Question Frank Asks

In the middle of prayers tonight, he asked Ria what a soul is.

Recently he asked how Jesus went up to heaven when he didn't have wings.

What's less than zero?

How can we breathe underwater?

I'm sure there are others, but I forget quickly. Just wanted to jot some of them down.

Blue and White

Blue Vase and Statue, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Now that I'm thinking about blue and white, I took some photos here of my odd collection. Anyone else out there collect blue and white?

Building with "Adobe"

"Adobe" Bricks, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

We saw two very strange things on our California trip...

...that we didn't have the foresight (or blog-sight, LOL) to capture on camera (but I've included some very representative video discovered on youtube - NOTE: These are NOT our videos.)...

1. Two motorcycles driving wheelies through L.A. rush hour traffic - for several minutes at a time - and across several lanes at a time. Scary!



2. A two-story Target store in Ventura that was equipped with a shopping-cart escalator.

Another view of the seal beach

Sunbathers, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Along Highway 1 somewhere between Carmel and San Luis Obispo.

Playing in the Sand

Playing in the Sand, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

There's so much to blog about that I'm getting bogged down trying to go in order, so I'll just throw things out when I think of them.

Much of our time in California (thankfully) was unscheduled and we enjoyed working with the beauty of the landscape and the interests of the family in making decisions along the way.

After visiting the beautiful Carmel Mission towards the end of our visit, we decided at the last moment to drive down Highway 1 to San Luis Obispo - knowing it would be slow, mountainous and windy, but beautiful. It was absolutely breathtaking. We didn't make a lot of stops (partly because there wasn't *that* much time and partly because most of the beaches along the way were inaccessible), but a few hours into the drive, I pointed out a beach with a busy parking lot that looked promising and so we pulled over. This beach wasn't exactly accessible, but it was well-worth the stop as it was set-up for seal, sea lion, and elephant seal viewing and the beaches were filled with these funny sunbathers. I have to admit that they at first looked dead, but a few rambunctious creatures entertained us to no end (you should have seen and heard the squeals of laughter from Kate!) with scooping sand on their backs, scooching their way around the beach and doing a little wrestling with each other.

What a fantastic find! (I wish I knew where it was - I haven't been able to identify the location anywhere online.)

Learning on the Road

One important thing to remember about learning with your children on the road is that you don't have to study up on everything ahead of time. The experience itself can certainly spark interest in further study as well. Which is why we went ahead and ordered another California Missions book and a book called Roadside Geology of Northern and Central California even after our travels. With the help of memory and photographs, we will continue to explore and study some of our favorite things for a long time to come.

While we were on the road, they really enjoyed being quizzed on what they could remember from each of the Missions we visited - particularly some distinguishing characteristics from each. I particularly remember waiting for our dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Jose while we went through several rounds of this "game" which I'm sure will make it easier to remember some of the details today.

I Can Hardly Believe It....

My dear friend Katrina bought me new dishes for my birthday! I happened to mention once that I'd like to replace my beige stencil-patterned (and somewhat scratched and tattered) Corelle dishes with a blue and white pattern some day. She surprised me with a gift card when I saw her in California and I just got to order these today...

Which will go beautifully with my eclectic collection of blue and white serving dishes and odds'n'end kitchen things that come from here and there - mostly rummage sales plus a bowl that John brought back from Taiwan and a little tea mug set he got in Germany. Thank you my friend!!!

Once nice thing about this pattern is that if we need extra dishes some day and we can't find the pattern any more (and this is already a "retired" pattern), they'll go quite nicely with plain white Corelle dishes as well.

The Beautiful Little Church at San Juan Capistrano

You've Probably Already Guessed...

That the little girl in the previous picture is Kristen's sweet little Gianna. We spent a lovely afternoon at Mission San Juan Capistrano with the Laurences. Although this is the first time I've met Kristen "in real life" (IRL, as they say, though it took me awhile to discover what IRL means - I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes!!!), it felt like visiting with an old friend. She's a fellow TAC alum, I was friends with her brother when we were at TAC and we have many other friends in common. Kristen and I chatted about homeschooling and family life (I love talking about such things!) and she served us all a delicious dinner afterwards.

The children enjoyed exploring the ruined church. I like this shot in which Madeleine appears to beg levitating... :)

The main church was destroyed in an earthquake on December 8, 1812. My first thought after considering the sadness and horror of the church collapse in itself (another earthquake later that month destroyed the churches at Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purissima), was how strange it was that it collapsed on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But I just realized that this predates the formal declaration of this title.

It was an amazingly beautiful time of year to visit the mission. The gardens were in full bloom and the weather was very mild (at least to Wisconsinites!)

I love this shot of Ria and Madeleine, who formed an immediate friendship...

My two oldest are planning a post on San Juan Capistrano over on Architecture for Kids. In the meantime, you can view more pictures from San Juan Capistrano here.