2 is only so cute to a 6 year old…

Lisi (2)  and Leah (6) are in bed together tonight. Their discussion goes as follows: Mumbles and rustling, whispers etc… 
 Finally Lisi cries “Leah, share!” I can almost hear the hand on her hip. 
Leah with a tone of -(I’ve been patient this is getting old) “Do you even know what SHARE means?”
Lisi “What?”
Leah in her motherly tone “It means you get some and I get som…
“What!!!” Lisi gasps almost before Leah could finish in compleat shock and disgust. 
Leah back to her motherly tone. “Lisi, your almost 3… I know you understand what Sissy means.”
-This cracked me up! 

Mr. T’s Delicate Donut Shop

The other day we decided to go Modesto for breakfast. Josh had heard about a donut shop that was supposed to be amazing! He asked if we would like to go. Of course we wanted to go as a family. So we hopped in the truck and took off! When we arrived the line was out the door and down the sidewalk always. This place must be popular! We thought. The line moved quickly and before we knew it we were ordering of the different kind of donuts we love. Josh’s favorite is a blueberry doughnut. Leah loves the multicolored sprinkles. I am a sucker for barbarian filled. Kaylabelle and Alisabeth just like to eat! The place slow down for only a moment before the line was back out the door again. There was no question that this must be the most favorite donut shop in town. And have you ever heard of a donut shop be open 24/7? It must be popular to stay open all day and all night! Well I can say that I agree with the groundsand the rumors at joshes work that Mr. T’s Delicate Donut Shop of Modesto, CA was a hit and our house too!

…and that’s why I love him!

I truly have the best husband I could ever have hoped for. I remember my mother asking me what it was that I loved about my husband before I married him. I remember having a hard time answering her. I knew that I loved him. I just could not put it into words. I think the best way to express my feelings can sometimes be through stories. Here is just one.

Last Sunday, after church, I stopped at the coffee pot to grab a cup before we headed to the truck. With our children this can sometimes feel more like a voiage. We always park in the back of the lot because of the size of our long bed. Once we loaded the kids and finally climbed up into our seats it hit me.

“Where is my phone?” I rhetorically asked. “Oh man, I forgot it on the coffee pot.” 

Josh looked at me, his head dropping slightly. “Are you going to go get it or do you want me to run and grab it?”

I sighed “Well, It would be so much faster if you could just run and grab it. Do you mind?”

“Okay” 

“I’m sorry, Honey. Thank you!”

He went all the way up to the front of the church. I saw him look on top of the coffee pot. This table sat outside of the church door. Then I saw him reach and grab my phone. He trotted all the way back to where we were in the back of the parking lot waiting on him. He opened the door and climbed inside handing me my phone. 

The words that came next shocked me. “Good job remembering that.” He said cheerfully buckling his seatbelt. 

“What!” I said

He looked at me.

“Wow, You could have said something like “You stupid, idiot, when will you ever start to remember your phone.” I said laughing! “But you didn’t!”

He smiled and began driving. “That’s why our marriage works so well. Besides, I had the whole walk there and back to say that!” He teased. 

“I love you! Thank you.” I said feeling very lucky.

…and that’s why I love him, Mom.  

Seaside Wilderness

It’s just good to get away. It’s good to let the kids play and run. It’s good hearing the ocean and let the wind blow in your hair. It’s good to let the kids get dirty and climb trees. It’s good to let them fall down and get back up again. It’s good to let them kick a ball and chase each other.

When I was little we were always pretending to build tepees out of big sticks and making forts out of logs. We would pick random plants and pretend to be Indians or settlers cooking over a campfire. This was a day that my girls childhood could connect to mine. 

aMAZing Kids

Since we began our travels many days have been filled with venturing to new places and discovering new cities meeting new walks of life… but many days are also spend simply at home in our RV. I am still a stay at home mom and still have to find ways to pass days simply.  For a little while we were getting pretty into our chalk art! We are far from the professionals but we could have fun with it all day long. I decided one day to make a maze for my oldest daughter Leah. She finished it is about six seconds. It probably took me 10 minutes to make that thing for her! So the challenge began! I began making a series of fun and exciting new mazes for her. I also made some simpler ones for her sisters. Here are just a few.

San Diego

“Good morning”

“Good morning”

Want to go to “LA today?”

…”want to go to San Diego?”

“Want to go for a few days?”

“We should check out the border.”

“I want to go snorkeling!”

“I’ll pack the gear. You pack the kids!”

“Kids get dressed!”

 

 

Santa Cruz

On Santa Cruz Wharf. Rainbow glows over the Boardwalk behind us!

We loved Santa Cruz!

 

Boardwalk

Santa Cruz became our hometown on the ocean. It did not start out that way. No, at first it was a little bit of a disappointment. Being truthful it’s not very clean. The roads felt tiny for our oversized vehicle. And I did not feel quite as safe as we had hoped. Our first day in the area and second day in California we went straight to the beach of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. We walked the boardwalk and ate there. We thoroughly enjoyed the ocean.

 

Leah Still 4

Josh and Alisabeth 11mo

Leah 4, Kaylabelle 2, Alisabeth 11 mo

 

It took us a few visits before we seemed to find our niche in the town. We found that we enjoyed the northern half of Santa Cruz the most.

My imaginary line of “northern part of town” begins at the wharf and branches up from there. We loved going on the wharf for only four dollars to park. It was the best place for us to be most days. I think we tried almost every restaurant on the wharf. One of the restaurants (Splash) was still under construction. It has an amazing water fountain outside of it with octopus and other sea creatures on it.

Me drinking from the Pearl Diver

It’s design almost has a Pirates of the Caribbean feel.  One day upon passing this we were able to meet its creator. He also had designed several of the other sculptures in town. As an afterthought I wished we had taken a picture with him. Sean M. Monaghan and his studio/foundry Bronze Worksto created this water fountain, titled Pearl Diver. He was there looking in on some of the renovations.  I believe he designed more within the restaurant. I hope to return some day and see the completed project and have a bite maybe, too.

 

View from top of Wharf

Leah by the Pearl Diver Fountin

Santa Cruz Sea Lion

Veiw off Wharf, Brown Pelican

 

They have a fabulous walking trail right along the coast. It runs along W. Cliff Drive from before Point Santa Cruz through Natural Bridges State Beach.  As you walk and enjoy seagulls flying, waves crashing and misty sea air you can also enjoy the never absent surfers who cluster along the shores. You will pass a beautiful lighthouse along the way and lovely wave crafted rock formations. You will be passed by skateboarders and it is along this trail we saw for the first time bicycles with surfboard carriers.

rack for surfboard on side

Mom girls seeing surfers

catching a wave

Michele/ mom keeping up

 

 

Natural Bridges State Beach

Santa Cruz is the home of one of our favorite beaches. We frequented Natural Bridges State Beach. As its name implies, it boasts a large archway of rock that the rising tides crash through. It was breathtaking!

 

This was the first beach we aspired to picnic on. And though it was not our last (we are avid picnickers) we learned that a picnic on the beach is not always- a picnic on the beach. . . food in the midst of sand, wind, seagulls, and three small children with only one thin blanket to shield. Need I say more?

Here they have a few short trails through marsh land that we trounced apron with the girls. We also loved the tide pools away from the mighty ocean waves. They allowed our little 4, 2, and 12 month old a safe area to splash and wade in the water. We also enjoyed a few good sandcastle attempts but they usually turned out to be the kids drip castles.

Tidepool with marsh behind

Seagulls at Natrule Bridges

Continuing north, in a rather inconspicuous location, we also went to the aquarium. Here is where we first pet a swell shark, ran our curious fingers through the beautiful Giant Green Anemone and awed as we walked along the full size skeletons of whale.

Josh and Kaylabelle 2 touch shark

Guient Green Anemani/ Petting SwellSharks

Outside

This quiet and secluded aquarium is unique for those features and also for its free-to-roam ocean front trails. We played at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center more than once.

Though most days we enjoyed being from the wharf north, we could not omit the harbor from our favorites list. The Santa Cruz Harbor is not massive but charming in its own right. It has a small handful of good restaurants and my favorite gift shop. This combo drew us back many times.

 

The Crows Nest is very good and has a fabulous vista. Beside it stands The Crows Nest gift shop. Here they have a gleaming selection of knick-knacks that I could never seem to want to stop looking through. The gift shop also serve delicious pizza, coffee and desserts! We would, more times than not, order a pizza and sit at a table outside that overlooked the boats passing. The Santa Cruz Breakwater Lighthouse standing and greeting waves and vessels alike. How pleasant. How peaceful.

And this is how was chose to spend out first Christmas away from home. The harbor lit up! They light up all of the sailboats for a Christmas boat parade. We ate pizza and enjoyed an illuminated harbor.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Lodi Science Center

We love science centers! This little one is filled with so many fascinating experiments. You always love a place that you can take your kids to and say “Touch whatever you want.” It is smaller then  most we have been to. But then my children are 5, 3 and almost 2. This science center is just enough for my kids to play hard and then go home and take a nap. But more importantly it was here that I found out that their is a membership called ASTC Travel Passport Program. I found that if you sight up you become a member at hundreds more science centers across the US and the world. This sounded perfect for full time travelers like us! After viewing the extensive list of all the science centers included we signed up!

You can look into this option and view the impressive list for yourself at http://www.astc.org

Fresh Citrus

We spent five months in San Jose, California. They say it is an interesting city. It is the Center for many technological industries. Places such as Google, Apple, Netflix, Intel and many more are headquartered in San Jose.

San Jose as a place to live, is different.  I would have to say it is not my favorite town to live in. One of the things we found was that there isn’t really a good side of town and a bad side of town. It’s all intertwined. We would drive two blocks and feel like we were in a wonderful neighborhood and then two blocks later feel like you need to stay in the car with the doors locked. Now some of the suburbs are of course nice. We particularly liked the southwest side of town. That is where my husband worked. And then places like Los Gatos are quite nice. But when I referred to “in San Jose, I speak primarily of the city itself.

Also you are paying San Francisco Bay area prices without all of the perks. That is, things like the ocean and the charm of San Francisco. There are no beaches and it is pretty hot and dry in the summer. Furthermore, we could not seem to escape the bad stench that floated about the north east side of the city.

One of the things that we truly did love though was that fruit trees grow everywhere. Where we stayed they had lemon trees, grapefruit trees, orange trees and avocado trees.

We spent many days picking fruit and making had squeezed  lemonade, orange juice, and grapefruit juice. We made lemon zest and orange zest, lemon scones, lemon blueberry pancakes, lemon bread with orange jam… Mmmmmmm! It was wonderful! We even made lemon marmalade which was not my favorite actually. But fun to make! The kids and I could not get enough of it. Many of the locals seemed to take these treasures for granted but our zeal for this endeavor seemed to attract new attention buy some. And it was a great way for us to make new friends. One local in particular (Marilyn) taught us that the only way to get a grapefruit out of the massive grapefruit tree was with a picker! She would take us picking regularly and by the end of the summer we had purchased our own picker.

I remember when we had first arrived one of our neighbors mentioning that there was an avocado tree in the park. My children and I spent quite a bit of time (weeks really) looking into trees and poking about the park trying to discover which tree carried this delicious fruit! I am sure we looked quite suspicious  nosing about everybody’s campsites. But alas it paid off! And this tree was so much larger than I had anticipated! It was the largest tree in the whole park and the man living under the avocado tree came outside when he saw me gazing up into this tree. He asked me if I would like some avocados. I said that I would. So he went into his shed and pulled out a picker and a ladder and picked four avocado for me.  The tree was so large that he had to have a 12 foot picker while standing on a ladder to reach the avocados. I would have never dreamed such a small fruit could come from such an enormous tree.

While in California we have also discovered that there are many different kinds of avocados. They have different flavors and different textures. I found one in Southern California that is very round and very creamy and it has great flavor. The one in San Jose was a little leaner and the flavor was a little more bitter. All this opened my eyes to a world beyond the same old same old store bought avocados.

11 Free Things You Must do in San Francisco

With San Francisco being one of the most expensive cites in the US you may feel hesitant about visiting. It is expensive and I don’t think anyone can avoid all of the expenses. But if you can find some free activities to do when you are there, it can at least help cut down on the price. San Francisco has endless possibilities, explicitly if you like walking and exploring. Here are some of our favorites.

1. Ocean Beach
   

   Josh and Kaylabella at Ocean Beach

   We liked this beach through the winter. Go for just a stroll or spend the whole day here. Watch some of the huge ships sail in toward the Golden Gate or make a sand castle. You can also walk through the dunes near by.
2. The Golden Gate Bridge                                                                                                               Who goes to San Francisco with out wanting to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Walking or biking it is free. Driving you pay.
   

   

   

   

   
3. Explore Golden Gate ParkThis is a very large park! You can be here all day if you choose. They have so many things to do and a lot of history.
4. Pear 39 Street Performance As you approach the end of Pier 39 they have a sort of outdoor theater. All of the performances are done by street performers. The shows are very fun and entertaining. They do of course ask for donations at the end.
   

   
5. Pier 39 Seals 
   

   

   
   This is a famous attraction in San Francisco and a lot of fun. Some days they cover all the docks others there are just a few. Every one likes to stop and take a picture.
6. Have a picnic Maybe at the same spot as the Full House TV show family. There are so many great places that you can find. We love a good picnic.
7. Dance to live street performers music.
   

   Leah and Daddy

   

   Dance the night away

   
   Some street performers are so talented! One night, we were all slowly making our way back to the car. Each of us were lost in our own thoughts, reminiscing a day of busy fun and play.  We were walking along a pedestrian overpass when the warm, smooth sound of a saxophone began to echo from the streets below. Josh and I stopped walking and began to dance. It felt like you were dancing on the rooftops. Glowing lights of San Francisco all around. The bay to one side with the Golden Gate softly light up. Soon he was dancing with our oldest daughter, Leah , too.  This is a memory that we are glad we did not let pass us by.
8. AT&T  Park  When we were there this place was crazy busy with things to do for the Superbowl! They had all kinds of free activities for everyone!
9. Go to church St. Paul’s Catholic Church is beautiful and the sight where Sister Act was filmed. Even if you are not Catholic (I am not) this is a beautiful and very cool place to see.
10. Many museums have free days each month. Check it out. For ideas visit:                      http://freemuseumday.org/sf.html                                                                                                                                                                                                               
11. Watch the Sunset   Need I Say More?