Grandpa's Beach House

 Over Memorial Day weekend we spent Saturday at my dad's along with his girlfriend Cynthia, my grandparents and my family.  We love going to my dad's because it's like a mini getaway.  He lives in Aptos, neighboring Santa Cruz, on Rio Del Mar Beach.  At the end of his street is the beautiful beach. 

 

My Grandpa Pat and me.  She's a doll of a woman.  Love her very much.

My grandma above gave Georgia a late birthday gift which Shane is playing with and Georgia is wearing a shawl that my dad's girlfriend Cynthia brought her form an antique fair.  She always brings the girls "trinkets" from her antiquing extravaganzas.  Cynthia makes art and sells at local boutiques in Santa Cruz and Los Gatos.
 

My dad has a green thumb, can you tell?  Why I did not inherit this  and his genius for math I'll never know.  :)
 

He bought this beach house and tor it down to the studs, rebuilt it back up into a modern beach home. 
 

The inside has no molding anywhere, a modern feature for sure and his kitchen is so great. He hand make these cabinets himself. 
 

We had the most perfect weather for the beach!  I could not believe how beautiful it was.  I thought it would be cold. 
 

 

All of the big kids wore their bathing suits because they'll go in the ocean rain or shine, but I wasn't as prepared for baby girl because last time we came to the beach she hated it.  Now, she loves it, apparently.  And she stripped right down as soon as she saw her brothers and sisters in their beach attire. 
 

chillin'


We ended the day back at my dad's where he made us a big Spaghetti dinner, which was great. 
 

I love having a mini getaway at my dad's.  It's so relaxing and wonderful to spend hours, carefree and happy with the ones we love....at Grandpa's beach house.
 

Fish out of water...

Kids, it's your mom here and she's going to report on your swim team results.  So, the results are ...YOU ARE ALL FISH OUT OF WATER!!!!!

Kalen, Gwyneth, Reece, and Georgia how is it that not just a one of you but all of you are fish?  Oh yeah, your dad is a fish.  I guess that'll do it because you kids are the BOMB swimmers!!! 

Okay, on a more serious note the report is as follows...

 

Kalen swam for this "family" swim team, the Encore Dolphins, last year along with Gwyneth and Reece.  He showed some great skills and was asked on to another year round swim team called Quicksilver.  He has swam for Quicksilver all year long.  Encore is not year round.  That has surely paid off, to swim all year.  When he started Encore a few weeks ago, he had to be bumped up to the last age group.  He practices with the fifteen through eighteen year olds but competes in the twelves.

 

Kalen is in second place.  The kid in first place is super good.  He's always first.  But, Kalen is so close with him.  His mom actually found me last year and asked me how long Kalen had been swimming and I told her it was his first season.  She said, "wow, we've got competition." 

 

Kalen came in at 3rd place for his entire age group in the Free Style event.  This is out of about forty kids that he placed third.
 

They all handle pressure differently.  Some are proud, some are praying.  Ya know...  :)
 

They post time results every thirty minutes.
 

Reece is up for one of his events and his big brother is coaching him.  No surprise there.
 

I'm learning that a race can be lost right off the blocks.  So it's super important to learn how to dive off of these things efficiently.  Reece took first in this event.  He's ahead the whole time.
 

Sweet Coach Bryan is leading the "sixes" to the event tent where they wait to get on the blocks.
 

This was a proud moment.  This girl is six.  Six people!  I've seen her swim at the pool, but that's just playing around and at practice I don't see her very well because she's on the far side of the pool.
 

Man, she dove in and those other swimmers didn't stand a chance!!  I was star struck.  Yes, my daughter is a star!  I can't even swim like this for Pete's Sake!
 

You don't see the other swimmers because they are so far behind.  Just clarifying is all.  :)
 

After her big win, her big sister was there to give her a hug.
 

Gwyneth is goofing around under the event tent waiting to be placed.
 

Doesn't she look like a professional?  I thought so too!
 

She's neck and neck with a swimmer from Santa Theresa.  They are one of the best swim teams in the league.  Gwyneth and another girl are the top two swimmers on their team, Encore Dolphins.
 

Gwyneth pulls ahead.
 

Also neck and neck with the same girl during the back stroke.
 

Luckily random girls just kept coming under our tent and holding William.  I had no idea who most of them were, but it was great to have free babysitting. :)
 

I love watching you kids swim.  Swimming is hard and you are great at it but you also love it and have fun with it.  Until next swim meet...GO FISH OUT OF WATER!!!!!
 

What's New?

Well for starters, I was correcting my children's home school work and came across this.  My heart skipped a beat.  I will never, ever get rid of this.  I am not a sentimental person when it comes to most things, but this kind of thing I live for.  I love you Reece. 
 

When I was in Utah I made a special trip to the church bookstore, Deseret.  I got this scripture guide for the Book of Mormon.  We are currently reading in 3rd Nephi and we just decided to start using the book in 3rd Nephi, as opposed to starting over.  We've been reading scriptures with the kids for years, but this is exactly what we needed to step it up a notch.  We have loved this so much!!!!  It has great activities for each chapter,  great discussion questions and it's short.  We can use it each evening when we read and it only takes about 25 minutes.  (This is with older children.) 
 

So far we have discussed in depth what the gathering of Israel really means.  Who are the lost tribes?  Who are the Gentiles?  Are they lost in the Saviors eyes?  And what does this say about how the Savior feels about us?  And below I cut out characters from a bible coloring book and spread them all over the room and the children slowly gathered them over the course of the study guides direction.  I love it, and the kids do to. 
 

What's new is Watermelon.  I tried buying one a few months back and it was awful.  So I finally came around to getting one again, and it was soooo good.  :)
 

This is the first time they've played with the hose on the tramp.  They were at it forever.
 

Bearnsy B is reading!!!!!!  The sentences on the page to the left she can read so well!!  She is doing great!  I love teaching the kids to read.  It's so fun when it comes together.  To quote her, "I'm really getting the hang of this blending thing, aren't I!"  Yes, Georgia, and you are so dang cute too. :)
 

What's new is that baby girl is able to pull chairs and climb and get into gum.  Naughty.  But, also so cute.
 

Shane can play Chutes and Ladders without having to be told where to move and so it's really fun to play now.  At one point I said, "darn I got a slide!"  And Shane responded, "no mom, it's a chute, not a slide."  Yes, I stand corrected.  He's three. 
 

What's new is the boys' room.  Reece really needed a desk, Kalen already had one, and then we saw these at Ikea.  It's a loft bed, built in book shelf and desk.  I don't love the medal but it's so efficient and functional.  They both use it very well to do school work.
 

I picked Kalen's bedding for him.  He wasn't there, but when I saw it I knew it had his name written all over it.  His favorite color is purple and this screams 1985, which he loves....the eighties. 
 

My Vita Mix is new!!!!!!!!  For Mother's Day my husband graced me with this awesome blender!  I've had it for about four days and we've probably used it about twenty times.  My favorite smoothie right now is Spinach, Flax Seed, frozen Blueberries, Banana, and unsweetened Almond Milk. 
 

Swim team has started.  Right now we have evening team swim until public school is officially out.  And then we  move to mornings.  We eat dinner at four and then we are a go, go, go.  I love watching you kids swim.  You were born to swim!!!!  Gwyneth and Reece are the number one spots in their age groups and Kalen was bumped up to swim with the 13-15 year olds and he holds the number 2 spot for those ages. 

And that is what's new!!!!!!!!!!
 

UV Light

In our home school group we are getting ready for our science fair.  I was put in charge of doing an experiment with the little girls.  Which, I couldn't be happier with because they are the most darling girls ever!!! 

We experimented with Solar Beads and it turned out to be a lot of fun and interesting.  This is what the beads look like when unexposed to the light, below.  (Just wanted to point out as a side note that they got in to dress ups before performing these experiments...lab coats, dress ups, it's all the same.... :)
 

This is what happens to the beads when exposed to UV light from the sun.  It happened to be a cloudy day which was great because the girls could see that UV light effects us even with a cloud covering, hence the importance for sunscreen on cloudy days.  :)
 

We experimented with what might happen if we covered the beads with different sunscreens...
 

This is the SPF 30 from Trader Joe's. 
 

It didn't do the best job, the beads were still changing with the UV light.
 

Spray on sunscreen....?
 

Pretty effective, only one bead really changing.
 

The SPF 50....?
 

Quite effective.
 

An amber colored pill bottle?
 

Completely protected.  This amber color you see on pill bottles is a special plastic specially made so that your pills will not be harmed by UV light and other types of energy.  Interesting huh?  :)
 

The girls noticing that the beads changed even when in the indirect UV light, because UV light travels beyond the pointed source.
 

When I asked the girls what they thought would happen if we put the beads under a light bulb, I was very impressed with Georgia's answer.  She paused and looked thoughtful, and said, "I don't think the beads will change because the light bulb isn't the same light coming from the sun."  Um, yes, she is already a scientist at six years old.  :)
 

Of course once the experimenting was over we played and made jewelry with our Solar Beads!
 

They really do change to very pretty colors. 
 

Georgia and Isabel experimenting with Solar Beads, May 7th, 2013.