January

 New Year's Eve the kids all committed to staying up til midnight. We watched every Allstate "Mayhem" commercial we could find and then the little girls just couldn't hold out any longer. They only had about 20 mins til midnight!

 

 There's a new aquarium in Folsom that we all wanted to check out so we spent a few hours there after New Years.

 

 The little girls wanted to feed the parakeets. Those parakeets are noisy little birds!

Griffin and Liam spent a looong time trying to touch the rays- and the sharks.

 We finally told the kids we were leaving and pulled them out of the ray area.

 Whenever I tell the kids to practice the violin they go get the music stand and always set it up right where I'm sitting/cooking/working. Listening to young musicians learn to play their instrument from 3 feet away is always a treat for the ears.

 Quinny had a surgery to remove her upper frenulum and was eager to eat popsicles all day long. When I had that surgery it was with cutting and pain and stitches. For her surgery they used a little laser- no blood and no stitches. She was healed within a couple days (but still wanted to eat the rest of the popsicles that she'd been promised).

 Super gross but not too bad right?

 Emery keeps adding to my crocheted nativity scene. She's so talented!

 Quinn's shaking butter to go with the Johnny cakes Campbell made. We were learning about Pilgrims and early American settlers. After this project we got on a homemade butter kick and made our own butter for the next few weeks.

 On Griffin's birthday he went out to lunch and dinner with our family and his friend Zack. He chose The Habit (because of the Oreo milkshakes) and then BJs for dinner (because of the Pizookie).

  He got Pokemon cards, LEGOs, a hatchet and a sheath for his pocketknife.

 Every year he's been opting for "birthday week" instead of a birthday party so we threw a few fun things into birthday week like a trip to the USS Hornet.

 This was the coolest field trip we've ever been on. We'll go back as soon as we can. The USS Hornet was an aircraft carrier during WWII and is HUGE. You can tour the whole carrier and the tours are led by war veterans- really really old war veterans. So, you get to hear some of their stories as they take you around the ship.

 Anti aircraft guns. A large part of the tour had to do with these anti-aircraft guns which were all over the entire ship. We learned about how the ammo was stored, how they got the ammo up to the guns, how many people had to man each gun and how they calculated where to aim the guns. Seriously so cool.

 Campbell standing in front of a 4 inch thick steel wall with a little door for the ammo to pass through- each "bullet" was as big as that door.

 One of the anchor chains- each link weighs 136 lbs and the chain is 1,440 feet long.

 Walking across the deck landing area to check out the 3 aircraft elevators, the arresting cables, the "island" and the colorful outfits all the crew used to wear so everyone could see who was doing what job.

 I sure wish we'd allowed for even more time for the tour!

 Griffin and Quinn both did Select soccer this spring and had a great time. Their practices and a lot of their games were right up the street from our house which was a-mazing. Then the season abruptly ended mid-March with Covid.

 We went on a ladybug hike to the redwoods to find where tons of ladybugs overwinter. People are always posting cool pictures of huge bunches of ladybugs. Well, I guess you have to go when it's FREEZING outside to see the bunches. We didn't even see a single ladybug.

 But we found a cool stump and the kids are always up for a fun hike.

 Our next historic boat stop was President Roosevelt's yacht the USS Potomac. This tour was also led by a military veteran. The boat was outfitted for President Roosevelt's wheelchair to get around and has quite a colorful history. She started as a submarine chaser, then was commissioned as a presidential yacht for President Roosevelt, then given back to the Coast Guard, it eventually worked it's way to Elvis Presley who sold it for a fundraiser. Finally, it was used for drug smuggling and was taken to Treasure Island where she sat around and rusted and sank.
Quinn's favorite part of the tour was that the gift shop was selling tiny Scottish Terrier dogs like President Roosevelt's dog, Fala.

 Quinn sleeps on a crib mattress on the floor by her actual real-live bed

Campbell made a powerpoint for one of her Language Arts projects. She always does a great job on her assignments and bores Griffin and Quinn to death with her super-thorough and very informative reports. Haha... it's good for them.