  

As a side note.  To me, and English wedding cake looks and smells terrible.  I can't imagine wanting to eat that. Ever.  But, I guess if you grew up with it, it could be good.  Maybe.

She brought over the cakes and frosting supplies Tuesday afternoon.  I spend Tuesday making marzipan (and almond paste frosting that has to cover the fruit cake) and frosting.  I called my sister (the real wedding cake decorator) for some ideas and pep talk.

The Marzipan is supposed to sit in the fridge for 24 hours, or all night...but I didn't actually have that much time. So Tuesday night I rolled out the marzipan to cover the cakes.  I made some fondant, but it was too dry and didn't roll well, so I sent James to the store Wednesday morning to buy some more fondant to finish covering the cake.

I had all 4 kids on Wednesday as I decorated.  It was a little bit of chaos at our house, but we all survived.  The cake got picked up, and I did a huge sigh of relief.  

The End.

McMullen Reunion

Hmm.. I think I need to look at a family tree to get all the names and relations right.
 
We went to a family reunion last weekend.  It was hosted at Uncle Jim's house in Redlands.  The easiest way to explain is that we were getting together Margaret's siblings, cousins, and their families.

The highlight of the day for the kids was the swimming pool, with a place to jump from.

Ethan wasn't willing to jump, but was more than happy to count down for everyone else.  Brielle was a little bit wary at first, but after her first jump, she kept going back again and again.

The kids of their Grandma's Cousins, makes them what? 2nd Cousins? 3rd Cousins?  Whatever the relationship, we all had fun getting to meet new friends.