Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 2

After staying overnight at my parents' house, we left the next morning to drive to California. The three youngest had never been to California before. I was the only one who had ever been to the Redwoods (when I was little) so we planned a trip there.

Apparently, Jet was ready to walk to California. Tee Hee.

Road Trip!

As we were driving, Jet got upset because he wanted to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We had to distract him with music because he wasn't satisfied with us just telling him that we would see Grandma and Grandpa the next day.

We celebrated Paul Bunyan Day, June 28, with big trees.

Welcome to California.

We stopped at Castle Rock in Crescent City, California. 

My dad told me it is the largest nesting area south of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It was far enough away, we could only see so much but there were certainly a lot of birds. So many.

 Remember to click the pictures to see them larger.

There were also seals and sea lions.

Jet's first time in California.

I waved at the ocean and it waved back. Get it? Tee Hee.

We made it to our destination at a campground at the Redwoods.

We roasted Polish sausages and roasted marshmallows which we put on Keebler fudge stripes cookies (the marshmallows, not the Polish sausages) to make our "s'mores" this time. It's fun to try different things.

Jr. played his guitar and we sang around the campfire. That as well as camping will get us credit for Summer Reading Programs. It's been several years since we went camping. This was Jet's first camping trip.

Nichole did some painting while we were there.

In the tent, the kids played a card game while Jeremy and I tried to get some sleep. We planned to get up early the next morning.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

Spring Break is Over

Sigh. Spring Break is over. School school school. Work work work. Everything else. Everything else. Everything else.

We had good weather for Spring Break. It's been stormy all week. Wind, rain, snow.

Aaaaah. The wind is blowing us.

 

Monday, April 12, was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.

Tuesday, April 13, was National Peach Cobbler Day. Jr. Jr. was thrilled to see the cobbler when I brought it out.

Wednesday was busy.

Thursday, April 15, was World Art Day. Nichole and I made a large cardboard Easter egg for a Utah County Birders activity.

 

A while back my children participated in a school project for their cousin who was supposed to teach some sign language to children. There became a big joke about signing "bacon lasagna" during their Zoom Meeting. You know- kids. For dinner Friday we ate bacon lasagna just so we could send a video of the kids signing "bacon lasagna" to my niece. She got a kick out of it.

Bye Bye, Pumpkins

October 26 was National Pumpkin Day. Nichole's and Jr.'s carved pumpkins didn't survive very well. We didn't do anything to preserve them and it was getting late the night they carved them anyway so the pumpkins later just sat and rotted. Oh well. I took the time on National Pumpkin Day to take pictures of their sad state and to throw them away. We celebrated.

Speaking of pumpkins, Nichole had an art project to paint a pumpkin. She painted two ravens and a turkey. The ravens each held jack-o-lantern buckets and the turkey wore nose glasses and a bow tie. She won an award for best animal for that pumpkin. Nichole said, "Because birds are the best animal."

Lucky recently also brought home a pumpkin... with two stems. His pumpkin looks like it was skewered with the stem from another pumpkin.

Dragon Tile

Nichole took an art class last year where one of the projects was to paint a ceiling tile which would be put up this school year. Nichole didn't finish her tile in class and because of school shut downs, Nichole was able to take the tile home and work on it over the Summer then Jeremy dropped it off at the school toward the beginning of the school year.

Here is her finished tile:

Of course it has books and a dragon.

She's come a long way since she first started drawing dragons five years ago.

What We Did for a Road Trip

Jeremy had a couple of fairs in Montana recently, which meant... road trip for the family.
I prepared binders for each of the kids with pens, pencils, colored pencils, and lots of printed activities and blank paper for drawing (oh, and spiral notebooks for writing).  One of the favorite activities to do together were the mad libs.  I found several online and we had leftover Quibbler Mad Libs from Nichole's party (I blogged about it on August 2).  The binders were good for in the van as well as in the motel.

Jeremy decorated the front of the boys' binders (we ran out of time for Nichole's so he'll get to hers later).  They all had glow-in-the-dark paint on them.

Lucky got the Flash symbol.

Jr. Jr. got the Bat symbol.

Jr. got a Minecraft decoration.

Jeremy worked hard and made some amazing sculptures at the two fairs (I don't have access to the pictures right now- catch me later).  The kids and I hung out in the motel and watched Disney Channel, read books, did scripture study, ate food, and Nichole worked on her homework (yes, during the Summer). 

We also got creative and silly at times. 

 
Nice to have cool air blowing on you.

This becomes this.  

Nice red cheeks.

Jeremy brought him and I a special treat again- "wagon wheels" and cherry 7-up (with extra cherry syrup).  Mmmmm.

The actual traveling had good times and not so good times.  Poor Lucky was exhausted on the way to the second fair.  His ear was hurting as well.  He kept asking to stop the van and be held.  Poor little guy.  However, at one point, while we were stopped at a rest area, he went and picked flowers for everyone.  What a sweetheart. 

I think getting out to run around a few times helped as well as those times he just needed to be cuddled.

Watching a movie was a good distraction as well.

 Overall, it was a good trip.