A Capitol idea!

 Thanks to Madison and her talented Academic Decathlon team winning the San Bernardino County Championship we had a wonderful reason to take the kids to Sacramento for the first time.  It was an awesome experience watching her compete in the super quiz portion of the tournament, in which we saw her get 9 out of 10 questions correct (her personal best!).  Sadly, in my rushing around I left my camera in the hotel room on the night of the event. 
An interesting side note, the hotel that Madison was staying in was also hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves.  I walked in and said to my mom, "Hey, that's Kevin Love!"  My mom didn't believe me at first until he stood up, then we both knew it HAD to be him!  I know most of you won't know who Kevin Love is, but he is a former UCLA basketball player who now plays in the NBA.  I felt too silly to go and ask for his autograph so I just let him walk by, and no one else seemed to even know who he was! 
The following Monday morning we met up at the Capitol building for our own personal tour since we had a group of 10 of more.  What a fun and interesting hour.  Our tour guide was so enthusiastic and full of interesting facts for the kids.  They are still talking about some of the things that he told them. Today, Luke wrote a spelling sentence, "The people had to rebuild the capitol building"  based on the story that he heard!

 We were happy to have my mom along for the trip! She rode up to Sacramento with me and the kids while Dylan and Bill had to stay behind for a basketball tournament.  She was sweet enough to pay for them to come up on a plane on Sunday night to meet us in Sacramento.  Dylan got to ride on an airplane for the first time, and it was fun to hear him explain his perspective of everything.  He was so excited to sit next to the window, and see the inside of a cloud, which he discovered was really nothing exactly.  He couldn't believe how small everything looked from up there.

 Here is our tour guide explaining all of the intricacies inside the capitol building.  He spent a long time explaining what all of the different things on the state seal meant.

 The tour guide said that the rotunda is the most photographed part of the building.  Here you can see everyone taking their own shot.

He also showed us the one "error" in the floor that the designer put in as his own personal signature.  Can you find the mistake?

 The state senate wasn't in session so they let us in to have a look and take pictures.  The state representatives were actually in session when we were there, so the kids got to see government in action!  Although, they didn't see much of anything except for people sitting there talking as documents were being passed out. :)

 Throughout the building were portraits of our past governors.  I had to stop and take a picture of our personal favorite, Ronald Reagan. 

 Lori wanted her picture next to Jerry Brown which caused an amusing conversation about WHY she would want to have her picture taken with Jerry Brown!  Just so you know, Lori is not a democrat! :)

My little pirate!  In the next few posts will you notice that my little Lukey has one glass darkened and the other is clear.  Long story short:  the eye specialist recommended that we take out the lens in his left eye glass in order to force him to use the right eye more, and make it stronger.  We didn't have time to order another lens with the photo-gray in it, so all of the outdoor pictures will look like this.  It didn't bother him until we got home and he saw all of the pictures.  He said it was okay to still post them.  He has had such a great attitude about this whole process.

By the Shores of Silver Lake

 I have one more blog post before I start our vacation pictures!  The day before we left on our trip, our homeschool group met to do activities based on By the Shores of Silver Lake.  This particular book starts with two very sad events, as Jack, their dog, dies and Mary goes blind.  The first few chapters were very hard for me to read out loud, but my kids are used to me crying through books!  All of us were impressed with how well Mary handled her blindness, and it was a great lesson for all of us on contentment and gratefulness.

 In this book, the family hears that there is a school for blind children and Laura wants more than anything for her sister to be able to have that experience.  Of course it costs money, and Laura determines that she will be a teacher someday (even though the thought of it sounds awful to her) so that she can earn enough money to send her there.  Gracie and I started researching braille and learned many interesting facts about Louis Braille and the start of the system that changed the world for so many people. Gracie did her oral presentation on braille and I set up words in braille around the house for the kids to find and decipher.  One interesting side note, we were really disappointed to find that our local library had hardly any books in braille.  We managed to find only one.

 After the kids went around trying to figure out the words written in braille, they were able to use my dot pens to print out the letter symbols for their names.

 Laurie was patient and willing to try to teach our kids how to make button strings like Mary and Laura worked on in our last book.  This proved to be a very challenging task for many of the smaller ones, but Laurie kept undoing their mistakes!

 Grammy came and kept Caleb busy with plenty of board games!

 Winona really had a knack for doing the button string.  It doesn't surprise me one bit, because she is such a creative and artistic girl!

 Kim Medina did an activity where the kids had to guess different objects simply by their sense of touch.  Mary did such a great job in the book of contributing to chores even though she lost her sight.  The family also discovered that her sense of hearing was better than everyone else, when she could hear the Boast family coming in the snow outside long before anyone else could hear them!

Here Grammy and Caleb are looking at the intricate lap book that Abby made.  It was so fun to look at and remember details from the book that I had already forgotten!

Smiling happy people...

My cousin Molly is going to be a mom soon.  I can remember when she was born.  She was the first baby that I got to spend a lot of time with, and I enjoyed every minute I got to spend with her and Kate as I got to be a part of their childhood.  She in turn, has got to be a buddy to my kids over the years, and I now I get to spoil her baby. Here we are as she is about to start opening the mountain of gifts that she got at her baby shower at our house.

These two always make me so happy.  They are each other's best friend, and have been such a blessing to so many of us!  Here they are in their usual spot at my house, either cooking or cleaning up from one of our get togethers! 

My Aunt Gail is going to be a gramma soon!

Aunt Gail did a fish tail braid on Gracie for Molly's baby shower.  I can remember watching Aunt Gail braid Molly and Kate's hair when they were little and I was always amazed how quickly and neatly she was able to do it!  I guess it is a skill that goes hand in hand with sewing and being creative!

 This is another picture that makes me happy.  It has been such a blessing to have Len and Shirley be a part of our church family. 

 Here are three girls who are so much fun to be around.  I love listening to them talk to each other, and they truly miss each other when they haven't been together for a while.

 I love this picture of Gracie's face as Molly was opening the present that she made for her and baby Owen.  Aunt Gail has become such an awesome teacher and mentor to Gracie in all things to do with sewing.  She loves going over to Aunt Gail's house and working on things with her.  Grammy just gave Aunt Lori's old sewing machine to Gracie and she is so excited to start using it.  Too bad I can't even remember how to thread a bobbin.

 We have been blessed to have Laurie and Abby as part of our church family.  They come over often for girl time for both of them and for the Moms also!

 Had to include this picture of Madison with her cute haircut! Go to Molly's blog to see all of the great pictures from her baby shower.  The next post will be of our trip to see Madi compete in the state Adademic Decathlon.

 Here we are with Grandma on her birthday.  Last year we started a tradition of fixing her a "fancy" meal using my pink dishes and had such a great time, we did it again this year. This year we fixed her salmon, asparagus, twice baked potatoes, and banana pudding for dessert.  Gracie picked out tulips for her and we wrote her a poem all together.

 Lori, Chris, Bill and I were able to go to the PAC 12 tournament at Staples Center to see Colorado beat Oregon.  I was hoping to see UCLA play that day, but since they lost their game earlier, I guess I didn't really miss all that much! Now I am caught up on all my old pictures and can start blogging about our snow filled vacation to Yosemite!  Coming soon!

pen pals

 Luke had so many fans come and watch him play his last game of the season, but there was one person especially he had been hoping could come! The previous Wednesday night, Luke went up to Joy and asked if she could bring Samuel to his game.  I told him that this was too much to ask (his game started at 8:30am!) but it shouldn't have surprised me that the whole family came!  We had Joy, Lily, Emi, Gracie, Dylan, Grandma, Grammy, Delaney, Lori, Caleb, Bob, Tim, Eli, Alicia, Chris, Craig and Grandpa all there!

 At first, both Samuel and Luke didn't quite know how to act with all of us watching them see each other for the first time in a year!  He had been counting the days waiting for Samuel to get here.  For the past year, him and Samuel have been writing the best letters to each other.  It was Alicia's idea for them to be pen pals and it has been such a great experience.  Luke doesn't particularly love writing assignments in school, but never has any problem writing long letters to Samuel.

 

 After his game was over we had a while before Dylan's game started, so we walked over the park to play for a little while.  Caleb and Eli enjoyed the swings and running around together.

 After spending some time with Lily, she reminded me so much of how Gracie was at her age. Such sweet girls!  We were able to go to Rubio's for lunch with them too.

 It didn't take long for the two of them to start playing and laughing together.

 It was fun to see Dylan and Delaney run and around and play with the younger ones too!

 All the guys played basketball after second service on a Sunday night, and the girls came to our house.  Gracie still has the same dress up box she has had for many years and loves to help the younger girls dress up.

Luke and I were able to join the Short family for the evening at California Adventure one night during their stay.  It was a special night for the two of us to get to do something alone together (besides eye doctor appointments!) and we had a great time.  Here we are on "Soaring over California".  Luke also went on "Tower of Terror" for the first time with Samuel.  We were blessed to get to spend so much time with the Shorts while they were here.  Luke is saving his money now so that he can go see Samuel in Kentucky for his birthday.  He has $14 so far, and is hoping that will help pay the cost of an airplane ticket!  He wrote Samuel today and said, "See you in August, maybe!" :)