Beginning of the Year Celebration

We had a beginning of the year celebration with some of our home school friends. A week prior, some of us moms got together and needle-felted gifts for our children. I made each of my girls a flower. Each of our children walked under our bridge and each mom welcomed them to the grade they were entering. It was really fun and cute. (Would have been nicer if Ceci would have not been sick and grumpy, though.) We had a lovely ceremony and a yummy potluck. Later, some of us went swimming at my place!

We met Los Lobos!!

This was sooooo fun! On August 25th, we went to see Los Lobos for free at Amoeba records! We were so lucky that our friend AnnMarie watched our girls at the last second! We had soooo much fun!! They played an AWESOME concert of old and new songs and they were all great. They even did "How will the wolf survive?" from the 80's. They were ROCKIN'!!

Then, we got to meet all the guys and get their autographs!! They were so nice!! Even though Cesar Rosas puts on a "what up" face, he is totally sweet, friendly and funny. His voice is sooooooo BEAUTIFUL!! I've been listening to Los Lobos like crazy ever since. I can't wait to see them play again. And their new album is great!!

Sequoia

The day after my family left, we packed up to go camping at Sequoia National Park. Wow!!!!!! We had a BLAST!! We had never been there before. It was so much fun, I wish I could write every detail of every day. We were there August 9-13. We saw bears EVERY DAY!! Our pictures aren't too great though because they're from a cell phone (it's all we had!!) We hiked through the most gorgeous meadows and forests every day!!! I am now IN LOVE with Sequoia trees! I also had SO MUCH fun cooking-- I love camp cooking. We had campfires every night and s'mores every night. (Still trying to lose that weight.) What a wonderful camping trip!

Our first day, we set up camp, went swimming in the stream just next to our site, went to the visitor's center where we saw a movie about bears and then later hiked to "Tharp's Log" a cabin made from a tree trunk. We saw our first bear at the cabin! (But he was too far to get a picture with a cell phone!) :) We were scared at first!

Our second day, we hiked down to the Crystal Cave and went on the tour! On the way back to camp, we followed a bear in our van that was going along the road on a hill!

Our third day, we were laying in our tent looking out the door and I spotted a bear across the stream! It was pretty far away, but it was exciting and we got out and tried to get a better look. Later, we went to see the "General Sherman" (the biggest tree in volume in the world!) It was huge!!!! We also went to the Beetle Rock discovery center for the afternoon which was a fun kid's science center with lots of fun activities for kids. Then I took Bella and Olivia on a hike to this gorgeous waterfall.

Our fourth day, we had to clean up and pack up to go. But after that, we went swimming in a beautiful part of the stream and then went on a guided hike through forest and meadows. We learned so much! At the end, we saw FIVE BEARS in the meadow!! They were eating flowers! We saw a mama and a baby and then another mama and a baby!! We saw the second little cub climb quickly up a tree after it's mom snorted at it!! It turned out there was a male bear coming!! (Did you know a male bear will kill a cub so that it can mate with the mom?) Before we left, the girls became "junior rangers." They worked very hard over the trip doing a workbook that they got on our first day. They got badges!

We had so much fun! We hated to leave! But we were going to Fresno so that we could take a tour the next day of our dairy farm that we get our milk from, Organic Pastures.

We got a tour from the owner, Mark McAffee!! Here we are with Mark and our cows that eat organic grass!! :) We had such a wonderful vacation!!

Summer

We started June 1st with getting the house repiped. Wow! What an adventure! Next thing I knew, there were guys in almost every room of the house breaking the walls open. Then, other guys digging ditches in the yard. It lasted for 4 days. Our water pressure is now amazing.

I took the girls on a field trip with our home school friends to a local Buddhist temple in Pasadena. It was neat. We got to do a meditation class and got to meet some of the monks. I forgot to take pictures, so I took this one when we left!

My birthday was on June 7th. I'm at the age where it's not fun to say how old! Craig and I were blessed with a chance to go out to dinner for Thai food. We hadn't planned a thing, but my sister had sent me a gift of $ to go out and at the last second our neighbors watched our kids. It was nice, and we really needed it. Craig was bummed for getting laid off and we were thinking that we were moving which felt very stressful! It was a nice birthday. My sweet friend from church had a cake baked for me by another (professional cake maker) friend from church. It was soooo nice! I felt like the Lord gave me a very nice birthday and I hadn't planned a thing!







I took pictures when we went up to Leona Valley to pick cherries with Grandma Ginny and also when we had a fun summer solstice swim party with a bunch of home school friends, but they got lost with my lost camera! :( I also lost some cute pictures from the day we went to Chinatown. Thankfully, I got this one from Craig's cell phone. We'd been wanting to go to Chinatown ever since Chinese New Year but could never find the time. We finally made it at the end of June and had so much fun!! It is so fun to see all the unique treasures from China. We definitely want to go there next year for the Chinese New Year parade!

In July, we got 3 exchange students from Taiwan! Wow! We did it because we really needed the extra income that it brought. They stayed with us for two weeks and I made them breakfast and dinner and drove them to and from school every day. We had to rearrange our house a bit to accommodate them. We gave my girls my dad's queen bed and gave the exchange students a day bed from the garage and the girl's bunk beds. We put them in our school room. We had a lot of fun with them and they were very cute. They were 13 and 14--Betty, Lucy and Starly were their American nicknames.






I got to help give my dear friend Brieanne a blessingway, which is like a baby shower only more spiritual and supportive of the birth. Brieanne requested home made gifts and so I made her this needle-felted tapestry. I enjoyed making it so much!! I was surprised that I put so many pink roses on it when Brieanne doesn't really care for pink, but by the end of the shower, we all were positive that she was having a girl. (Not by an ultrasound!) I made a salad and deviled eggs. Brieanne got her tummy henna-tattooed and we all got henna tattoos. It was such a beautiful blessingway! I'm so happy for Brieanne! (By the way, she did indeed have a girl which I'll post more of later.)














I let my exchange students have a swim party with all of the friends from their school one night. It was a little crazy, but I survived it!

A few nights later, their time with us ended. This is from their last night that they were here and then from a dinner we got to go to to say goodbye to them. Our girls had fallen so in love with them, it was hard to say goodbye!















We had lots of swim parties, big and small, but I didn't get too many pictures because of the lost camera. Somehow I got this one, when the Nielsen girls came over to play. They are our super-good friends as you will see in more pictures/blog posts to come.












On July 31st, my sweet niece, Arianna, turned eight and was baptized. It was a beautiful baptism! I only got this one picture because we all rushed home to my brother's place. Then, it turned into a total party! We even ended up at the beach at the end!







In the middle, we got to give my youngest sister Cindy a baby shower. She was expecting a baby girl (who was born October 1st!) She got one of the most beautiful showers I've ever been to! My sister-in-law, Sandra, went all out. It was so pretty and the gifts were amazing!! I made her matching pearl and pink crystal bracelets for herself and for the baby and the little outfit she's holding. My gifts paled in comparison to all the other gorgeous outfits she got!!












This was the start of a week with almost all my family visiting. Cindy and Yvonne stayed for the week and Harold came up for a day. We did a lot of cleaning out (lots of my parents books, papers, etc.) We also had a lot of fun. We had a beach day, and we also celebrated Yvonne's birthday. I made her some cupcakes. We also got to go to an awesome Dodger game where they won 9-0!! That was a blast!! :)













While my family was visiting, Craig's cousin also came to visit. I only have this tiny blurry picture that was sent to us from a cell phone!! But we saw cousin Vince, his wife Patti, their kids Andrew and Elizabeth, cousin Richie and Aunt Mary. It was so nice because we don't get to see these cousins very often!!




One of the last things I did with my family was visit my mom and dad's graves. I miss them so much!! It has been a bit hard without them. We sang lots of songs about families and how families can be together forever.




After that, we went to a birthday party for Tristan!!









This last picture was right before the Kleven's drove away. These two love each other so much! Almost as much as they love their thumbs!!