Does this Chair Look Comfy?

I hope so because it's where my butt will be parked for the rest of this school year!  Today is MY first day of school-- online college that is.

Last year was a huge question mark for me, knowing Delia would be starting kindergarten this year and knowing I do not feel called to just sit at home and wait for her.  I spent a whole year praying and researching different options.  It was providential that our Women's Bible Study did two studies on hearing God's voice and obeying his call.  With this time of prayer, Bible study and research, I started to feel peace about 2 decisions for this year: One, step up as coordinator of this Women's Bible Study ministry (more on that in a future post, maybe) and two, aim for a job at teaching preschool again.  It was a huge blessing for me to hear that our school's preschool program plans on expanding next year and the director, who is a church friend, was gracious in walking me through the steps to apply.  However, we quickly realized that my college transcript was lacking the 12 credits of Early Childhood Education classes that the state requires of all teachers working in a state-certified preschool.  I found a great Christian college offering the exact program I needed in an online format and here I sit today!

Let me tell you that I could not have embarked on this academic endeavor if I didn't have 4 hours free each morning!  Online learning is not for sissies!  The 32 page syllabus outlining the big paper due each week was my first clue.  Today I'm diving right into my Child Growth and Development class-- taking notes on a 43 slide Power Point, followed by over 40 pages to read in the text by Wednesday, at which point I'll give my response to this question in the discussion forum : "What aspect of behaviorism made it attractive to critics of psychoanalytic theory?  How did Piaget's theory respond to a major limitation of behaviorism?  Why are there many theories of child development?  Discuss the three basic issues on which almost all theories take a stand."  

I do feel excited about this new journey and actually really like having more than enough to do during my mornings "off".  Maybe that will all change by the end of this week, but for now I'm thankful for answers and my feet on a path that seems to be the one God is calling me to in this next stage of life!

Paid with Blood

That my husband carves time out of his schedule every month to be poked with a needle and drained of his universally-valuable blood is reason number 7,831 that I admire him.  On his last blood donation, he started paying attention to the growing number of points he was earning for each trip to donate.  And today he had the great idea to redeem a few of those points for a much-needed family outing.  He cashed in 30 of his 150 points to get 4 tickets to the Moaning Cavern.

Though the Moaning Cavern offers a rappel into the cave and a several-hour long belly crawl through the tiny passage ways, our tickets were just for the walking tour.  Good thing, because just descending the 200 some steps into the dimly-lit cavern deep beneath the ground was freaky enough for Ella!  She was pretty nervous  going down that narrow and rock-encased staircase.  I was starting to look around for early escape routes.  But as we reached level ground and as our tour guide started pointing out stalactites and stalagmites with funny names, she perked up.  We were really proud of her for conquering her fear!

We saw lots of rock formations that were all supposed to look like something else-- an igloo, George Washington, a hippo, a pile of poop under the hippo, etc.  This formation was called "Chocolate Waterfall."  It was colored brown from excessive iron and it cascaded several hundred feet.  Delia called it "jellyfish".  The Moaning Cavern is the biggest one-room cavern on the West Coast.  The Statue of Liberty could fit inside its main room with space left over.  

We were only allowed to touch this one section of the wall.  Here the columns were hollow, so when you tapped on them, different pitched noises rang out.

The whole tour was about an hour, including the time it took to go up and down ALL those steps.  Delia had no fear and thought the whole thing was pretty cool.  Once Ella realized this too, she loved soaking up all the interesting things our guide taught us about cave and rock formation.  I'm excited that when the girls learn a little geology in school, they'll have this experience to go back to and reference.

The cave WAS cool, but the best part of the Moaning Cavern for the girls was its mascot-- Cuddles the Cockatoo.  A sign on his cage told us what words he knew and that if we sang or played music, he'd dance and sing along.  Dave played some David Crowder on his phone, which Cuddles seemed to really enjoy.  As Delia squealed with laughter at the sight of Cuddles swaying and head bopping to the music, Cuddles started imitating her screeching laugh!  It was great fun.

Dave had one more blood donation treat to redeem today-- his "Pint for a Pint" cards from Baskin Robbins, which we enjoyed after the cave.  We totaled up our expenses today and realized that our outing and dessert would have cost about $60...but we got it all for free by paying with Dave's blood!

101 Things that are AWESOME about Kindergarten

It may surprise you to hear that when it comes to reporting on a day of school, Delia is way better than Ella.  With Ella, we had to invent the "Tell Me 3 Things about Your Day" Game and it's still hard for her to think of 3 good things.  With Delia, we know every single detail.  So, with full descriptions from her first 5 full days, here are some things that make kindergarten a place that she can't wait to get out of bed and go to each day:

-Delia's teacher calls hands "paws" and bottoms "tushies". She asks "Como estas?" when she sees you and says "Toodles!" for goodbye.
-Learning fun new songs every day.
-Swings at recess!
-Good times on the bus ride with buddies Helia, Annelies, Peter and Cora (and Ella, of course!)
-The school theme this year is Put on the Full Armor of God from Ephesians, so the class starts each morning by pretending to put on the armor and yelling, "Stay away, Satan!  You can't get me, I'm gonna get all my smiley faces today, Satan!"
-They recite memory verses in different voices. Delia's favorites are the deep, tough football player voice and perky, high-pitched cheerleader voice.
-In PE class they do stretches, sit-ups and push-ups to get bigger muscles, and Delia loves to show us how hers are already growing.
-New friends!
-Mrs. H. plays counting games against the class and she always looses.
-Being read funny stories.
-Crazy color creatures and monster puppets
-Her teacher says "Capeesh?" which means "Do you understand?" and Delia has adopted this into her own vocabulary.
-Because her class is KB, they call themselves "Kinderbeaners" and their classroom "Kinderbeaner Land".
-Mrs. H. NEVER gets mad, but instead says goofy things like, "Don't lay down or let out big yawns!  If you do, I'm gonna let you stay inside at recess and take a nap on the carpet!"
-Besides the 13 kinderbeaners that make up her class (I know-- fantastic small class!), there is also "Invisible Bob" who holds certain seats and places at the rug that the kids can't sit in.  The kids love to holler at Mrs. H. when she accidentally steps on him.
-Delia's kind actions allow her to put hearts in the class "Heart-Worthy" Behavior Jar every day and soon it will "explode hearts all over!"
-All the work is easy so far.
-5 Smiley faces (5 straight day of good behavior) = a trip to prize box and Delia got to go today!

MY favorite thing about Delia in kindergarten is what it's done for our relationship.  In those last few weeks of summer, everything with this little firecracker became a battle and we were not getting along very well.  I actually think God was giving me a little gift in making that first day of school a super happy one, instead of a "boo hoo, another season of life is ending..." sad one.  Delia comes home each day so pumped and busting with news about the excellent day she's had.  We've missed each other and the time we spend together in the afternoon is really good.  As I knew would be the case, Delia thinks her teacher is the whole universe and whatever she says is the ultimate authority.  I already see that it is so beneficial for her to be subject to someone else's rules and requirements.  It's confirmation again that though I love to teach, I was never meant to home school my own children!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

As mentioned in my previous post, the girls, and Delia especially, have been just dying for school to start again.  Wake up time came about 2 hours earlier than what they've been accustomed to this summer, but Delia still excitedly stumbled out of bed asking if today was the day and I got to tell her, "YES! Today's the day you go to kindergarten!"

I think they're excited because we've been preparing for the start of school since we got home from the big Washington vacation.  We shopped for the new shoes.  We had school friends over almost every day last week.  We received the postcards from the teachers.  And we even got to visit the classrooms a few nights ago.

Delia found her table, her cubbie and her name on all the charts.  She wasn't nervous, but it did make knowing exactly what to do today easier.

I think we set a new record with getting ready today.  If only this bright-eye, full-of-energy excitement could last all year-- or even a week!  I bet by Friday they'll be draggin'!  The picture below is my favorite of the day.  I asked, "How do you feel about the first day of school?" and captured this giant cheer as their response.

We are just thrilled that our girls have two of the best teachers we know this year.  Delia's teacher is the amazing Mrs. H. and Ella got Mrs. VM, our very good friend!  Delia came home at noon today with one "Mrs. H. said this" and "Mrs. H. did that" story after the next.  And because Mrs. VM and her family are already a big part our lives-- spending every year with us at Mount Hermon, having dinner with our family, taking my kids out for ice cream, etc., Ella giggled with delight when this friend-turned-teacher shook her hand and introduced herself.     

Our first day of school included one more happy detail-- a date for Dave and I!  We're going to start a new tradition of celebrating that first day of school by going out for breakfast after dropping off the girls.  With both of them in school every day now, a major change is happening in our lives.  I make a deliberate choice to be happy about it-- Delia certainly is and this helps!  I know both Ella and Delia will have great school years and I  know that the time has come for Delia and I to start getting some space from each other.  With every morning now free, I'm excited about new opportunities to serve, learn and work towards getting back into teaching in the next few years too. 

Just In Case You Missed It: Our Summer was Fantastic! :)

On Ella's last day of school, we celebrated the start of summer by creating a Summer Bucket List together as a family.  Well, we just counted the pins in our pail and are happy to report that we accomplished 40 of the things we dreamed we'd do with a whole two and a half months off of school!  As we jump back into a routine of alarm clocks, school lunches, bus rides and homework again in a few days, we reflect on what an over-the-top, out-of-this-world summer we've had.  It may have gone by super fast, but it overflowed with one marvelous memory after the next. 

We read well over 100 books as a family.  Ella ditched the floaties and became a brave and strong swimmer.  Delia learned that a new love for the diving board came with her learning to go underwater.  The tooth fairy made multiple visits.  We were blessed and encouraged when we invited the preschool teachers we have loved for 4 years over to thank them and they passionately prayed over our family!  We ate our fill of fruit and veggies that we grew ourselves.  We now have our very own backyard swing set! We had a ton of fun doing things like an overnight in Monterey, camping, Mount Hermon, VBS, a serve project in Kentucky and our Pacific Northwest Tour.  We played Trains with Kyle, Mom and Dad (and we even got beaten by Dad once!). We sang with and hugged Jana Alayra!  We learned to wake-surf.  We added Kaya and McKenna to our family.  And we enjoyed PLENTY of play dates with friends, bike rides, picnics, lazy mornings, sunscreen and Olympics watching.

Maybe because the summer has met all our high expectations, I can say with certainty that we're all okay with and ready for it to be done.  The girls both got the teachers they wanted and Ella has her best friend back in her class this year, so they cheer whenever we talk about starting up again.  Delia pops out of bed each morning asking, "Is today the day I go to kindergarten?"  Seeing how thrilled she is actually makes me happy that Delia joins Ella at school, even though I'll kinda miss her.  The summer's been spectacular, but we look forward to another school year full of new milestones, new friends and new experiences!

Taggin' Along on Ski Day

There are some times that we just love Dave's job-- like when he plans fun youth group activities where we get to tag along!  One of our favorite things to crash is his summer Ski Day.  We know a lot of people who own boats and excel at water sports, so it is never hard to find a group of them willing to take a day off and drive high school kids (and the youth pastor's family!) around the lake all day.

 

This year's youth group looks to be a big one!  Over 30 kids showed up for Ski Day.  Dave had 3 boats and each one was packed with kids all day.  The camp we set up on shore and the swimming we did in the refreshing lake water made for some fun times while taking breaks from the boats.

As they've done at Ski Days in the past, Ella and Delia were quick to ask for a ride.  We didn't have any tubes this year, but Ella remembered how fun the knee board was and bravely strapped in.  Dave got the Dad of the Year Award again when he agreed to be dragged along on the back of it so that the knee board and its 40 pound rider wouldn't fly away!

While Ella rode, Delia took over her favorite orange flag waving job.  Then...Delia decided she was brave enough to try the knee board this year too!  And she loved it!

When we switched boats in the afternoon we got a taste of wake-surfing.  The church friends that introduced us to wake-surfing are true experts at all things water sport and love to try each new thing that comes along.  The new trend is to take a real surfboard and a short line and surf in the waves that the boat creates!  This is done just feet from the boat deck.  When you get a good feel of it, you let go of the rope and actually ride the wake.  I tried this and was able to do it for just a few seconds.  Dave tried and got it quickly-- he was able to let go of the rope.  Morgan (the high school gal pictured above) is SO strong and good at it, she even got up holding Ella!  This was a total thrill for Ella!  She got at least a dozen rides and could have stayed out there wake-surfing all day!  Our driver was impressed that even when Ella and Morgan wiped out, Ella wanted to keep getting back up.  Though shivering with cold and tingling with water up her nose, she kept begging for more. 

After my short turn, I went back to summer paradise-- sitting in the front of the boat with the wind and water whipping through my hair, watching my girls have a ball with a boat full of high school seniors and listening to the Beach Boys playlist our fun boat driver created and blared for when they wake-surf.

We didn't even think to put "wake-surf" on our Summer Bucket List, but we figured "go tubing" was close enough and dropped that pin in the pail.  The full 6 hours we spent on the lake helped with that "run out of sunscreen" item on the Bucket List too!  What a great day!

Chapter 12: Astoria, Cannon Beach and Tillamook Cheese

And then it was just the 4 of us making our way back to California again.  This time we planned a route along the famously beautiful Oregon coastline.  We crossed back into Oregon at its most Northwest point-- the town of Astoria.  If you are also a fan of the movie The Goonies, you may recognize some of the sites in the following pictures.  Much of the movie was filmed on location in the town of Astoria.

The Goonies house (aka "The Goondocks") is a real house that real people live in!  It didn't actually have that cool ball drop thing to open the gate, but it was still fun to see.  To take the picture, I had to stand in pretty much the same spot where Chunk did the Truffle Shuffle! Since the owners understandably don't want their driveway blocked with camera-wielding Goonies fans, we parked where the "My bike!  My bike! I want my bike!" scene must have been filmed! 

Then we drove down to Cannon Beach to check out Haystack Rock, also part of the movie-- the opening scene with the ORV race and the scene where Mikey is looking through the doubloon.

Once I got the Goonies out of my system, I opened my eyes to the natural beauty of Cannon Beach.  It was a huge stretch of warm sand filled with kite-flyers and cool birds.  Surrounding Haystack Rock is a really neat tide pool system.

We found lots of starfish.  We petted sticky anemones.  We saw fuzzy, gray baby gulls nesting on the rock and dozens of pelicans flying overhead.

Delia was cracking us up with her display of muscles each time she found mussels.

Yep, the Oregon Coast is just as pretty as we had heard!  We enjoyed it a while longer as we drove down to our next stop.

Our last stop was at the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, OR.  Here we took the self-guided tour to learn about cheese making.  Then we went through the cheese sample line, um, a few times.  We strolled around the giant cheese store, realizing we could get Tillamook Cheese cheaper from Costco.  And we just had to try some of that homemade ice cream that all the reviews I had researched raved about.

How could we possibly decide what flavor to get at the creamery?  Too many good ones to choose from!

Our last night of vacation was spent in a hotel in central Oregon.  A swim in the pool, some pizza while we watched the Olympics in our room and a good night's sleep fueled us for what would be the longest stretch of driving to get home the next day.  We listened to the book Little House on the Prairie for part of the drive home, which seemed just perfect as it was about a family making a long and exciting journey together. How fun to compare and contrast the Ingalls' experience to our own!  Again, the kids did SO GREAT with all the car time and made all the hours we spent traveling a cinch.  The only frustration was that we never found those last 4 licence plates (Arkansas, Alabama, Rhode Island and Delaware) to make a full 50 seen and recorded on the drive! :)

Phew!  That's it!  Thanks for reliving our Pacific Northwest Tour with us!  It was a wonderful vacation, filled with the sights of some of God's greatest creations (wild bald eagles! mountains! waterfalls! dramatic coastline!) and shared with some of our favorite people.  Until the sequel to our family vacation story (a train ride to Colorado in 2014 perhaps?)...

The End

Chapter 11: Top Pot, Ballard Locks and Olympic Sculpture Park

Our last day together as a big group had us in the city of Seattle one last time. 

We couldn't leave Seattle without sampling one of its famous coffee and donut shops, so this day started with a stop in Top Pot Doughnuts' flagship shop.

Donut-loving Delia had to take a bite of just about every kind that came in the dozen we ordered.  They were all delicious!  We each had a favorite.

After Top Pot, we headed over to the Ballard Locks for an interesting lesson on how life near the Sound works.  With all the different bodies of water in Washington, and Seattle especially, boats need to use locks to pass from one to another since the water levels are not the same.   A salmon fish ladder showing how even the sea life gets from one water level to the next and this fun wave sculpture (above) were some other features to explore.

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The Ballard Locks are some of the busiest in the world and in the hour we spent here we did see countless boats pass through. Some were little speed boats, some were big, glamorous yachts and one was this humongous freight liner.  The big doors closing, the attendants tying the boats to the sliding walls and the boats then rising or dropping when the "plug" was pulled were super interesting and something we could have watched all day.

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Kyle did some great research on the town of Ballard and had a whole list of cool movie, book and coffee shops for us to browse.  Our favorite was a game store featuring an awesome kid play area, a puzzle work station and a policy that allowed you to borrow any game, sit down in the coffee shop and play it!  You know we VMs love playing games, so this store was right up our ally!

Mom and Dad treated us a delicious dinner in the city, which we followed with a walk through the nearby Olympic Sculpture Park.  The views of the Space Needle were great, even if some of the "art" was questionable.

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The night ended with an Olympic Opening Ceremonies viewing party.  Early fights had us saying our goodbyes this night.  It is never easy to say goodbye to our family members and especially after spending such a stellar week together.  I think it may be why I am so obsessed with pictures and jumping right into memory preservation on the blog.  We are so blessed; how God smiled on us all week!  I just wanna tell everyone right away! :)

Chapter 10: Dungeness Spit

When we started looking more into my original plan to spend a day at Deception Pass, we realized it would be about another 6 hours in the car and a pretty costly ferry ride.  We settled on the much closer Olympic Peninsula with the hope that the ocean views and wildlife would look sort of similar. 

Another drive, another short hike through the woods and we were at our destination-- the Dungeness Spit.  In the woods, the girls found a banana slug to show Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Kyle who've never seen one!

The Dungeness Spit is a five mile finger of land that stretches and curls way out into the water.  At the end is a lighthouse you can walk all the way out to.  We did not.  Two bodies of water meet at the Dungeness Spit-- Puget Sound and the Straight of Juan De Fuca.  It was really cool to walk along and see a view of waves lapping to both the left and the right!

Another neat thing about this beach was the half mile of balance beams and playground the huge pieces of driftwood offered the girls.  We spent a long time here and most of it was climbing, hiding in, balancing on and playing with the giant and gnarled wood pieces.

We found this long, flat log where a hundred visitors before us had made and left their own stone towers.  Pretty neat!  We had to add to the display, of course.

This was sure an interesting landscape, like one we'd never seen before.  And like many parts of this trip, the unique things we saw here will hold a prominent place in my memories.