Egg drop

We finally got to participate in the egg drop!  We've watched it every year at Rancho and Reggie is finally a 3rd grader and able to participate.  We brainstormed a bit and it was a group effort to come up with his idea.  We used an empty peanut butter jar, filled it half way with marshmallows and then surrounded the egg on all sides and top with more marshmallows.  We added a plastic bag on top for a parachute and it worked pretty well.  Here's the video (not sure how to fix the orientation):

This is an activity that has all the kids attention and it was interesting to see some of the ideas....water balloons surrounding the egg (and it didn't break!), sponges, foam, cardboard boxes....some exploded as they hit and created quite a mess!

 You may be wondering if his egg broke, but he was very excited to open the peanut butter jar and find his egg in tact!

The kindergarten hat parade was after that and I think the kids had a lot of fun at school today, exchanging easter eggs and having class parties!
Spring break starts tomorrow on Good Friday and then the Rinehardt's come for a visit on Monday and everyone is super excited!!!

Maui, maui

We are thoroughly enjoying Maui!!! We have been getting lots of sleep at night and resting and enjoying the beach during the days. We had an awesome whale show on Tuesday where we saw a pod of probably five that were jumping in and out of the water for at least 15 minutes. They were far enough out but they are so big that we could see there huge splash.... It was quite impressive. Today was our best day by far!!! We saw two turtles mating out in the water and then they both came up on the beach, one staying for quite some time. I said a little prayer when they were farther out that we would be able to get a better view....I'd say God cares about the little things too as they were only a few feet away!  I did not realize how big they are-you can't really tell from the picture, but they are 3-4 feet long!  Pretty amazing :o). 

The sun was out all day today and the waves were awesome! We were out body surfing for a couple hours on and off and we didn't realize all the sunscreen had worn off where we scraped in the sand, so Ryan is lobster red and I am pink on my knees and in weird places (Even though we reapplied sunscreen at least twice!). It has been entertaining to people watch as well. I finished a book today and I can't even remember the last book I read from start to finish :).  View from our chairs!

Getting ready to watch the sunset, although the clouds didn't allow it, so we'll have to try again!

The kids are doing great at home with grandma thank the good Lord! The night before we left Ryan, grandma and I were cleaning up throw up for a good 45 minutes at midnight. Poor Khalif either ate something bad or had a mild bug and it was an amazing mess :(. Seems like this is the MO whenever we go somewhere. The good news is it happened before we left and everything's been great since! We've face timed with them a couple times and it's good to see them and they are excited to see us. Ainsley explained to K that grandma was like a substitute teacher....pretty good analogy for a 6 year old :). We miss them a lot but we are really enjoying each other and having the freedom to do what we want to do....what a gift...thank you mom and dad!!!

Busy, busy

Every 2 weeks, we have a big cleaning weekend where we mop, do sheets, bathtubs, etc. etc. (I'm sure some of you are disgusted that we only do this every 2 weeks, but that is life right now!) and have decided to include the children in our fun.  It is a lot of work to clean the entire house from top to bottom and even though the kids aren't perfect and we have to redo a lot of what they do, it feels better to get some help from them and it teaches them how to clean, so hopefully, someday we won't have to redo their work.  K and Reggie actually had fun last week washing windows:

It was perfect timing since my parents were coming for a visit.  They decided to surprise us and come on Monday instead of Wed., but we were suspicious that they might pull that since we showed up to their house early last summer.  We were nice and ready, but the kids were totally surprised :o).  It was good because they had a few more days to get into the swing of things at our crazy house!  Dad got out of the car and went right to work on the Casita!  We made some good progress this week and just have to hook up the bathroom plumbing and paint and we should be good to go!!!!  The tankless hot water works great, the counter tops look awesome and things are starting to  land in their permanent places, FINALLY.  Poor Ryan finally went to the doctor since his hand goes numb every night.  It got better when he separated his shoulder because he couldn't do anything.  No surprise he has tennis elbow and is supposed to rest, but he keeps working instead.  The pain woke him up this morning :(.
Today, Reggie had the pinewood derby for cub scouts and that was a lot of fun.  His car was in the middle of the pack most of the time and grandpa was very excited about the Hershey chocolate car.  Ainsley found her friends right away and K made friends in an instant, so they were all smiles.

 Ryan helping out....

From there, Ainsley, K and I went to his brother's birthday party.  Ainsley had so much fun playing with his cousin, Natalie.  They will all sleep good tonight!

Black Diamond Mines

K had a visit on Sunday with his aunt, so we decided to explore the area by where they live.  She recommended the Black Diamond Regional Preserve.  We looked it up on the internet and it had some beautiful pictures and gave information about the tour (you had to be 7, so it isn't something we could have done if K wasn't visiting his family, so we decided to fudge a little on Ainsley's age and go for it).  It was the opening weekend, so we had no idea what to expect, but we were able to get tickets.  Once we finally found the opening to the mine, we went in with our tour guide and spent about 30 minutes learning the history of coal mining and silicate (sand) mining in that location.  It was super interesting, but really cold....the temperature in there is always 56.  Ryan only had a t-shirt on, so he was the least prepared :o(.  We learned that the coal was not very high quality there, so the mining company moved to Washington, hence, Black Diamond!  So, I guess we learned something about Washington as well.    From there, we put on the hard hats and walked down the long corridors and into the tunnels that stretched for many, many miles.  It was amazing to see how much sand they excavated, 1.8 million tons which was sent to Oakland to be processed by the Atlas glass company.  We saw what coal looked liked and the bottom of the ocean floor (including fossils).  I didn't realize that area was ocean 55 million years ago.  The kids were fascinated and hopefully, have a new appreciation for their lifestyle, since we also learned that boys started mining after the 3rd grade! It was really nice to do something different for a change!

We finally have Taco Del Mar back in California and it was only 1/2 mile from where K's aunt lives, so we had to eat dinner there (the true motivation of our outing!).