Exploring: Valley Ride Bus System

Several years ago in Seattle, my darling family decided to enjoy a day with Grandma Leslie (my husbands mom) and we took the bus system. It was a great day. We explored Pike Place Market, little shops and fun stuff - but that day, Daunika did not remember anything but the BUS! Ever since that trip, she has wanted to ride on the bus system again.

Boise hasn't had a great bus system long. It's fairly new and I'm not the most familiar with buses - in fact, I found it a bit unnerving thinking about taking my kiddos by myself on a bus trip when I don't have a lot of experience with routes and all that jazz. But surprisingly, it came back quickly and I remember loving riding the bus when I was younger myself.

Yesterday we decided to spur of the moment take the bus down town. Originally we had planned to take the bus to our Nature Walk Tuesday - our science exploration this year, but instead we decided to join Damon for a trip to city hall! He needed to go down to city planning again and we decided to tag along :)

We drove down not far at all and waited for our bus!

We sat at the very back of the bus and the kids were thrilled!!! 

Exploring City Hall was pretty fun too! 

Fabulous picture of toddler wearing :) 

Going inside! 

Why must my kid find the most dangerous thing in the plaza to gravitate to? 

Much better!

And a picnic lunch on the steps of city hall before we catch the bus home. Fun!! 

On the way home we learned - don't eat on the bus, whoops. And Moose slept like a baby the whole way home!

It was fantastic and I can't wait to do it again. I think using our bus system will be a regular thing. I want our kids to become familiar with it and utilize it as they gain independence. My husband and I both were allowed to ride the city buses at young ages (compared to driving age), and we are confident our children will be doing the same! 

I am already planning where to go next! 

Would you like a Cookie?

Cookies. 

Yes. Cookies. I think they are a staple for childhood don't you? I think there is so much fun to be had with little ones helping make something they really want and I love the memories that I get to create with them. Of course, we cook normal food - but cookies are funner! 

Here are my awesome happy helpers! 

Start out by creaming the butter and sugar together. We use NO electronics while making cookies - its all muscle power! 

Daunika has been working really hard at cracking eggs. 

 This time, she wasn't successful with the second egg. It was REALLY devastating to her and I just happen to have the camera in rapid picture mode to catch this moment on camera. Poor kid. 

 But, when you fall off a horse you get right back on. I specifically cleaned it up quickly without much fuss and handed her another as if nothing had happen. I think she was waiting for me to scold her for the mess... but I just didn't care. She was worried enough, why add grief? 

The third egg was perfect just like the first :) 

Moose stirred the eggs in! 

 Of course - Moose helps in special ways... He eats hand fulls of chocolate chips when I turn away. 

 And I cannot believe I caught him. No, I didn't let him eat it, but the silly kid tried several times! Goober. 

But all is well when you can pack these in your lunches, send them with Damon when he works and eat them warm with a cup of milk. Yum :)

Gratitude and Grumpiness.

I am grumpy today. 

I was ungrateful for my moments shared today. 

I was not practicing what I wanted to show others. 

*SIGH* ... I think this might mean I am human? Darn it. I knew I would have that come up again. This morning I just didn't want to get out of bed. In fact, I think I considered how I could make the world swallow me whole. I worried "Am I depressed?", and if I am how could I clearly see it? 

I think I have determined - I just need to let my principles into my practices better. Nothing is wrong that cannot be easily over come. My marriage is solid, I love my husband passionately and I feel loved completely. My children are happy and healthy - and they know they are unconditionally loved by their parents. My faith is strong and my path is bright. My business is blooming and booming all at once. I have much to be grateful for. 

We have a tradition in our home. We say our 'Thank Yous". Before each meal, instead of a prayer, we take a moment to each say what we are thankful for. Something meaningful and relevant. This is a tradition I love. Even our little man signs and says "Thank you" when asked "Declan are you thankful?". It's darling really. As I listened to my children think of their thank yous tonight over grilled cheese and smoothies - I realized that I hadn't been a great model to them today. I was a grump. I was rude to my husband, I was cranky with my kids, I was just not nice. 

I had reasons, sure. I was stressed because our car broke last night and today we had to spend an unexpected 200 dollars on it. Of course, it didn't break down until 11 pm last night and I made a mistake which doubled the time in helping my dear exhausted husband get home to rest. I was upset that after so much training, others were choosing to do poorly in their work and their integrity was seriously lacking. I was sad because I attended a family church event yesterday and watched others dance with their hubbies while I longed to just hug mine for a moment in day light. I was sad that I missed church today because I really wanted to go. 

Small things on a global scale, really. 

So what were my thank yous tonight at dinner? 

I had such a hard time verbalizing what I failed to say all day. I was thankful for everything! I was so stinkin thankful for the wonderful husband who worked so hard to give our family everything we want and need. I felt loved and humbled that he wanted to spend his day with me and it filled my soul. I was thankful for my happy goofy kids that made messes and got into mischief. I was thankful for my creative spirit and our great budgeting system that allowed our car to be fixed immediately! I'm so grateful for the ability to hunker down and read some really important books this summer. I grew immensely and feel fabulous. 

I am filled with gratitude. 

First week of our school year!

I have no cheeky pictures with my kids all dressed up with back packs and standing waiting for a bus, or piled into a carpool... Our week was not filled with new routines, new set ups - but more a gentle flow of questions, answers, explorations and fun!

Aurora is working on writing. She is very motivated to learn to write like her older sister. She has several work books and focuses very hard on writing. I love seeing her dedication and internal motivation!

We started last week with a trip to the library. The library offers our children wonder, knowledge of anything and everything. And sure enough - they came home and read for a long time!!

As part of our goals before the end of the year - we want to have our kids know the seasons and the months of the year. Mostly Daunika, but Aurora really loves singing along with us and I firmly believe you teach to the older and the younger kids WILL learn right along with them!

Daunika understands that the days fit into months, and she understands there are 7 days of the week before the week restarts - but she was trying to figure out what a year was, how one month moved to another. So, together we made some Month tags on the wall and when it's visual as a reminder it seems to help so much. To help cement the concept - we made a Family Timeline together!!

This was a great project because the girls got to cut, glue, choose colors, hang up things on the wall, and recognize the different things in life they understood about our family.

First the girls got to make the year markers along the timeline. It was great for them to See all the years their parents have been together. Our family started with Damon and myself. So - our timeline starts in 2000.

Then the kids created tags of life events - these included things like "Mom and Dad met each other" "Mommy and Daddy got married!" "Our cat was adopted" "________ was born!"... etc. They loved this project!

And our finished Friday project was beautiful. It makes me smile every time I walk by it and I cannot tell you how amazing its been to teach Daunika how the months rotate just like the days of the week - and each full rotation moves us to the next year! FABULOUS!

I hope your beginning school year week goes as fantastic as ours did!! 

I am a Chipmunk!

According to Wikipedia: 

Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet consisting of grain, nuts, fruit, berries, birds' eggs, small frogs, fungi, worms, insects and on occasions small mammals like young mice.^[7][8] At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile these goods in their burrows, for winter. Other species make multiple small caches of food. These two kinds of behavior are called larder hoarding and scatter hoarding. Larder hoarders usually live in their nests until spring. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry multiple food items to their burrows for either storage or consumption.^[9]

So unlike the above cute little chipmunk - I actually look more like this!!!

Why you ask? Well, based on the habits of these furry little creatures - I am like them. I stockpile. Now, I'm sure its a funny concept to some and a completely advisable concept to others. To me, its about logical conclusions of our income stream. 

We work seasonally. That does not mean we are giant slackers in the winter, but it does mean we need to save up and be wise through the winter. One of the ways that I have found extremely beneficial to our family is to buy extra food when the summer money is flowing! This not only makes total sense because we are buying things we would already use - but it also gives me a warm fuzzy "no matter what I can feed my family" feeling. That is a peaceful feeling indeed. 

I thought I would share what this months journey has produced. Some years ago, my awesome husband built me this great outside pantry shelving unit! It's huge, deep, sturdy and SO useful. It has kept all sorts of things on it, but never has it been as full as it is now. 

This was pretty much empty at the beginning of the summer. We had some random things out there. It was great "extra" space. But really, this thing loaded up like this is much cooler than the random things on it before. Though, I am not done stockpiling yet for the winter - I will wrap that up this week probably, and I need to figure out what to do with my BIG pots on the bottom shelf. 2 water bath canners, a pressure canner, 2 crockpots and an extra toaster. 

But wait, THERE IS MORE! Not only do I have that lovely shelf - I have a nice stash of 5 gal buckets I'm trying to build up! Last years I learned very quickly - I did not have enough flour, sugar, or oatmeal buckets. I do however have plenty of lentils, black beans, red beans and pintos. This year, I focused on adding flour. It is my most versitle food. We make bread, pancakes, cookies, pie crusts, quiche crusts, bread, bread and more bread. Then oatmeal comes in a short second - we eat a lot of oatmeal. Served normally in the morning, but also oatmeal muffins, oatmeal pancakes and we use a small amount in our bread too! 

My bucket stash is not quite finished - but it's getting there!! 

And well, of course today while at Costco, I had to pick up chocolate chips that temporarily are sitting on more buckets and bags of sugar waiting for me to buy some buckets for them!

And can I add just how much I love Costco and WinCo for having easy access to bulk foods!! 

Ahhh.............. 

Thank you dear life for calming my security gland!