And now… the rest of October

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Our little foster kitty, Indy, now back at the Humane Society to be adopted.

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Mitzie making herself at home on my laptop as usual.

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The only pictures I have of going camping!  Not sure why lol.  This one from my iphone:

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And this the sunset over Lopez Lake.

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Me and Ben snuggling at one of William’s football games.

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William’s down there in the huddle (number 15).

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Halloween!  Doug and Pam came over to celebrate with us.

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And Ben dressed as Link!

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A couple days later, William turned 18.  OMG!

Breakfast in bed.

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A bunch of Monsters from his brothers.

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Yanagis’s (Japanese steakhouse)

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and cake and presents at Grandpas.

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He got some kind of fully automatic airsoft gun.  It leaves large welts on his friends.  Fun fun!!

Xena learned to play the piano.

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And William got to vote!! In the most historic election probably of his lifetime.  Very exciting.

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Ben’s football team made it to the playoffs and won their first playoff game.  Then they lost.  Yesterday was their barbecue.  Here’s the team giving their signed banner to their head coach.

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And Ben with his trophies.

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Here they are doing their whatever-it-is routine they do at the end of their games one last time.

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Cool cake!

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and Ben got to eat himself…

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although he left some of himself on his face.

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October SMILE events

First, an update from our homeschool group activities.

I have been a little scarce this month, but here are some pictures I have not posted yet.

First, from a get together at Carmen’s house to fly paper airplanes and, of course, play around.

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And then a trip to Avila Valley Barn to pick out some pumpkins!

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Mad Skillz

I decided to learn some more advanced photoshop.  Check out my first photo restoration.

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Life’sCool hangs out

Our homeschool co-op activities:

Well, the plan was to build a tree house, but there was a lot more hanging around (in hammocks, on ropes and swings, and in trees) than there was building!  I don’t think anyone minded though.

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The kids found this vertebrae piece somewhere.

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These pictures didn’t come out great, but this was quite impressive; Scarlett climbed the rope and got into the tree from there!

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I’m trying to ignore politics, but this is hilarious

Sarah Palin’s Facebook

Great quote! (warning: political)

From blog.indecision2008.com comments:

Only a Maverick can suspend his campaign to work on a bill, not
actually suspend his campaign, not work on the bill, declare that he
will not debate, actually debate, and never formally declaring his
campaign back on. I challenge anyone else to do that trickery and not
look like a doddering old fool.

by bearness September 29th at 11:41AM

hehe

Even better photos from Avila

Kimberly took some gorgeous shots yesterday!  Here are my favorites:











Avila Beach

I just posted this to our homeschool group’s blog:

It was time to hit the waves again before the beautiful late summer weather leaves us!  Today we were at Avila Beach.

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The inflatable boat was a hit!  The highlight seemed to be getting flipped completely over by the waves, although being swept around like a roller coaster ride seemed like a close second!

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At first I was kinda bummed that this picture came out dark.  Then I decided it was one of my favorites because it just seems to show pure, joyful boy energy.

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Lots of boogie boarding going on as well!

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The seals were plentiful and near by.

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Of course Buddy was there to look out for us!!

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Add your pictures if you have any!  It’s really easy, just let me know if you’re interested in posting some!

LIfe’s Cool Co-op Update

I posted this on our homeschool group’s blog last week:

This week we went to the beach.  There was boogie-boarding by the waterbugs (Kevan, Kira and Parker were out there for about three hours; Coleman and Ben for about 2 hours), singing and dancing by the amazing Nathaniel, clam digging by the talented clammer Scarlett, hole digging by the civil engineer Michael among others, kite flying, quite a few whole sand dollars found, and castle building (or at least mound building).

(See those dots?  Those are the boogie boarders, hehe).

Sunflowers, books, football, Boy Scouts, Spore….

I did not take very good notes last week on what we were doing, but I’ll attempt an overview anyway.

At church last week (we go to a home church)… check out the sunflower house! I love sunflowers so I made Ben stand by them for pictures hehe.

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Last week Ben got the first 5 Spiderwick Chronicles books and has read the first 4 already.

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Monday was a holiday. I don’t remember what we did. Probably hung around the house. Will and William had the day off too. I think Will, William and Ben went to the park to play football. Ben walks them through the football warm-ups; it’s pretty funny.

Tuesday we went to the Lompoc Park Day in the afternoon. Parker and Janice came later also. The kids played some football and baseball. We listened to “I Am America… and so can you!” (Stephen Colbert) in the car.

Tuesday night at Boy Scouts, they got in groups and blindfolded 3 of the 4 boys. They then had to set up and take down a tent with one boy giving directions (the non-blindfolded one) and the other three doing the work. Pretty funny to watch!

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This week we continued to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Bridge to Terabithia, and George’s Secret Key to the Universe. We are continuing to review ancient history using K12, Horrible Histories movies from United Streaming, and movies from the library. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the chemistry stuff that we ordered. In the meantime we have more kitchen chemistry going on, including Amish friendship bread round 2 that Will just cooked up.

Our co-op on Thursday was a Not Back to School ice cream party. On Friday, Parker came over and he and Ben played on the trampoline, played basketball, played with Magnetix, played tennis (with Kevan too), and just generally exhausted themselves. When he left we headed to Ben’s football practice, and from there straight to William’s first football game of the year where they kicked Righetti’s butt. Heather and Angie came to watch with us (you can see a little bit of Kevan and also Grandpa in the background).

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Saturday morning was Ben’s first football game that counted. They kicked butt too! 35 to 6! These pictures are actually from the scrimmage last week, but he looked the same this week lol.
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This week they were playing the Pirates, not the Cowboys. I’ll get those pictures at some point. Ben’s the one in the middle going around the lineman.

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After the game the team went to Straw Hat to party, and got to watch themselves play on the tv in the party room. They were adorably excited about that!

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Sunday we bought Spore and Kevan and Ben were playing that most of the day. It is very interesting to see how the changes you make in your creature (you are evolving a creature from a cell to a full-on organism, to a tribe and trying to survive among/against other creatures) affect how it behaves and how it interacts with its world. It is a very realistic look at how adaptations affect life (although not a realistic look at how the adaptations come to be lol).

(I wrote this on Monday; not sure why I didn’t post it. Maybe I wasn’t done. Well, now I am :))