Halloween 2014

Halloween!  Thanks to our big move, Poppi got to be here for Halloween.  Of course each boy had a party at school.  Naturally on the same day, and at the same time.  30 minutes at Wyatt's, and 30 minuttes at Zachary's.  Nana sent their costumes just in time!

Wyatt is a Red Ranger and Yannick opted for an older costume (Zachary wore this at age 2!) with a mask for the school party.

The three kindergarten classes all did a parade through all the 1st-5th grade classes.  So cute!  

Wyatt with his partner for the parade

I let Yannick go in the line with Wyatt.  For awhile Wyatt was sweet and held his hand, but then after that, Yannick was comfortable enough on his own, and just stayed in line. :)  When they went through Zachary's class, I followed the parade in too, so I could wave to Zach.  He was so excited to see all of us!

Wyatt's class taking pictures at the end.  I think from all 3 kinder classes, there were about 8 Red Rangers!!  It must have been on clearance somewhere! 

Wyatt is making a very cute skeleton craft at his party, with glue and q-tips.

Yannick eating his party snacks!

After the party the kindergarten class ate lunch!  What??  After all those snacks?  Here W is with his best buddy at school - Christopher.  

Zachary with a black mouth from black cupcake frosting.  Zachary's party was slightly less enjoyable as he did not really care that we were there.  He was very involved in his own thing.  Yannick kept asking to go back to Wyattt's fun party. :)  Yannick did get to decorate a cookie which he enjoyed.

The three boys with their new costumes: W-Red Ranger, Y-Batman, Z-Anakin Skywalker  Thanks Nana for the costumes!

I let Dad take the boys trick-or-treating by himself around 5pm.  In Evanston, it all starts at 4pm, so I thought there would be plenty to do.  Aidan's family was going to meet us after dinner, at 7 and trick-or-treat with us.

Poppi taking the boys out.  They were not very sucessful.  Apparently Silicon Valley trick-or-treating does not start until about 7pm.  All those hard workers!

Out later with the Lim family.  Zachary & Aidan are jedi, Alexi is a penguin, and our course our Red Ranger and the cutest Batman around (though he refused to wear his cutie cutie mask!)  I gave all the kids glow necklaces for fun.

Candy!!

NIck loved the blow-up Mummy

5 kids, 5 piles of loot 

Here is where the pics get a bit out of order since they are from other people.

Poopi snapped this of the 3 boys and the Halloween decorations

Jessi (Aidan's mom) with her great camera got black-lipped Z at his party

She also caught Zachary and Aidan in the act of "light saber battle".  

It was an enjoyable time with their family.  I even got lost in our neighborhood and had a hard time reuiniting with a very sleepy Nick and Art.  Love that we have cell phones!!  With GPS maps!

October Silly Stuff

The Disneyland photo books arrived today!!

Zachary doing a handstand on vault

Zachary swinging from the high bar (he hates this FYI)

All three boys at the craft table painting

We MOVED!!

Very crazy. Our new landlord wanted us out by this weekend or not until the end of our lease in Feb, with the option to stay until April. I fully expected us to stay put, but I was diligent and looked at properties. One seemed promising but we were not chosen after we out our application in. Then, as I was emailing our landlords to let them know I had gone to see 13 places and we were staying put, I decided to look one last time at Craigslist. Uh oh, there was a promising property. Separate living and dining rooms (read: space for a playroom), three bedrooms and less than a mile from Apple. I made Art come see this one with the boys and I bc I had a pit-of-my stomach feeling that this was IT. And I was right. It is not perfect, but it is really good for us. We put in an application right then and was accepted on Wednesday at noon. Art called to say that the place was ours if we wanted it. I cried a bit then started assembling boxes for us to move on Sunday. 3.5 days away!!!  What??  Dad agreed to fly out on Friday to help out - keeping the boys entertained. Also we had gotten our wires crossed with Karl and Laura, thinking they were showing up the next week when really they showed up that Saturday. They were both a HUGE help. Karl is a machine and can work and work and work. We could not have done it without the tremendous help of family and our church family. We had people come over to help pack, to take the boys so I could pack! help us move on Saturday, help us move on Sunday, and help unpack on Sunday. Amazing,  such generosity with last minute notice!

Mommy and Yannick enjoying oranges from the tree in our backyard!

Saturday night before the big move. The bunk beds were already at the new house and assembled (Poppi!) 

Our family of 5 all slept on mattresses in the boys room the last night. So strange to have the room emptied!

Poppi already set up in the guest room. He was originally only going to stay a week, but after I panicked a bit he agreed to stay another week. He did everything for the boys - school pick up and drop off (at their current school. We don't want to move them until after Halloween) so I could concentrate on unpacking. The result was that we were more settled in our new place in two weeks than we were in our old place in 8 months. Pictures in the wall and able to park in the garage!!  Thanks Dad!

Poor guy had to borrow my sunglasses when he could not find his and it was time to pick up ZW from school

Garden City Church Mount Hermon Retreat

This weekend our church had a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains on Mount Herman.  Art was not thrilled to go since we went camping last weekend, but I thought it would be a good way to get to know other people.  I was wrong, but it was still fun. :)  Not many people outside of our bible study group really interacted with us.  I would say it was not a fantastic time for us, but a pretty good one.  PLUS, I did not have to cook or clean for 2ish days.  We arrived Friday evening, in time for the evening session.  Yea childcare!!  It was held at Mount Herman Retreat Center.  We had a dorm-like room for our family which worked out really well.  A double bed, two twins, and a pulll-out couch.  Perfect!

The first night, after the evening session, we were hoping to go to the ice cream "Shoppe" to hang out with some other people but we found out it did not open until 9pm.  Not worth keeping the kids awake to get ice cream!  So we headed up to the coffee shop.  We got the boys a hot chocolate to share, and some skittles, because they did not like the dessert at the buffet and were disappointed by the lack of ice cream.  We hung out with the Park family for awhile, met the Cryer family and chatted all together for awhile.  Then off to our room to get the kids, and me, into bed.  Art got the evening off once kids were in bed, to go meet up with people, and I would get the second night off.

ZW in their twin beds

we put the couch cushions on the floor for the little guy to sleep on, not trusting he would not roll off the bed.  It was a wise move, because he rolled off the cushions several times.

On Saturday, we had a little break before lunch and many of the families met in the big recreation area and field (the rec center with ping pong etc was not open yet - another disappointment for most of the kids).  I got some games out of the car, and her is Zachary and one of the Lyon boys playing Forbidden Island.  Each neighborhood group was tasked to put on a 1 minute play with the theme of being a church family (worship, sermon, bible study etc).

After lunch we had a quick pow wow to figure out what we wanted to do, and then went to practice.  Here is Shayna being bossy.  :)

Nap time!  Art got an hour or so to himself while I stayed with the boys.  ZW, after their hour rest time was up, joined Art in the rec center to play pool, basketball etc.  Here is our little guy, who has fallen off the cushions again.

Part of our skit was making a pyramid.  Here are the boys practicing their part.

After breakfast, while we sat around and relaxed, the boys colored for awhile before we went to the morning session.

After the kids were in bed on Saturday, I went to the ice cream store and chatted with some people I did not know.  College girls.  And met another family I had seen around at church.  

Art and Yannick swinging before we left on Sunday

Our church that attended - after we all put on our skits.  In our skit, we gave each of the kids a technology device (phone, ipad, etc), and had them say things that "workers in Silicon Valley say"  Zach was the only kid that said his lines, and the adults had to say the lines for the other kids.  Zach looked at his phone and said "oh no, another trip to China.  I had better go home and pack and tell my family".  He got a big laugh.  Then the kids built a pyramid with Z,W, and Jaelyn on the bottom, then Yannick and Noah, with baby Caleb on top.   Of course we have no pictures of that.

We will have to think about whether we will do it again next year.  I am sure by then we will know many more people.

Camping! Henry Cowell Redwood State Park

Camping!  

The new owners of our rental home need to fumigate for termites. That means we have to get out, along with all of our food, medicine, and Dexter of course. They chose this weekend because we were planning on being out of town - camping in Yosemite with our bible study group. Unfortunately this was also the week that the government shut down which means the national parks did too. Scramble!!  We still had to get out, but we could not get a holt for the daily rate the owners would pay for us to get out. Plus we really want to go camping!  After searching, we found a spot available in Henry Cowell State Park!  Days of packing, and we were finally ready. I packed the car, vacated the house with Dexter in tow. Took Dexter to the vet for boarding, took all our food to the Jantzens for safe keeping, ran some errands, picked up Wyatt from school at 12:30 (conference week) to terrible pizza lunch with W and Y, then back to school to pick up Zachary at 1:30 (conference week has odd hours), then finally off to pick up Art and head towards the Santa Cruz area. 

All my pictures are out if order for some reason and I don't have the energy (or time!) to fix it. 

Our last morning hike, after checking out. We are all in DESPERATE need of showers. 

Art took ZW on a hike to the redwoods while I took a nap with Yannick. 

In the sand!

First fire. I loved this fire pit because it was elevated which meant that most of the smoke did not get in your eyes when you were sitting down and the kids could not fall into the pit!

ZW hike with DaU

Our car carrier packed and loaded

Car is a "bit" full

Wyatt had a "field trip" today to the park that neighbors the school to collect parts of the trees they had been studying. Yannick and I were able to head over there with him. 

Terrible pizza for lunch at a little hole-in-the wall restaurant near our house. 

Our house - getting tented

Our new picnic tent set up for,the first time. It has a defect. I will need to contact the company because it is missing a pin that secures it to the bottom of the poles on one corner. 

Unbelievably, Art got a nap in!

Our new tent - up for the first time!

Little guy using the magnifying glass to check out ants

He likes to put it right on his eye

On a hike with their bug catchers and holders

Uh oh, someone caught a "pest"

In a brilliant move by mom, using Zachary's car seat booster at the table for Yannick

All enjoying lunch

Fire time!

Art lucky with all three boys with him!

Crazies

Our friends, the Jantzen family, came up on Saturday to spend some time with us. It was also Ezra's birthday, so we had a little party for him.   Here are most of the kids (minus E) ready for a hike. 

Back at the campsite with yummy treats for Ezra's birthday

Zoe and Yannick - yum

Tobin and Wyatt

Crashed after the party

The main purpose of this photo is to see the fan we placed over Yannick to keep him cool during nap. 

A chilly morning - Art in Justice League pants the boys gave him for Father's Day 

Zachary befriended an inchworm named Inchy. He was quite attached to it

Asleep on the way back to Cupertino

A few items of note:  the first night was SoSoSoSo cold. I was sleeping in long johns and fleece pjs, a hat, and mittens and was still cold. I ended up putting a cold Yannick in my sleeping bag. It was awful. I was miserable. The second night we put the rain flap over the tent and it was MUCH warmer. A bit humid in there but I was able to sleep. 

We were not allowed back in our house until Monday morning. However, we could not camp another night and still get Art and Zach to work/school in time. The Jantzens offered up their home to us which was great!  The kids are used to falling asleep there and they have a guest room. 

Garth using his new laser pointer while the rest of us use the sparklers we forgot about

Lighting sparklers

Room and board!  Delish breakfast of eggs and bacon and fruit,

Adults eating together. Us all clean now!  They might want to clean out their pipes, there was so much filth off of us in the shower!