the tallest box hut

complete with soft toy inhabitants on every floor ...

oh no the dish washer broke...

never mind ... two ready helper outers ....

words words words

around the house...

Ben's been working on putting this radio together - it was a kit from Christmas, it took a couple of hours over the last couple of days ... it works really well - pity we don't speak spanish as thats the only channel we could find, but, the music was great!

here is one of Ben's block yards, he's put it together in the Lego Universe Game, it takes a fair bit of time and strategy and working with other players to complete missions, and collecting bricks adds to the free build component ...
it feels like our living room is a block yard some days ;-) ... here is one of the box huts that Ben has built for Bethany and Josh to play in ... the long white box in the foreground is the tunnel in...
unfortunately i pulled a muscle in my back ... luckily Ben is kind and offered to cook dinner for us all ... YUM ...
he makes a yummy chocolate cake too!

butterfly cakes

I remember having these at birthday parties ... these were fun to make ... and finding the whipped cream in a can to try was the inspiration ... although, i don't remember there being quite as much whipped cream!

to the coast and the sun ...

while we did have what felt like endless days of blue skies when we first arrived (in summer!), winter it seems to be endless days of Fog ... so we decided to head out to the coast (Monterey Bay), for the weekend ... the glass elevators where we stayed were fun!

Bethany's absolute delight in winning a toy from the crane machine in the lobby ...
this was a great place to visit - especially if you want to spot expensive camera lenses :-) ... the butterflies were pretty too ... and luckily there was a blossoming tree in the sun that was enticing a flutter of butterflies down so we could see them (the rest were hiding up high in the eucalyptus trees) ...
next we spent a few hours at the Denise the Menace Park - a huge playground that we could have stayed all day at if we didn't want to squeeze in more swimming (and eating) ...
after the busy day what nicer than a dvd before bed?

more everyday happenings...

Ben at Photography Class...

Picture by Bethany... our family - check out my curly hair :-)
Picture by Josh, this is the cabin we stayed in at Christmas time...
Big brothers are the best at working out the tricky bits of the game ...

everyday happenings

i thought i'd throw in a few photos of some every day things we've done in the last couple of days...

it did get frosty this morning...

lego and tamales

it was lego class today ... and tomorrow it is Three Kings Day - here are the cooks in the kitchen putting together tamales for the feast tomorrow, while the lego class goes on in the living room ... tamales are often had at celebrations, the filling is meat slow cooked with spices, and then it is wrapped in the corn based dough and then folded in corn wrappers and then steamed ... a fun social activity - making them is as fun as eating them i think! (in fairness, i wasn't any help today as keeping up with Bethany and Josh was keeping me busy)...