Dirk turns 4!

This little guy makes me smile and his laugh makes you want to giggle.

Grady and Dirk are buddies from church and are two peas in a pod.

We all had lots of fun celebrating Dirsk's birthday, thanks for inviting us Courtney and Darrel.

Oh and Court, the cupcakes were delicious!!!

Happy 4th Birthday Dirk!!!

Birthday Fun

For the big kids birthdays (the girls in Nov & Zach's was Jan 29) we got them passes to Knotts and we spent the day there yesterday. The Oates family bus was full, as 12 of us went! Since we take Rachel & Nathan with us everywhere we go, we got them passes too and Sarah also came. Another family in our home-school group has passes also, so Zach got to bring 2 buddies along, which turned out great because everyone had a buddy!

The little boys thought Camp Snoopy was wonderful! We were laughing because the last time James & I were in Camp Snoopy was with Rachel & Sarah when they were 7 & 9 years old.

We have pictures from 10 years ago riding in these same cars, Zach wasn't a year old yet and Rach & Sarah are so litttle. Crazy how fast time flies! Love those girls!

Us girlies with Gracie's dog that she won. Just what we needed was another stuffed animal!

Rach & Nathan, our big kids

It was cold and cloudy when we got there and as we were in line for our passes it started raining, it just sprinkled on and off for awhile, but once the rain started coming down we got soaked. Good thing they sell ponchos :) $30 later, we were all dry again and found the open rides and had a blast. We decided if it was still raining in 2 hours then we'd head home, but the kids prayed for the rain to stop and it did! The sun came out and the rest of the afternoon was spent going on rides that made me sick just looking at them :) All of the kids were really brave and went on the rides that went upside down, spun in circles and went 80 miles per hour!

Hope was the only one that wanted to go on this ride, so she went by herself. It spun both horizontally and vertically, it looked like it was going to hit the ground! It spun so fast that Hoper couldn't even hold up her body, but she thought it was great! She's in red on the left...

Such a fun day with friends!!! These are some brave kiddos!

This is our traditional self portrait. I love it!

It wasn't crowded at all which made for a great day! We never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride and most of them we walked right on and the kids proceeded to stay on the ride multiple times. I think Zach, Grace, Trevor & Hope went on Boomerang 5 times in a row! Crazy kids! We had to have funnel cake and boysenberry punch-we bought unlimited refills and I think we filled up our 32oz. cup 7 times, talk about a sugar high!

Food, Fun & Friends what better way to celebrate a birthday??? We are looking forward to spending many more fun days there in the year to come.

Have passes? Join us!

Field Trip #1 of 2011

One of the greatest things about homeschooling is the freedom it gives us to learn what we want and explore it as much as we want. We are starting a unit study on California History and the first part of that we will be focusing on Native Americans, experiencing things first hand is a great way to learn, so we took a field trip to a local Indian museum at Lake Perris.
You should go and visit it... http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24699I wasn't sure about the local museums, but after some research I found this one. I had never heard of the museum, but it turned out to be great!!! We invited another homeschooling family along and learned allot, but had a great time in the process. Zach had Micah over for a sleep over the night before (another bonus if homeschooling-sleep overs on school nights), so Jo and her other 2 came to our house. Being that we have a bus, we all drove together, which is always fun ;) 6 Oates & 4 Holmes, we stopped by our local drive-thru Starbucks on the way and everyone was happy!
The staff at the museum was fabulous and gave us a full on field trip. We were the only people there, so we got their undivided attention.


hunting for rabbitsWe learned all about the local tribes then and now, got to do some hands on stuff and brought home some pretty cool papers to do some additional learning. After the museum, we headed to the picnic area and had lunch, played on the play ground and then played on the shore of the lake. Jo & I talked (what else?) while the kids searched for shells, Sarah & Grace walked along the water and chatted away, Micah & Zach were digging for treasure, Hope & Seth ran back and forth between the others and the little 2 were having a blast getting wet (Grady thought he was at the ocean and got soaked in the water.)All in all it was a great day! Everyone came home tired and ready for a rest :)
Thanks Holmes family for joining us on our little "Indian" adventure!