Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This is Blythe's Thanksgiving show at school from yesterday.  She is in the middle in a blue skirt and pink tights.  Enjoy the awkward preschool fun!!

Yosemite

The day after the field trip the Corbins arrived in town to spend the weekend camping with us.  We rented an RV on Friday and hit the road!

These two thought riding in the RV was extremely fun!

Doing preflight checks

We stopped off for fire wood at a farm stand that also had this little pumpkin patch

Joe loves a tractor.

We stopped for the night about half way to Yosemite and I sadly don't even remember the name of this place, but it was practically empty and very pretty.

Looking at the stars with Paw

Learning to skip rocks

Then we hit the road to Yosemite.   The road follows along a cliff and is unbelievably curvy.  Joe loved it though and rode the whole time like this...

Lainee and Blythe with Half Dome in the background.

 This was our campsite.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  

A little RV yoga.

We took a hike up to a waterfall.  

It's a waterfall in the spring.  In the fall it's more like a water trickle.

Paw and the babies

For whatever reason if Caleb sees a fence he can't help but climb over it.  So there he is down near the river and Joe was chomping at the bit to get down there too.  

Yosemite is gorgeous and we had perfect weather the entire weekend.  We'll hopefully be going back in the spring when the water is flowing.  We headed back to San Jose on Sunday, hit up a bounce house/pumpkin patch Monday morning before dropping mom and dad off at the airport that afternoon.  

Thanks for visiting, Lainee and Paw!  We love you!!

Blythe's Farm Field Trip

At the end of October, Blythe and I went on a field trip with her class to the Emma Prusch Farm Park.  It's a working farm in the middle of San Jose complete with hay ride and pumpkin patch.  

This is Blythe and her best bud Jilian.  Not to be confused with my Jillian who is slightly taller and has darker hair. 

Aaron thought touching a cactus was weird.

Pumping some water

Peacocks

This is Leena, Adriana, Ishaan, and Saaesh attempting to sneak up on a duck.  

This is Georgie, Lorelai, and Gigi.  This chicken was kind enough to just sit on the fence and let about 20 kids pet it.

Tyler, Jiho, and Maggie taking their turn.

And the celebratory pumpkin we got to take home with us!

Theology with a 4 year old

After praying for the kids tonight when they were going to bed, Blythe and I entered into a fairly deep theological discussion.  Here is a snapshot from our conversation.

Blythe: Did Jesus die on the cross?

Caleb:  Yes, to forgive our sins.

Blythe: What are sins?

Caleb: It's when we do wrong.

Blythe:  Jesus is God...Did God die?  

Caleb: No, God sent Jesus as a man to die so we could be forgiven

Blythe: OK

Joe: Was God in jail or Jess (Jesus) in jail?

Caleb:  Jesus was in jail for a little while.

Blythe: Why was he in jail?

Caleb:  The bad guys put Him in jail.

Joe:  God could just kill the bad guys.

Caleb: No, God loves everyone.  So he wanted Jesus to talk to them even when he was in jail.

Blythe:  Does Jesus live in my heart?

Caleb:  Yes

Joe: Does he live in my heart too? and in your heart?

Caleb: Yes

Joe: Cause we're boys.

Caleb:  And you'll get to see God some day in Heaven

Blythe:  Cause when I die I'll go to Heaven and see God.  I'll just wake up, and I'll see God.  

More Stupid Conversations brought to you by the Johnson

  Alright, here's another one to cast your vote on.  Today Caleb and I were discussing which is worse... to be obnoxious on purpose or to inadvertently be obnoxious?  Case in point.  I just asked Caleb how to spell inadvertently, after I spelled it correctly mind you, and his response was, "With an 'In' in front."  See... obnoxious on purpose.
  This afternoon I was straightening my hair, or chi-ing it up, which just so happens to block the hallway out of our room.  I like to stand far back from the mirror :)  So Caleb went to leave the room and ducked his head... so I raised the Chi.  Somewhere 2 feet from the door he changed his mind and decided he was gonna step over it... I was still in the process of raising the Chi.  So he decided to go back under... by that time I had switched to lowering the cord so he could go over it.  You get the picture, we did that 3 more times at which point he just yelled, "Ok stop!"
  I lowered the cord  he stepped over and we continued our lives.  Except he said, "It would only be better if you were doing it on purpose."  I completely disagreed.  I think it was fantastic because I was absolutely trying to help him get out of the room.  I was completely inadvertently being obnoxious.  That is the thing comedians work years on to get the timing perfect and we just happen to do it because we're ridiculous people.  I couldn't recreate that event in a million years.
  To you, the 3 people who read this blog I leave you the question.  Which is better.. to inadvertently be obnoxious, or to do it on purpose?

Caleb's 40th Birthday

I honestly don't know what just happened.  I'm writing this mainly to make my sleepy brain walk back through the events that led up to the stupidest challenge I've ever been a part of.

I'm reading and Caleb is playing the guitar.  Which might have led me to say something about how I loved the violin last week at church.  According to Caleb, the violin is one of the most difficult instruments to master, thus making it not for me.  This is where it gets sketchy.  Somewhere after "I love the violin," came something about naming all the string instruments.  Caleb claimed there were 5, I went with 50.  There was then a technicality about what was considered a string instrument.  Caleb named off viola, violin, cello, base, and double base.  The classical string instruments.  I was thinking anything that involved a string, so guitar, ukelele, and harp would be included on my list.

He still felt strongly that I wouldn't be able to come up with 50 and was gracious enough to give me 9 years to form my list.  Thus, on Caleb's 40th birthday, I am to present a list of 50 instruments that have a string of some kind or be mocked incessantly.

More sweet pillow talk from the man who brought us, "Indiscernible poisons and the deaths they can cause."

Check back in on July 17th, 2021.

Photo Update

Hello everyone, 

Here's what we've been up to as seen in pictures...

 Hanging out at World Market.

Playing with Daddy's new headsets.  Thank you Lainie and Paw!

Riding the train at Happy Hollow with Mama J.

Getting a physical for school.  She thought the paper gown was hilarious, and let's face it they are.

New Brighton Beach before the dead sea lion.

Campbell farmer's market.  Looked up as this picture was being taken hence the face.

 Astronaut Joe Joe

Rode the trolly to see the sea lions.  Again, he says my name and when I look he takes the picture.

Played in the pool.

Marsha painted this amazing picture of the kids for Caleb's birthday.  Thank you, Marsha!

This was on MSNBC one morning.  I know Dallas gets hot, but my goodness!

This one is fearless.  Paw showed her how to pick up the crabs so they couldn't pinch her.

Fun with play doh and Daddy.  I think this is supposed to be a zebra.  I think it looks like that sloth from Ice Age.

We've played at a loooooooot of parks.

Went to Gwen's gymnastic birthday party.  They had the kids do this obstacle course over every apparatus in the building.  It took him 10 minutes to explain it, and then he said, "when you get done you just start back over!"  It looked exhausting, but Blythe would've kept jumping on the trampoline all day long.

We spent last Saturday morning at Point Lobos Nature Reserve.   There are tons of tide pools (tidal pools?) to look at and sea lions and otters to watch.  The kids actually did pretty good hiking and climbing on the rocks.  No one fell in which is a highly successful day for us!  I'm a little nervous in this video because the waves are coming up right behind me.

You can't really tell but that rock to the left of Blythe's head is covered in sea lions. 

And that's about it!  We're working our way through the list of things to see and do, however, we're running out of things that are within a 2 hour drive.  Blythe has her first day of school next Tuesday.  Hayley and Kyle will be here in less than 2 weeks.  And the fabric for the dining room chairs was shipped today.  Perhaps after I get that done I'll post pictures of the apartment.

Love to everyone still reading this, goodnight!

Parenting Tips #1

Daddy is unbeatable...

Mommy won't stand for it... :)

I write this only because they tried to turn this wrestling match on me and I held up one finger and said, "Mommy is only for cuddling."  And they immediately turned back on their father with a vengeance.  It's rough to be the Daddy sometimes.  That's why we love him.

Garden City

  On the second Sunday we were here, the 15th, we started our search for a church home.  We did a super judgmental drive by of a church close to the apartment, but didn't even go in.  Then we looked up the list The Village had given us of Acts 29 churches (I think that's the network) and found the closest one which met at 4pm.  That's not a great time for us, but wanted to check it out anyway.  The kids didn't want to go to their classes, but we walked by the kids part just so they could see it and then headed around to the front.  We weren't even all the way to the top of the steps before someone had come out to greet us.  It's a small church plant so I think they have a pretty easy time telling who's new. As soon as they heard we were from Texas they said we had to meet Matt and Faith which we did about 3 minutes later.  They transplanted from Austin 3 years ago, although Matt is Cali born.  We stayed after the service to have a picnic on the front lawn with everyone.  By Tuesday I was at the beach with Faith and three other girls (I use the term girl very lightly, they're all grown women) from the church.  By Wednesday we were at our new home group, at Matt and Faith's house, where most of the faces were familiar which is crazy cause we have been here 3 weeks!

   Tonight was our 2nd home group and we combined with another group for "Fun Wednesday." No Bible Study, just hangout time. I know no one believes when I say I'm not outgoing, but I don't love to do the whole big group get to know you thing.  I must say though, it is an absolute answer to prayer that finding people who will eventually be our Cali family has come so easily.   Faith and I get along smashingly.  She understands the hole in my heart for a Sonic beverage and Blue Bell ice cream.  We've been meeting at Rio Del Mar beach on Tuesdays (well twice we've done that).  But I love her for not going in the ocean and for it being important that you don't have to carry all your junk down stairs and that there's a functional bathroom in her beach requirements.  

   The other thing is the amount of kids that are the same age as our kids is splendid.  Even better than that, there are all these newly weds or young singles that adore all the kids.  We were all hanging out and there are just relative strangers absolutely loving on our kids like they were their own.  It's ridiculous.  The second time we were meeting everyone they were offering to babysit which is yet another huge prayer request answered!  Our kids have really only stayed with family or those that we consider family so moving out here we were very curious how the babysitting side of things would go. You know mommy and daddy need their date nights.  Here we are 10 days in and God has answered that request.  I love when He answers requests you haven't technically asked for, they've just been a concern in the back of your mind.  

   So we've found our people, hopefully they feel the same way about us, and we're gonna be ok.  We might even be great.  A girl could get used to 80 degree weather and a beach nearby.  

Hello

For the past 10 days we haven't been doing much of anything.  We've been finding a place for everything in the apartment.  Gone to the beach a couple days.  The last time there was a giant dead seal washed up on the beach.  As you might imagine it wasn't a great smell so I think this week we'll be trying out a new beach.  I'm trying to find a decent salsa at the grocery store.  Also, I have learned that Blue Bell isn't sold in California, meaning, there are dark days ahead, my friends.   Caleb is working really hard now that he's in the office all day.  I think he had forgotten what it was like to have to go to work every day.  We're all adjusting.  I actually really like the apartment.  As soon as I get things hung on the wall I'll take some pictures.  The last room is the guest room which ended up being where we put everything that didn't immediately have a place to go.  So hopefully this week I'll get it ready for an actual guest bed because we've got our first visitor coming August 1st!  We're extremely excited to have Mama J come see us.  We still need to get dining room chairs and another bed and we'll pretty much be ready for company!
I have officially commandeered the new car we bought to replace Caleb's truck.  They delivered it the first Monday that we were here and that night we put the baby seats in it to take a family test drive.  That ended up being a dire mistake on Caleb's part as the baby seats have never been taken back out of it.   It's cute and smallish and white, much like me, and I'm pretty sure he's not getting it back.

Not Much News

  It's our last day in the hotel, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we are extremely excited to move into our new apartment and get settled.  The kids and I have gotten into a little bit of routine over the past couple days.  We've been checking out parks in the morning, grabbing some lunch, taking naps, and then swimming until Caleb gets back from work.  
  We did go check out a school for Blythe which wasn't anything spectacular, but it's the only place I can find that has a 2 day a week option.  The people were friendly and sweet, just no one seemed very excited to be there.  I don't think we'll really know how it is until she's actually going there, so we're gonna go with it and we can always change our minds later.
  Our apartment looks out over the complex playground and the kids mostly just want to play there.  Yesterday we met a mom and daughter who don't live in the apartments, but her son is being tutored by a teacher who lives there.  The little girl was about Blythe's age, and the woman and I talked for almost an hour pretty easily so that's exciting.  They said they are there twice a week for the rest of the summer and they would come knock on our door the next time they were out there.
   That's about all we've been doing.  Hopefully, once we actually move in I'll have more to report.

We're Heeeeere!

We arrived in Santa Clara around 6 last night after what was my favorite day of the trip!  Yesterday we woke up in Mammoth Lake, had some breakfast and took the gondola to the top of the mountain.  I think this face explains how Blythe felt about the gondola ride...

 Here's everyone checking out the view...

 We rode back down and stopped in town to pick up some lunch for the road when along came this guy...

      He very carefully looked both ways before crossing the road and heading up some stairs towards an Italian restaurant.  I assume he was going for pizza.   Everyone acted like this was perfectly normal.  They just stopped where they were and let him go by.  

      Then we hit the road which just so happened to run straight through Yosemite National Park.  I will admit I've never given it much thought, but it is truly incredible.  This was just one of at least 50 lakes we drove by that all looked like this.

 We stopped to play for a bit.  Joe could've stayed there all day just splashing and throwing rocks.

We are all very glad to be done with the driving portion of our adventure.  Today we are heading over to the apartment to see our new home for the first time.  We've got some errands to run to get a little more settled before Caleb goes to work in the morning.   Now on to the actual living in California part!!

Californ-I-A

     I don't have much to report, nor do I have any pictures.  We've spent the last 2 days driving across the desert.  It was hot and barren... it felt just like home :) Sometime yesterday we crossed the border into California, but the sign wasn't really accessible or very fun.  No "Welcome to California" or any such greeting.  Just a "You are now entering California" and then a border station where they ask you if you have any fruits, vegetables, plants or animals like you're coming from a foreign country and they don't want your germs coming into their desert wasteland.  So my first impression of California wasn't great.
     However, tonight we are in Mammoth Lakes.  I wore jeans and a sweater to dinner and loved every minute of it.  It's a beautiful little ski mountain town and hopefully tomorrow we will take a gondola ride up to the top and get a better view of where we are.  After dinner tonight we took a dip in the hot tub and met a sweet couple from New Zealand who are on a 10 week holiday from what turns out to be a lenticular bookmark empire.  We spent the evening talking business and parenting.  I think we might have all been starved for a little outside interaction cause the longer we talked the closer they got to us.  By the time we said goodnight I could've easily given her a kiss.
    Tomorrow we make the final 6 hour drive through Yosemite to our new home.  I thought I would have more to add after that statement, but I don't really.  It's been a good week of vacation and I still don't think it's hit me yet that we are actually moving.  I'll let you know when it does.

A Large Hole in the Ground and the Grand Canyon

Good morning,

     Turns out we were only about 15 miles from the Arizona border yesterday.  

 At our first stop we checked out the Painted Desert Visitor Center, but didn't actually go to the Painted Desert or the Petrified Forest.  Caleb said we would save that for the trip back, and Hayley said the Petrified Forest was pretty boring anyway.
  So then we headed to Meteor Crater which is a seriously large hole in the ground where a meteor hit the Earth.  Pretty amazing to see, but caused mass confusion for the kids.  Where is the rock?  Why was it on fire?  I want to see the rock, let's find it.

 Here are the kids at the bottom of the crater mural...

 After the crater we headed to the Grand Canyon.  As we got close we saw this elk out the window.  I got the camera out of the glove box, turned it on, lens cap off, window down, and picture taken in, I kid you not, less than 10 seconds.  I have mad fast elk photography skills.

 Here we are at Mater Point, I think....

 The Grand Canyon with Joe is pretty stressful.  There aren't rails for the most part, and the ones they do have he can walk under.  So we spent a lot of time saying, "not so close Joe, stop jumping, please don't swing on the rails, etc..." Caleb ended up just holding on to the back of his shirt the whole time.  If ever there was a reason to have one of those kid leashes it would be Joe at the Grand Canyon.

We spent about 3 hours walking and riding the buses (I think the kids were more excited about the bus rides) and then headed back to Flagstaff to see Mama J and Papa Tim who are spending the week in Sedona.  By the end of today we should officially be in California!!