Ohhhh October

New fun tradition... We ride the old carousel on Cabrillo whenever it's someone's birthday. It's only $2 a kiddo and the ride lasts 5 minutes- the kids love this and look forward to it.

 My little Oliver has no fear. He loves to find rocks and cliffs to climb at the park. And actually giggles when he starts to fall at the rush of Adrenaline- My little Adrnaline junkie keeps me nervous.

 Home School- Abstract Art time. We are loving home schooling. It's such a gift to be able to sit and teach the kids new things. It's not all perfect- I have very little moments of down time and find that it's a lot harder to keep up with the house work and my super part time job with Cultural Care Au Pair. But all and all it's been a huge blessing for our family

 On the same day that Aricin scored his goal his ball popped

 AVP came to SB and my brother came to town- we all went and watched Kerri Walsh dominate after having just had her 3rd kiddo. 

 Oli loves to poke the sea anenamaes on our walks at Hendry's

 The Carpinteria Avocado Festival

 Making Chocolate dipped pumpkin pretzels. So fun and yet so messy!

 We caught a Westmont Volleyball game- It was so nice to be back in that gym, it even smelled the same :) It made me feel both young and old at the same time

 Shark Attack!

 Fun times at my cousin Jamie's wedding...

 Fun times at a Halloween Carnival...

 Seriously... this was a little high for me, especially considering technically she didn't quite weigh enough to be doing it 

 Oli wasn't too sure about the Bubbles on water- but he didn't cry- just looked a little confused the whole time

 Race track at the Carnival- Aricin ran almost everyone off the road

At the park I looked up and found Aricin at the top of the slide... with his bike. I stopped him from an Evil Kaneval Ideas he may of had. Are all boys like this??? 

 Talia's Fairy Princess Tea Party

 Love Light and Melody benefit concert in SB with Brian Kettler and Brad Corigan from Dispatch- such a good show and soo good to see these guys- we miss them!

 My baby girl is 4 years old!!!

 She is so full of life. Loves to nurture her dolls. Loves to pray with authority prayers of protection and prayers of thanksgiving for our family and her brothers. She has such a sweet spirit about her- I'm so thankful God has allowed me to help raise this princess

 Aricin searching for treasures around the harbor at Sunset. We have so much shell shrapnel in our car and garage it's ridiculous.

 Cruisin. They still love the cars Grandpa Rick

 Fun times hanging out with good friends from SLO at Jennie Davis's wedding

Sword fighting with grandpa in Avila Beach at the Martinet's  

 We love doing worship time together- Aaron plays his guitar and the boys grab their guitars to strum along with daddy. I Love these moments!

 More from the Fairy Princess Tea Party

 This is our good friend Michael... He's a giraffe.

 The kids like to feed Michael at the Zoo. They've got the craziest- long blue tongues

 Aricin's soccer team... The Purple Dragons

 In Action- So fun to watch him

As you can see October has been busy. We went to 2 beautiful weddings, Aricin has been loving soccer and hanging out with his teammates. Talia turned 4 and we celebrated with a Fairy Princess Tea Party with some of her new girlfriends from school. Our good friends, Jeff and Katie Brown flew out from Denver and got to hang out with us. We did the carousel, fed the giraffes at the Zoo, took a quick trip to Avila Beach where the kids hung out with grandma and Grandpa at the Martinet's. The kids dressed up as Sharks for Halloween and went trick or treating for the first time. We also got to go to an Amazing church carnival where the kids jumped on bungee trampolines and got to walk on water in big bubbles along with lots of other fun rides and bounce houses. 

We are continuing to lay roots here. We like our church (Santa Barbara Community Church), enjoy our  wednesday night small group, I'm getting to know new mommy friends in mops on fridays. Aricin enjoys his school with me and getting to hang out with friends at Santa Barbara Charter school on Tuesdays and in his Medieval Heraldry class on thursdays. Both kids enjoy going to Classical Conversations on Wednesdays where they are learning Latin, multiplication tables, history, and other fun things. We continue to make new friends and connect with new and old friends and yet still desire and can't wait to grow deeper with our friends here- Aaron keeps reminding me depth takes time. We still miss our old small group friends in Denver, but we've already seen 3 out of 5 of the couples as they've come out to visit. I'm struggling with balance. Trying to figure out how to be a homeschooling mom, while keeping the house clean, exercising (what's that?), and feeling at peace and not stressed. I often struggling with extending Grace to myself as I try to "do everything." as I often have a tough time asking for help. We're still unsure of the longterm vision of our housing situation. We are thankful for the rental that we're in now, and thankful that we qualify to buy under the median housing program in Santa Barbara but aren't sure how or when we will try to take advantage of it because we'd have to sell our house in Visalia first and we're not sure if we'd be able to break even on it. We are trying to just maintain grateful hearts and treasure these sweet moments with our kiddos and enjoy the sun, sand, and Santa Barbara. Please come visit :)

A Spectacular September...

My baby is in Kindergarten and Talia is in Pre-school

 They love to play at the park at East Beach- I love the view.

Watching the Elephants. Did i mention Oliver dropped his sippy cup into the exhibition. Good thing we know someone at the zoo that was able to get it back for us 

 We are loving walks along the Harbor- I love the Sea Horse Statue

Smarties 

Fearless 

Lucky Penny- how cool is this building we found on our date night 

Oli surfing with daddy 

 Talia surfing with daddy

 Aricin surfing with daddy

 Moustache's at the Copus House

 making monsters

 Making Silly Monsters

Me and Grandma at Lotus Land 

 Grandma and Great Grandma

 East Beach finds

 Dinosaurs for Oli's 2nd bday

A new tradition is that we ride the SB Carousel when it's someones birthday. The kids love it! and it only costs $2- not bad for a 5 minute ride 

 Lions

 Aricin got his first goal last weekend at Soccer and managed to somehow pop his ball

These cacti look like something out of Fraggel Rock or Dr. Seuss. This was at Lotus Land 

Lotus Land 

 Lotus Land

Lotus Land 

 Lotus Land

Lotus Land- she burried these statues outside her Paris Chateu during WWII and they survived 

 Oli's 2!!!

September really was Spectacular. I feel like we are in the full swing of a normal school rhythm with the kids... more on that later. Aaron flew to Kansas City for a Zoo Conference and I had so much fun hanging out with my mom and Grandma Ruth. The kids also enjoyed lots of stories and sweet moments with their grandmas- not to mention they were spoiled like crazy :) Aricin is LOVING SOCCER and scored his first goal in his last game- it's fun to watch him make new SB friends. I have started MOPS and am excited to start to meet new friends. Aaron and I have also decided on Santa Barbara Community Church and have joined a Wednesday night Home Group. There are 8 couples in the group and we meet in a room at the church- one thing that's kind of cool is that we already know 3 of the couples in the group from different connections. I'm finding Santa Barbara feels pretty small. I'm constantly blown away at how many people we meet that are connected to or are familiar friends from Westmont or San Luis Obispo or from when we lived in Orange County. We have a handful of friends we see regularly that we already knew moving here that it's been fun to reconnect with and do dinner with often. 

Home Schooling has been way better then I anticipated. Let me give you a quick rundown of what it looks like for us... I signed Aricin up for a program called Home Based Partnership through Santa Barbara Charter School for home schoolers. Through this program I drop Aricin off on Tuesdays from 10-2:30 and he plays and does art and hangs out with lots of other home schoolers and even does circle time and a brief lesson with his teacher Miss. Marcie. Thusdays he goes back to Home Based Partnership because he's taking a class titled "Medieval Heraldry" from 11:30 to 1:00 in this class he learns some Medieval history as well as creates different crests on shields. He loves it! We also signed up for Classical Conversations which both Aricin and Talia go to on Wednesdays form 9-12. In this program both kids are in the same class and have 5 other class mates and a teacher. The majority of their time is working on memorization stuff: history, geography, latin, etc. They also do a science experiment and have art time. I'm in the class the whole time assisting his teacher and Oliver is in the nursery. 

So what does a normal day look like for us? Most days we get out in the morning- we go to the beach, zoo, or parks. We come home, do lunch together, put Oliver down for his nap and that's when the magic happens :) 

I try to start out each day with Handwriting. I've laminated their names- so they pick their dry erase markers and start tracing and praciticing writing their names, Upper Case letters, lower case letters, and numbers. We also talk about the Calendar- what day it is, what the date is, and how many days we've been in school. I follow this up with a quick devotional (We like to use the book Long Story Short- it' has 10  minute Devo's that are easy for kids to grasp). Next we do our Phonics time. Aricin is doing really well learning how to read with hooked on phonics- i picked up a brand new unused box for $1 at a garage sale before we left Colorado. Talia usually watches the Letter Factory to learn her letters and sounds while i'm reading with Aricin. Next we do Math. We started doing Saxon Kindergarten math but have moved up to 1st grade because the K-Kit was boring and he had mastered it. After Math we try to practice our times table songs (these are from the Classical Conversations Curriculum). We also practice our TimeLine History song (from Classical Conversations). Next we do some Geography (We mostly use the Classical Conversations Curriculum but I like to supplement landmark flashcards with pictures of places like Big Ben, The Eiffel Tower, etc). Next we try to do Journal Writing- I'll give Aricin and writing prompt and he usually gets to draw a picture and sound out words to make a story. We've started doing piano practice (thank you Youtube for free piano lessons for kids) and i'm happy to report Aricin has learned his first song by himself. Depending on the day we cover either history, Latin, Spanish, Art, or a Science Lesson. My goal is for us to end with a memory verse and praying for the nations- but we haven't gotten there yet. 

Some days we hit everything, other days if the kids aren't feeling it- I back off and we do art or end early. So far they really enjoy learning and it's been such a blessing to be able to sit and watch Aricin learn how to read. This really is a gift. I'm enjoying homeschooling but like anything I'm holding it losely- I never dreamed i'd be a homeschooling parent but I really felt the Lord telling me to do it, so here I am and we will see how long we'll do it. For now it's great for our family and a good fit for A and T's learning styles. I don't know what kind of a learner Oli will be. 

Living in Santa Barbara still feels like vacation. I can't believe we really live here. We go to the beach often and are outside a lot. It's starting to feel more and more like home. I'm thankful for the Journey God has us on. It brings a smile to my face to think back to May when I started praying that God would provide friends for us and to now start to feel and see that  prayer answered in the relationships we're growing is just awesome. 

Another Amazing August...

August has been a whirlwind. I’ve started homeschooling A and T and it seems to be working out. We are pretty much all unpacked and moved in/ settled. Living here really feels like a vacation and it’s extra nice having a handful of good friends already here. We’ve been busy with homeschooling, trips to the zoo, bbq’s with friends and exploring the beaches. Aaron Loves his new job and I’m loving my new role as a homeschooling mama.