adventures in california and hair

we went to california adventure on sunday. my parents had tickets they weren't going to use, so we got to go for free. we had the option of using them at california adventure or disneyland. since none of us had ever been to cal adventure we went there. 

it was a really fun day. i highly recommend going for free. it makes the whole trip much more relaxing. there was no pressure, and the cost of food was slightly less disturbing (but seriously, what is going on?!). charis and pax braved the tower of terror, although pax said he never wanted to do it again. and we loved the playhouse disney show and monster's inc. ride. 

overall we feel disneyland wins. california adventure was really impressive, and ascetically awesome, but it lacked the magic of disneyland. 

on a completely different subject, charis has pink hair this week (at least). it was crazy hair day at vbs, so i pulled out my old hair dye and did her up. she really likes it - is avoiding showers and all (i put my foot down on that after 2 days).  it thought i'd dig up an old picture of me when i used to have pick hair for those who have never seen it. 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

If you have not already read this book by Barbara Kingsolver (author of The Poisonwood Bible) I think you should. It was recommended to me by several people and I'm finally borrowing it from a friend (thank you Flo). I'm still in the process of reading it. And am already so inspired.

 

Barbara and her family decided to live on only local foods (with only a few exceptions) for a year. The book is a documentation of that year. They have their own farm and do the rest of their shopping at farmer's markets. 

There have been many things that have slowly nudged me towards natural, local living. But this seems to be pushing me over. I love the idea of knowing where the food I eat comes from. And being connected to the land and people who produced it. I like looking forward to what there is instead of making lists of what I shouldn't have. It seems so obvious and ancient and tribal. I want more of this for my life. 

As noted in past posts, I'm no farmer. My family would starve if we had to live off the land that I  was tending. But the coolest thing happened this weekend to encourage local eating despite my farming ineptitude. We attended a birthday party in Wildomar (aprox 30 minutes away) for Caleb's uncle. On the way I was reading out loud from this book, and Caleb and I were hmmming and nodding as Barbara convinced us to support local farmers. Once at the party Aunt Karen invited me to pick some fruit from their trees. In the past this has meant oranges and lemons, which I am happy to receive for free. But right now their trees are loaded with apples, peaches, red plums and yellow plums. And soon there will be figs, oranges and apricots. She even gave me some eggs from her chicken. Amazing. The great part is she wants me to come back and pick as much as I want as often as I want.  Which I will be doing again this week. With plans to can and/or jam some of it with Flo. 

I don't want to feel guilty for eating processed crackers that were probably not made in California, or for buying mango from Mexico. But I am learning about the other options. I am seeing the beauty of sacrifice. I'm more conscious of the impact my food (and clothing and toy, etc) choices make on my health, my community and the environment. 
"Restraint equals indulgence" she says (p 32). I like this idea. Waiting for local, fresh, ripe food makes the coming of it so much sweeter. Maybe this will help me pass up those crackers and mango next week.   
     We've decided to rejoin a local CSA: J.R. Organics. They have a farm in Escondido (30 minutes south) with lots of yummy produce. Our last CSA experience was positive, but I didn't know what to do with all the greens, and felt I was wasting too much food. Now, with my green smoothie drinking and motivation to support this farm I hope I will do better. They supply recipes for each item they send, so that should help too. I'll keep you posted.

some good pictures

this towel blob was so funny as it was happening. and is still quite humorous to me.

i love my w.t. baby. yogurt mustache and all.

the dance parties are fabulous. they always come up with amazing costumes and charis tells everyone what to do. jonas generally does not comply.

why are there always crumbs on the floor? perhaps because pax feels the need to look at the bottom of his cereal bowl.

we had dinner at caleb's dad's house recently. most of the time was spent sticking a sock in the dog's mouth and playing tug o war. why not?

so cute. 

this is me pretending to enjoy turning around in the car. i seriously can't handle it. after about 30 seconds of watching whatever interesting thing they want to show me i have to face forward again. does anyone else have this problem?

this is me holding a lavender rose and wearing dark pink socks. and my brother with a bright red tie on. circa 1984

we got a pool! small, but it does the trick. i guess the trick being to cool the kids down. but poor charis is such a fish. i think she needs an olympic size pool at her constant disposal.

i love the way she looks in these.

i was so excited because my plum tree was blooming. aren't they beautiful! i was warned that the birds like to eat them. but i was checking on them everyday, and eagerly awaiting their maturity, so i thought i'd get to them before the birds. but one day i went out to water (as i had done the day before) and they were ALL gone. not half eaten. but picked clean. i was astonished. there was one lone plum on the ground and it was intact. it was amazing. those birds had a serious feast.

i have to try not to get too depressed about my garden. charis and i planted sunflowers, carrots and spinach. with plans of much more. this is the only thing that has bloomed after 2 months. and i'm not even sure its something we planted.  it's pathetically funny. 

 
lastly, this is why i call him mojo.

im sorry i keep doing these huge updates. i want to renew the  site more regularly, but other things (people) keep taking precedent.  so, without promises of future regularity, here is a big picture update. 

a long time a go (it seems now) we visited our old roomates Kat and Bas. The little boys were real cute together.
and i like this picture of jonas and kat. he looks like he wants to eat her.

my aunt and cousin from alabama were visiting for a couple of weeks. we got to do several fun things with them...beach, sea world, boomers. i really like them. my aunt homeschools her 5 kids (oldest in college now). so she has a wealth of wisdom to share. my kids loved hanging out with lauren (12). she was super fun to play with.

charis and pax  got to do a small pottery class in leaudacia with a fabulous lady who is a professional potter. we want to do more in the future.

charis chose to make beads out of her clay. despite my doubts, her necklace turned out really cute. 
my dad turned 70. we had a big luau for him. we all took turns crying as we talked about the steadfastness, generosity, integrity and humility of my dad. it was a great time of honoring him, and honoring God for blessing him.

we got to celebrate fathers day at the pannikin (fav coffee shop) with caleb's dad. we played carcason (a fun board game similar to settlers), and the kids begged him to talk in his donald duck voice over and over again. he's funny.
our friends from valencia, sarah and rob, came to visit us for the weekend. we kicked off their stay with a 3rd of july party. 

several hours were spend doing art. small art. artist trading cards to be specific. they are tiny pieces of art (baseball card size) that you are only allowed to trade, not buy or sell. here are out favorites from the weekend. 

other old valencia friends came to join the fun saturday night. charis and pax wanted to take pictures. so the adults stood there and posed while the kids took photos. this time they told us to be silly!
rob and caleb might have played a lot of video games. it was so fun to have them here. we're already planning a trip to their tiny apartment in hollywood. 

i got an early call tuesday morning from one of my favorite people. sarah jane. her and her husband are truckers, and they were passing by fallbrook  that morning. we met at the freeway exit and talked for over an hour. it was so fun and unexpected to get to see her. my  kids were totally impressed by her huge truck.

family

I have been making a video for my dad's 70th birthday party this weekend. It's your typical cheesy video. But I love doing it. I've always liked looking at pictures. And its that much better getting to put them to music! (MTV beware)

I thought I'd share some of the highlights...

my sister has always affectionately called this one "pumpkin head". do I have a neck? you don't put the chubby kid in a high necked dress. note to self. but i very much wish  my mom still had that shell shirt. i would definitely wear it. 

awww. getting sunburnt at salton sea rv park. 

i absolutely love this picture of my dad. he is so cute. and the palm tree in the back. perfect.

and my mom. wow. i've never looked that good.

don't you miss the early 90s? me and april do. we looked hot. 

In all seriousness, I really like my family. Looking through these pictures reminds me of all the fun and love I've experienced my whole life. I know I'm blessed. 

family vacation

There is much to say about our trip. It was so full, and impactful and fun. It was definitely our best family vacation. (Jonas took this picture of me and Caleb.)

It all began in Valencia. Our close friend Esther got married. Although it was a very hot day, everything was beautiful (especially the bride). 

Me and my kids were in it. I was shocked that Jo made it down the isle, and with some help from Charis, he got flowers to the moms.  We had a really good time reconnecting with old friends. Many good conversations were had, and lots of loud laughing. Just like being back in the dorms.

We spent a night in (the beautiful) Palmdale with some of our favorite people. The Brents are our twin family. Rochelle finally had a baby without me, and she is tiny and precious. (ahh, no pictures.) Our kids had a blast together as always. (This was the most modest picture I could find.)

From there we went to Caleb's brother's house in the Bay Area. Cousin Elijah has been blogged about before. My kids love him, and Lydia is awesome too. She has this amazing hair and these big blue eyes (see pics below). It wasn't too hard to say goodbye (after 2 days) because we knew we were coming back on the return trip.

Then onto the first night of camping with SD unschooling friends. It was beautiful site (near SF) with a cool little hike the kids did 3 or 4 times. Paxton turned 5 that day, and strangely, one of the friends we came with has the same birthday (same age too). So we celebrated with a pinata.




I love Oregon. Have for a while. Caleb and I have talked about moving there many times before. This trip was no different. I don't know if its ever meant to be, but I loved being there. The green, and the trees, and the openness are all nourishment to my soul. We had to forego the camping experience the second night when rainy weather was predicted.  So we stayed in a hotel instead. That was a disappointment to me but not so much to Caleb. 

We finally arrived at our ultimate destination of Vancouver, Washington for the unschooling "Life is Good" conference. It couldn't have been a more kid-friendly, fun, inspiring weekend. There were endless activities for the kids, and lots of good seminars for the adults.  

We called this the mushroom tree. They were all over town. I've never seen anything like it. 

Balloon swords. Charis got really good at tying them.
Face painting. I love this girl.
The hotel where the conference was, and where we stayed, was right on the river. So lovely. Please note the pirate ship in the background. It was actually used in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.

We walked to coffee, farmer's market, dinner. Such a great location. We really got to know the town.

One of my favorite seminars was by Scott Noelle. I was very impacted by his encouragement to be more creative and less competitive with your kids. For instance, it doesn't have to be their needs vs. your needs.  There are creative solutions that can allow all people's desires to be met (sometimes). This picture is evidence of Caleb putting this theory to practice. He wanted the kids to take a bath and they wanted to watch The Hobbit. As you see everyone got what they wanted. Im so glad we're doing this parenting thing together. 
Paxton was a permanent fixture in the game room. He loved playing the board games, and got super good at DDR. He was always the littlest one out there but he held his own. It was shocking and super duper cute.
Here he is practicing the moves even when he's not on the DDR pad.
Jonas was into the drum circle time.

This pic displays fairy wings, mermaid hair and t-shirt surgery all made by Charis at various fun shops. Other fun shops not pictured: acting improv,  paper bag puppets, artist trading cards, beading fun, and cardbord box fort (which took up an entire room). 
I think my favorite night was the talent show evening. Charis had planned a hoolahoop demonstration. Nothing fancy, just an ability to never drop the thing. Really she's quite impressive. But I got a bit worried when I saw other's acts were more choreographed than hers. I started to get nervous for her - maybe we should have planned more of a routine. But Charis didn't seem phased (even after another hoolahoop routine done by other girls). She got up there totally confident and unaware that she "should" feel nervous. I loved her for it. And her show was fabulous, because it was totally her. 
After she got off the stage, Pax was bawling. He wanted to do a show too. When previously asked, he had said no. But now he desperately wanted to do karate. He has never taken any karate classes, and knows zero real moves. I was able to slip his name in and after a long wait he was called up. I really thought he would change his mind before being called, and then thought he would chicken out once the stage loomed in front of him. But he stood up there so cute, and threw out a few punches and kicks, and then left the stage. I was so  proud of him. It couldn't have been better if he'd been a black belt. He totally proved me wrong, and I loved him for it.
Here they are in the car. On the long journey back from Washington. Lots of movies were watched. The Hobbit was viewed at least 8 times (for real).
Hagen cousins pyramid. We spent one more night and part of a day in the Bay Area. Again, very very fun. 


The end of the pyramid and the end of this very long post.