Children's Museum

 We recently went to the children's museum with our friends, the Francis'.  Our kids have loved this museum since day one and for the past few years Mimi (Ken's mom) and Grandpa Gene have paid for a membership for our family.

 Sky has always enjoyed the dress up area where you can sing and dance on a small stage.

 There were lots of shows...

 with multiple outfits...

 It was very entertaining!

They had a new exhibit of science and I thought these stuffed animal germs were very clever.

They even went on a road trip...

Summertime Fun

 At the beginning of the summer, we made a list of places we'd like to go during this summer.  One of them was the Irvine Regional Park/Orange County Zoo.  Sky is getting very interested in horses and they have horse back riding there.  Even Brad and Lila got in on the fun!

 Sky was grinning from ear to ear!

 We met some church friends there and had a fun day hanging out with them.  Below some of the kids were measuring their "wingspan" compared to that of certain birds.

 They have a petting zoo there and they even had a goat named Dora.  Lila really enjoyed the goats!

 We fed the goats too.

Another item on our to-do list was to go out for shaved ice.  Shave It! is a really cool shaved ice place and the kids were so happy to go there.

 Soooo yummy!

 And then there's our sweet cat Peanut.  There have been some recent coyote sitings around here so we hope that she can stay safe!  She is such a great cat for the kids!

What else have we been up to lately?  My days tend to blur together but I'll do my best to try and remember some of the recent happenings.
My brother and his wife Michelle had their second baby, a boy named Nate, a couple of weeks ago.  He is such a cutie and I am so excited to go and visit them and meet him in October!
We started homeschooling again on Monday, with Brad in kindergarten, Sky in 3rd grade, and Lila doing some preschool activities.
Brad was recently evaluated for speech and, thankfully, they gave me some take-home activities to do with him (no future appointments) and said that his speech development is withing the range of normal.
Ken has had orientation this week and starts teaching again on Wednesday.  He will be teaching an overload this semester.
We hosted a BBQ for our home group last Friday.  We will start meeting again every Friday starting in Sept.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the Lord will work in our group this year!
One of my students from MVCA in Cincinnati will be a freshman at BIOLA this year so I'm hoping to connect with her sometime soon.
I will be speaking on a panel for MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) on the topic of organization this fall.  Not sure I'm qualified but maybe I'll learn some new stuff in the process.
I am still on my weight loss journey although I seem to have hit a plateau and am a bit frustrated.  I started wearing a pedometer so hopefully that will inspire me to move more and be more active.
We (meaning Ken) repainted the kids' rooms this summer.  I'll probably blog about that at some point and include some pictures of the new colors.  They turned out really well.
I guess that's all for this side of the country.  Hope everyone is staying cool (it's been brutally hot here) and enjoying their last bits of summer.

More Summer Blessings

 Sky has wanted to take harp lessons for about 2 years now and a girl from our church offered to do some introductory stuff with her this summer.  Sky LOVED it!

 We recently hosted a MOPS water/bubble day.  It was lots of fun!

 Ken had built that white PVC pipe sprinkler thing last year and he hooked it all up again and it still works!

 The water might LOOK clean but by the end of the day, I think there was more grass than water in the pool.

 This picture is hard to see but some baby birds were hatched in a nest on a beam on our patio.  They were very cute!