The Graduate

Olivia had graduation on June 7th, yes, she graduated from preschool. Both the hubby and I thought it was a little much to have a 'graduation' from preschool, but we decided to play along. Especially since Olivia came home and talked about it every other day. Can you believe they had us buy a cap and gown...for 25 bucks?! Well, at least maybe Claire will get use of it, or they could be a graduate for Halloween.

It's hard to believe Olivia will be starting Kindergarten in the fall.

All the kids gathered to sing (mouth) a couple of songs. Afterwards, each one was called forward and presented a certificate. Each child came to the microphone and introduced themselves and said 'when I grow up, I want to be a ____ (insert 'police' for boy and 'ballerina' for girl)'. That part was pretty cute. And Olivia said she wanted to be a ballerina.

2 hours = 30 degrees

Sunday, we headed to the coast where it is much cooler especially with the morning fog. We first stopped at Pismo Beach, it was a bit foggy and chilly. We had lunch at Brad's. The clam chowder was yummy! The girls wanted to play in the sand so we headed to Avila Beach where I've heard it can be warmer. And it was. It is an awesome little beach, great for kids. It looks pretty new because there is alot of construction going on. This is because of the Unical oil spill years ago and so now they are rebuilding the whole town. A local told me it used to be an older beach and was very cute. She didn't seem to think the 'new' beach is as charming as it used to be.

A hermit crab just as he was about to get swept into the water!

The 'rock' at Morro Bay.

On the way home Monday, the girls and I stopped at a little farm/market with fresh produce, pick your own berries, and various animals...goats, sheep, roosters... This is my favorite picture.

Here are the girls picking raspberries, they had so much fun!

I have a confession

I am the mother of a biter...yes, it's true.

We've been having problems with Claire biting out of anger and frustration, usually directed towards Olivia.

Well, yesterday, it happened, I was horrified. We were at the park for my moms group's Spring Fling enjoying fun and good food. Then I looked over to check on the girls and I see a mom following Claire looking for her mom (that would be me). This mom saw an older boy being rough with Claire and saw Claire bite him on the arm. I was horrified as she has never bitten anyone outside of our house.



I scolded her telling her that she cannot bite and she started bawling. I carried her over to the boy and his mom and I apologized. I explained that I heard they were being rough and she bit him and that it was something we were working on. She was completely understanding of the whole incident and even confided in me that her son, in fact, used to be a biter.


I further tried to remind Claire that she needed to use her words and tell someone 'no, I don't like that' and come find me.

Tomatoes anyone?

So here are some updated pictures of my tomato plants. My Big Beef plant was getting so heavy, I found it on the ground today, I had to reinforce it with a couple of rebar. You will see I have one tomato already turning red...sort of. Wow, they grow fast here, it is amazing!

What season are you in?

When I grew up along the Gulf Coast, we had hurricane season in summer; when we lived in the Bay area, we had the rainy season during winter; when I lived in Dallas, we had thunderstorm/hail season; near southern California....we have fire season.


Here are pictures from a fire smoldering near Gorman, California as we were driving back from L.A. on I-5.

Fun in L.A.

Disney parks (of course). We wanted to go to the beach, too, but it was too chilly on the coast so we ended up at the zoo.

The girls LOVED playing in the water at the California Adventure park, they got soaking wet. I planned ahead, though and brought extra clothes.

Although Olivia wanted to play in the water, she did NOT like to be in wet clothes.
Fun in the hotel room:

At the zoo:

A Star is Born

While at Disneyland, we went to the Aladdin storytelling in Adventureland. The girls enjoyed sitting on the 'magic carpet' and watching Aladdin and Jasmine acting out their story. Olivia was chosen to play the part of the evil 'Jafar'!

Little Foxes

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Los Angeles zoo. They had a special event about foxes so the girls had their faces painted. The zoo was really nice, we joined so we will be back. We didn't get to see it all, hopefully we will see more next time.