Rylee's Field Trip to the Botanical Gardens

Rylee's class had a field trip to the Botanical Gardens and I got to go chaperone it.  It was really fun!  It was beautiful and the kids had a "scavenger hunt" of things they were suppose to find.  I think I had more fun than they did.

It was glorious!  So many pretty things to see!

And there were Capybara!  I love Capybara!

Rylee also enjoyed the capybara and petting them.

There were these piggies as well.  And you could buy some food to feed them and that was fun to do.

I'm pretty sure most of the kids were just grabbing the food and not putting the money in the slot.  But we paid!

This was the coolest plant!  It is a Blue Jade Vine.  This picture doesn't do it justice.  It is a gorgeous blue flower pod.

Selfie so you know I was there. 

There 2was a little enclosure with thee monkey's inside.  You could walk inside with them but you were not suppose to touch them.  They were SO cute!

Playing in the lily pond, trying to catch the fish.

Studiously trying to confirm if the tree is on her list of things to identify.

So many pretty things to see!

The gaggle of girls I was responsible for.

It was a beautiful place to be.  I don't think the kids properly enjoyed it, but it was lovely.

Rylee wanted to pet the duck so badly.  But the duck was not having it.

Anniversary

 We made it another year.  19 years now.  The best part is that I left Dan's card out on the table for him and he left my card on the counter for me.  He opened his first, looked up and said, "Spoiler alert: we got the same card."

We are pretty low-key, but we did go out to lunch.  I picked the Lenai Cafe, because they have the most spectacular hamburgers.  They have delicious pancakes as well, but I always go for the burger.

Dan took a delightfully backlit picture of me and my yummy avocado burger.  Trust me, it was marvelous.

And Dan got the Strawberry Pancakes.  He proclaimed them to be amazing.  

National Junior Honor Society

One of the awesome things about Callie is her sweet, overachieving heart.  She wants to do well and she wrks really hard to get it done.  Her goal this year was to have straight A's, and I'm pretty sure she's managing to do that.  Earlier this year she was invited to apply to going the National Junior Honor Society.  She worked incredibly hard on her application and she was delighted to be asked to join.  We attended her induction ceremony last week and it was perfect.

There was a little pomp and circumstance, and ceremonial stuff.  It was short and sweet and then they gave us cake and punch.  So, it was awesome!

Lighting each candle as a symbol of spreading good scholarship and citizenship, I think.

Getting her certificate.

Posing for the shot with very little delight.

Acquiescing to my wishes for a nice picture of her with her fancy paper.

Sand Dollar Beach Day!

  I was adventurous! Well, I was adventurous, for me.  I have a slightly neurotic fear of finding parking, and will refuse to go exploring based solely on the anxiety caused by not knowing where I can park.  So this was huge for me.  I wanted to go to Sand Dollar Beach-  A place that my GPS does not recognize and I only knew of a general area for.  But Marian, Callie and Rylee were ready to try something new, so we did.  I was quite pleased with myself.

Sand Dollar Beach is a few miles before Sea Glass Beach.  So I set the GPS to Sea Glass Beach, and once we were a few kilometers away, I turned towards the ocean and took the narrow coastal road until I found a place with beach access, that also had a place to pull off and park.  It ended up being so much easier than my anxiety-riddled concerns told me it would be.

We parked right next to this little memorial.  It was all in Japanese, so I have no idea what it was, but it was cool.

The girls were all about exploring the beach and checking out all the cool nooks and crannies.   

And they had a blast posing for pictures.  All kinds of pictures and poses. 

We did make it down to the beach and there were millions of sand dollars.  Mostly they were just mucky brown circles in the mud, but once you knew what to look for they were everywhere!

But mostly broken.

Is this not a beautiful beach?!  It was gorgeous!   

I kind of like these kids.  A lot. 

 They went wading and let me tell you, the felt bottom boots are the best thing ever invented! I am so glad we invested in them.  They are amazing.  Just in case you were wondering.

More pictures and posing by my little darlings.

 I love that they like each other enough to have fun doing this.

They are silly little goobers and I adore them. 

 Ah, this was so you could see what the sand dollars looked like in the water.  Can you see the whitish blob in the middle?  That's a sand dollar.  Most were orange or brown from sitting in th emuck.  Most were old and gross.

Yeah, they had to climb up EVERYTHING!  They had a very good time. 

Rylee's Pretty pose for me. 

Marian had to be different!

And Callie needed a picture as well. 

I thought we were done and heading home, but nope.  They found this culvert and had to explore and play some more.

This is the haul we brought home.  This doesn't count the ones we left behind.  Not too shabby.  Now I need to check Pintrest for ideas on what to do with them!

Random Stuff

The girls were playing outside and Levi was feeling neglected, so he stole a Barbie doll and ran off with it and made them chase him. He had a delightful time playing keep away.

 The girls are slightly obsessed with balloons.  They like to fill them with water and sometimes they throw them at each other.

Sometimes the balloons with faces get names and get to play games.  It is weird and vastly amusing. 

I went to eat somewhere new with my friend Julie.  There are millions of tiny, random, hole-in-the-wall places to eat and this was one of those.  I had this amazingly delicious steak with mashed potatoes and bleu cheese and peppercorns and balsamic.  Not what I normally would choose, but I'm glad I did.

Marian's ends were getting a little scraggly so I told her it was time for a trim.  This is how long her hair was.  Don't worry.  It still looks just about the same! 

 I don't know why this is sideways.  It is some awesome fabric I saw at a new fabric store I went to with my friend Amy.  It was cute, but weird fabric. 

And this was one of the panels.  Bizarre, isn't it?!