What we've been up to....

The boys and I have been in CA for exactly three weeks now.  In retrospect, it has been a short three weeks of exploring, learning, and some getting lost.

We have discovered that this town has A LOT of parks!  24 according to the website.  They all have official names, of course, but we prefer the much more sophiticated color system.  Typically, our days start with deciding whether we are going to the Red Park, Blue Park, or the very cool Bike Ramp.  All of these parks are within a 10 minute walk from our townhouse. 

The boys also took swim lessons for two weeks.  Davian made some big strides in his swimming.  He actually jumped off the diving board a few times.  Then he decided that he didn't need to do that any more.  Tegan started putting his whole head underwater and opening his eyes.  He even jumped off the side of the pool into the water on his own!  I was extremely impressed with the high school students who were the teachers of the lessons.  They were so patient and enthusiastic with the kids. 

This week, the boys have been at VBS each night.  The church had over 560 kids each night from 5:30-8:30.  The boys had a blast!  This VBS might have been one of the best I have seen.  They fed the kids each night.  The boys were hooked on the first night, when we walked in and saw three massive inflatable bounce slides and houses.  They had a splash night, too! On the final night, they had homemade cupcakes to go with their dinners.  That's right, one lady made over 700 cupcakes!  The VBS took up an offering that would allow the church to take the VBS to the homeless community here in our new town.  They raised over $3000 from the offerings given by the kids.  Best of all, over 100 kids gave their lives to Christ during the week!  I know it brings the Lord great joy to see these little ones praising Him!

I have also been posing as a "homeschooling mama".  We try to do learning things for about an hour a day.  We don't get to it everyday.  Tegan is soaking it up.  Davian takes a little more creativity and patience on my part.  He is so kinesethetic and musical that learning books are very boring to him.  So yesterday I turned on David Crowder on Pandora and gave him earbuds while he was working.  Seemed to go over well for him.  He is sorting word families and reading the words to me.  He requires hands on activites and a sweet reading specialist handed this to me right before I left. 

The count down to soccer camp is on!  They start on Monday for 4 days.  Tegan has not been to soccer camp, yet.  He is very excited about going! 

We are adjusting well, but we miss our friends in NC dearly!  We treasure the phone calls and cards we have gotten!