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!