October

Holy cow it's October. How did that happen?
Leave it to October to bring the highest temps of the year. Yep, the last 3 days have been well over 90* here in Oakland. While everyone else is enjoying pot pies, apple cider and pumpkin spiced lattes; we're just pulling out the shorts. HA! It's not unusual at all, but it's still funny to me. Instead of Fall, the bay area just gets Indian Summer. I'll take it.
The one thing that is slightly annoying about the heat is that this house has no A/C (which is totally fine...it's only hot 2 days a year!) but it also doesn't have good cross breeze...there's no ventilation. So when it heats up, it just stays in the house. No matter how many fans or windows or doors you open. So that isn't fun....but 2 out of 365? Totally do-able!
Since I haven't blogged in a while here's a little run-down of what's been going on:
*We're well into our 2nd month of homeschooling. The first couple weeks were rocky, as always, but we've seemed to have found our groove again and things are going along smoothly. Mostly. I can't believe we've been doing this 3 years already. And I have a 4th and 1st grader. whaaaa??
* We've gone a few field trips. One thing that is great about where we live....there is ALWAYS something going on. And the homeschooling community is pretty big so many museums and parks and rec departments have programs, classes and activities specifically for homeschoolers. It is wonderful! Last week we partook in a homeschool day at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. This is a pretty cool museum and aquarium that would normally cost our family over 100$ to attend. But because we signed up for homeschool day it only cost us $20.00 + parking for me and the 2 kids. (Parking is a little ridiculous in SF, but it's worth it for the cheap ticket price). Yesterday we went to an old time farm in a neighboring city. The farm is run by the city's parks and rec department and set up a great all day event specifically for homeschoolers. We were there from 9-3 yesterday and it only cost $10 a kid! Totally worth it. They had so much fun and learned a lot.
I just saw in the paper today that this Saturday there is a FREE event at a park near by with kids science stuff. I like free. Don't know if we can make it to this one, but still...FREE. Learning opportunities are everywhere it seems.
*Speaking of more learning opportunities, we also recently joined 4H. I was a 4H kid growing up and I knew this was something I wanted my kids to get involved in. 4H is more than just animals and gardening. It's not the FFA. There are plenty of animal projects, but 4H is about developing good citizens, leadership and life skills. They learn public speaking and are required to keep records of all the projects they do each year. The clubs  are completely kid run. There are adult volunteers, but really the kids run the show. And they do an amazing job.You can start 4H when you're 5 now. When I was a kid you had to be 9. Jake has 3 projects this year. He chose: Poultry, Rocket building, and Outdoor Adventures. Since Megs is so young I thought 1 project would probably be good for her. She chose Rabbits. (other projects our club offers: cooking, gardening, photography, art, pigs, dairy goats, bee keeping.....)
We're only a few weeks in, and I can already see that yes, this is going to take up a fair amount of time. But honestly? It's seems better to me than sitting at soccer or baseball practices 5 nights a week and tournaments all weekend. AND the best thing ever....When we got home from our club meeting last night Jake said: "I am SO excited to start my projects! I CAN NOT WAIT to enter something in the fair! Thank you SO MUCH for signing us up, mommy!!" Sounds like a win to me!
*Pete bought a boat. I do not like the boat. (there is a back story to this,but that is for another time) I was not at all excited about the purchase of said boat. BUT I have had fun during my time spent on the boat. Even when Pete tried to trick me into thinking we'd run out of gas 5 miles from where we'd put in...without another boat in sight. So yeah, I don't like the boat. But I don't have to like it, to have fun on it, right?
*I recently retired my desktop computer. I have 3 internet browsers installed on the thing and not one of them works properly...or at all. It's not a virus or anything...it's just the thing is old. So before the blue screen of death appeared, I just copied all my important files and shut it down. I'm now exclusively working on my laptop...which is ok.  I'm currently waiting for the Mac fairy to show up with a dreamy new set up. I may be waiting for a while. :-/
* I have a photo shoot with my cousin next weekend. He recently got engaged and I offered to do engagement pics for them. I am not at all prepared though! It's on location in the city....where I've never been before. I'm hoping to get over there this week and get some test shots. I don't like going into things unprepared....especially photo shoots.
* Halloween camping is coming up! This will be our 4th annual trip! We are getting pretty excited about it already. Have your kids picked their costumes yet? Jake wants to be a green army man....like in Toy Story. And Megan wants to be a bunny.  Guess I better get to work....there's only 23 days left until we go to camp!

Alright, that's it for now. I'm hot and tired and I'm pretty sure there is a nap in my future.....