The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust

The week before school let out for the summer, I got to go with JT's kindergarten class to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. It was a wonderful free day as each parent volunteer was given 4 children in their group and we were at liberty to explore the exhibits and the grounds at our own leisure! We had  a great time!

"Sun is Shining, Weather is Sweet" -Bob Marley

It was River trip time for us again. Annually we take our boat out with our Imbach ohana to Laughlin. We’ve camped before but this trip was one where we take the boat out all day and come back to shower and sleep in the hotel at night. 

We left for our trip on Memorial Day, going the opposite way of all the coming home traffic (NICE!!) JT took the days off of school and we took the days off (sort of) from Rock Steady. Breeze came with us and The Imbachs had two of their boys, Dev and Bird and another boy from their ward, Kyle. 

We found a great little beach up by the dam and set up camp. Lots of yummy food, tons of gatorade (thank you electrolytes), wake boards, knee boards, skis, and tubes… there was NO shortage of cool stuff to keep us entertained!

JT and HeaBaby love being on the boat and in the water. It was her third year going, funny as how she’s only two… yes, we had her out there when she was 4 months old the first year. My little aquarius/daredevil. They both love to “drive” and Mr. B lets them when there aren’t other boats around. 

The inevitable wind kicked up but didn’t knock us out. We still enjoyed tooling around on our Maxum that we’ve named “The Holo-Holo”. It must run on air, or water, we’ve decided because we only filled up once and towed it home with the tank half full!

It was the perfect kick off to our summer trips, we’re looking forward to coming out to Lake Mohave again. Can’t wait to try out a few other lakes too!

argh

Frustrated at how behind I am with keeping up our blog. JT keeps asking if I put "this" or put "that" on our "Internet Family Journal".
Next week, we are in Tucson. I have no baseball, room parent, team parent, gymnastics, jiujitsu, anything. I plan to get some posts up. Before I forget lol...

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. -- Mark Van Doren

Oh how we LOVE the LBUSD charter school that JT goes to. Oh how we LOVE his wonderful teacher Mrs. S. HeaBug LOVES coming to JT's class, she feels quite a part of the happenings in his room! Mrs. S hosts a ocean themed open house, which is evident from the adorable "Message in a Bottle" invitations. Because of issues in the district, Open House, which is in the second part of the school year event where you get to go and see all the things your child has been up to for the last few months, had to be moved to the end of May, barely weeks before the end of the school year. Mrs. S pulled of an amazing evening that showcased all of their wonderful work, beautiful art projects, and excellent writing! We were so proud as we strolled through the class. At the rate that JT and Hea were playing with his classmates, you would have never guessed they'd just seen each other hours before. There were beautiful sea horses, crazy cute ocean books, crab math, scuba diver writing, "who am i" mer-people, and coral/sea star displays. I work in his classroom once a week and even I was incredibly surprised! We are so proud of him and so thankful that he has such an amazing teacher.

"Jiujitsu is the gentle art. It's the art where a small man is going to prove to you, no matter how strong you are, no matter how mad you get, that you're going to have to accept defeat. Thats what Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is." -Saulo Ribeiro

JT got his 3rd stripe at Gracie Jiujitsu Academy in Torrance, CA! SOOO proud of his ability to focus when we are there and his agility, balance, and coordination! 

Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~Don Herrold

 My WONDERFUL friend Mrs. M of the Long Beach M's is about ready to pop out a cutie patootie baby brother for our friend lilloB. We celebrated with a little baby shower and enjoyed an afternoon of good food (thank you Souplantation) yummy cake pops and mini cupcakes (thank you Sweet and Saucy) fun games and favors (thank you Mrs C and Mrs G) and great company.

*update* Baby S was born Tuesday! Pics and deets to come very soon! I have to shake my little cold before I go over to see and swoon over his cuteness!

The Great Mother's Day RV Costal Adventure

Just home, showered and wiped from our AMAZING Mother's Day weekend trip. I knew if I didn't take the chance to now, it would be at least a week before I updated with this post. So with my last ounce of vacation energy... here's a taste of the fun we had.

We've ultimately decided that "things" are nice and we like "things" but "experiences"... that's where the real memory making is at. For mother's day this year, Mr B. rented an RV from Cruise America and we invited my mom (Maga) along on our adventure. We packed up the RV on Thursday night with the intention of taking off for our campsite of Pismo Beach, CA early Friday morning. At the urging of our buddy JR, we decided to just head out. The fridge was packed and beds were made so why not? We'd wake up someplace new. Well, finding a place to park an RV when you aren't used to parking an RV at 2:00am, that's a new challenge for us. I tried staying awake as long as possible but we were all wiped out so in Carpenteria, we pulled over near an IHOP and slept for a bit. Mr B started driving again around 7 and the jolting of the "Bus" began the wake up process for everyone else. Thank you YELP for helping us find Ellen's Danish Pancake house in Buelton!

We passed Pismo and went further up the coast to San Simeon. We went on a tour of Hearst Castle, a tour that we've done two times before but it was Maga's first time. Plus the benefit of different guides is that you learn something new every time you go. We enjoyed the tour and afterwards headed back down to our campsite. I created the menu before we left and did a great job sticking to every meal plan. We were so wiped out by the end of day we knocked out after dinner.

 Saturday morning, I went for the best run ever. Over the Oceano Dunes and out on to the beach. Four 1/2 miles of complete bliss.

We went adventuring through the beautiful diversity of the California Coast. Through farm land and cattle land, ocean and sand. We stopped at the famous Madonna Inn so that JT and Mr B could pee in the Rock Waterfall Urinal hahaha. We wrapped up the day with a long walk on the insanely windy beach. There were a ton of wind surfers out! After another great dinner, more campsite walking and playing and showers, we played some dominos and hit the sack after it got dark.

Sunday morning brought yummy aebleskivers, chicken, apple and gouda sausage and a mushroom scramble. After packing up our site, we ventured down to Solvang, CA and had lunch, pastries, ice cream. It was an amazing weekend packed with fun, quality time and love. I LOVE MY OHANA. So incredibly much!

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. ~William Shakespeare

 EC turned 5! We played and had a great time celebrating our little friend!

LaDy and her little sister GraDy had their party at Pump It Up! our first time and we had a blast!

We got to celebrate a lot of birthday parties this month. And we didn't have to plan a single one!