Trick or Treat!

This was so much fun! The kids got all dressed up after dinner, and we headed out ...

I did the rounds along our street watching with Chris as they went up to the houses with decorations out and lights on, and called "trick or treat!", and then I went back home to dish out some candy to... it was fun seeing all the different dressups ... once the kids came home with Chris they had fun sampling the candy and sorting out which ones they liked, they enjoyed handing out candy too - Josh was giving complements on costumes with his candy ...

when it started to dwindle down and we'd all had enough we pulled the pumpkins in, turned the lights out, and went to bed ... looks like we'll be set for candy for a while!!

halloween craft

so close to Halloween it turns out is a great time to shop for halloween themed craft ... here's a selection of some of the things we did...

Madera Fossil Discovery Center

We discovered this discovery center quite by a chance mention on the news ... it has only recently opened ... Josh was fascinated and we even got a tour by this very patient man who answered all Josh's questions - and there were a lot :-) ...

We are going to plan a trip back again in after winter, they hope to have a large sandpit with fossils to dig for open by then...

Once we had finished exploring around the exhibits here we went on and found a playground for a picnic lunch, and drove a bit further and came home with lots of crafty stuff for Halloween ...

wetlands trip

the group getting a briefing from the Ranger before heading out into the wetlands...

This is in a drained pond ... looking for tracks ... we found some! Another highlight was seeing some coyote scat (poo!). It was pretty fun walking about in the drained pond in amongst the tall reeds, exploring through the tall grass was a highlight for Ben...
After the walk around the wetlands, lo0king for animal signs, insects and pond life, the kids got to dissect an owl pellet - the chart is so you are able to match up the bones and figure out just what the owl had eaten...
We also went for a drive around a Tulie Elk reserve ... here is the Ranger that showed us around and gave a talk ... the Elk were too far off in the distance to photo well, and so he had some antlers to look at up close...

I don't have a photo of them, but, the mosquitoes were huge and swarmed us ... luckily Leah had given us a heads up to bring along repellant ... we must have used a third of a bottle over the day as they followed us... I hadn't realised that they'd bite us through our clothes at first ... once I realised that - well, when Leah informed me that the back of my shirt was covered in them - I sprayed us from head to toe including our clothes and although they still swarmed around we didn't get too many more bites.

The worst thing was for Chris, when he needed to go into work that evening in the car, he got in and was attacked by the squadron that had hitched a ride home with us!!

rain

wow, this is the first rain we've been here for... its been *three* months!

home school classes

We've been going along to some of the classes the local Home School Group does ... lots of different things to do ... here a couple of the things we did this week ...

getting ready for halloween

We are fully embracing Halloween - the neighbourhood has decorations all around peoples front yards - from huge blow-up spiders to ghostly things hanging in trees ... Halloween is not far away!

The kids and Chris went to a Pumpkin Patch and choose a pumpkin each to carve - its a bit early as they won't last in this heat until Halloween itself, but, don't they look great?!

bling!

More Science Academy Trip

Science Academy Trip

bridge - without fog!

and just to prove that i've been over the darn thing, after several goes at driving home by leaving town via the Golden Gate Bridge, this trip we actually managed to pick a time when the traffic leading up to the bridge wasn't slow at all ... i won't mention the traffic past the bridge lol ...

what people don't say, is that there are several other impressive bridges around here, one which was a long curved double decker, with train track as well ... except i don't think i got a photo of that one :-)

and here are the kids, all comfy in one of the rentals we had, while waiting for the lease car to arrive ...

the day we took the train into town

Photo Opportunity! - we jumped up on this cable car (the driver was eating his lunch :-)) ... because although we did stand in a line for 3/4's of an hour to ride one from Powell Street to Fishermans Wharf ... it was really hard to take a photo 'cos they are full full full!
We had a yum lunch here at the Rain Forest Cafe - a full-on experience, and although they thought they were doing us a favour by putting us by the indoor waterfall, it turns out its a really loud and overwhelming place to sit (for some of us!) ... so we moved to this table beside its own fishtank which was a lot quieter ...
Testing out the pulleys along the waterfront, on the way to Hyde Street, to catch the cable car back to town ... only half an hour to wait this time - a nice view to look at while we were waiting...
Then we caught the metro train back to the hotel, a big fun day!

a weekend in San Francisco

We had three nights in San Francisco, stayed in a nice hotel with an indoor pool ... it was out of the centre, but, that turned out just fine as we drove in one day, took the train for fun another day, chilled out at the hotel in the middle there - Ben spent four hours in the pool! ... and then on our last day met up with the local home school group for a trip around the Science Museum which was amazing ...

Here are some photos from our first day - where we drove into town, crawled through the traffic and watched as streams and streams of people wearing orange - to Josh's delight! - going into a sports game ... made it to Pier 39, found a park, and just in time to have some yummy fish and chips (our first in three months!), and then catch a ride on a boat to go look at the Golden Gate bridge, (although the bridge was partially covered in fog it looked really mysterious like that, i mean most photos are of the whole thing :-)), and then floated past Alcatraz on the way back to port ...

drying off

Here is Josh drying off after a swim by leaning over the air conditioning unit that is going full blast!

swimming!

So, we've been told summer is lasting a bit longer than usual ... which is just perfect as we grabbed a swimming pool bargain, (pools and bbq's are all on sale at the end of summer ;-)), and decided we'd try and get some swimming in before it got cold ... the highs during the day are still getting around mid 30's dC, and down to around 15dC at night ... so warm enough for us for swimming and keeping the pools temperature nice - so far! OK, so it is a little on the cool side for Josh, so he is the life guard mostly - watching out for hungry mosquitoes who love the pool as much as we do!