Logan Family Living

Father's Day 2020

2020-06-21T23:15:00.034-07:00

This was our first family gathering since January. We celebrated Father's Day, Meredith's birthday, and all the rest of the birthdays we missed over the past few months.

Annabelle wants a hammock now. I don't blame her, this was a comfy place to sit and chat. I was checking on her because she doesn't have a cousin her age that hangs with her during our family gatherings, but she was totally fine. She was entertaining herself just fine.

Apparently Andrea and I had the same idea of what to wear on this day.

I found this sweet photo of Josh and his Grandpa Koehn. Seemed timely with Father's Day.

And Happy Father's Day to Josh!

These kids have an amazing dad. I think they know it. Josh is so patient, attentive, and consistent. He is a godly example they can look up to.
While most may not get to see this side of him, he’s fun, plays with the kids daily, makes time for a card game, bike ride, slip in slide, swimming, or modern warfare.
I’m so thankful to parent these kids with a much better half. He supports me as a mom, reinforces my words when the kids don’t listen, and teaches them to be respectful. We hope to let Josh know just how appreciative we are this Fathers Day.

11 years

2020-06-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

This song is hard to sing, but an encouragement at the same time as we miss Daniel extra today. Jesus does care. He cares about our hurting hearts, our struggling nation, and all the current woes we face.

*Charlie melts my heart at the end. 😊

John 16:22- So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.⁣
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4,015 days ago we unexpectedly lost my brother Daniel. There’s some perspective as we are at home for what feels like thousands of days. If I had to guess, I’ve thought of him at least 4,000 times. ⁣
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Because he had a relationship with Jesus Christ, I have eternity to look forward to when we will see him again. That HOPE carries all his brothers and sisters in Christ. ⁣
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May I encourage you to make each day count? Even the stressful, boring, happy, fun, or nondescript days. All of them! We don’t know when God will call us home and we want Him to be pleased with what we did for Him. ⁣
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Daniel was an outspoken goof ball and you never knew what situation he would find himself in next. He loved to be around people and I will never forget the awe I felt when hundreds upon hundreds of people packed the church and then gathered at his graveside. Death has a sting, but there’s victory over the grave when the person believed Christ paid the penalty for their sin. I hope Daniel got to tell you about how much he loved Jesus and I want to follow in his footsteps with boldness to share the gift of God. ⁣
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Last Day of School - Talking about School on ABC 7 NEWS

2020-05-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

We finished what I hope will be the weirdest school year ever. Surely it can't get more strange. Actually, I think 2020-2021 could be an odd one too as we hope to return to school with CDC guidelines in place. More about that at the end of this post.

I love the first and last day of school comparisons. Amazing another school year is behind us.

Jack grew so much this school year. He grew in height and maturity. I wouldn't say he's mature because what junior high boy is, but we are watching him grow up too fast.

I'm not sure how Smokey feels about the pandemic. He's been smothered even more then usual the last few months. It seemed fitting he join Annabelle's last day of school photo. Annabelle was a very studious 5th grader and we are proud of her for working hard. It took her a long time to finish her work, but she did her very best and her grades are great.

This kid keeps talking his way through life. Our ears are weary sometimes, but that's who our Charlie is. Always talking, even to himself when he's doing his school work or playing video games. There's even talking in his sleep. The other day at the pool he asked me if I could hear him talking under water. Nope, but I had no doubt his mouth was moving.

We continue to take it one day at a time. That's what we've been doing the last 78 days at home. Summer will be a nice break for the Google Classroom, but we do hope that our county starts to open up so we can do more things outside of our home.

Thinking about next year, the kids were on the news. There was a town hall meeting for the Bay Area where 4 superintendents got together and talked about what the next school year may look like. It was a LIVE STREAM and they inserted interviews from kids around the Bay Area.

Jack wants a combo of online school and real school. Annabelle wants to go back to school. Charlie wants to do school at home til he's in 7th grade or college!

All the kids did an interview, but Charlie's was the most entertaining. I guess his constant talking and thinking out loud is good for a news interview.

New Flooring While We Shelter in Place

2020-05-13T22:41:00.002-07:00

This is totally April news, but we did have a really busy week updating our floors. We are really pleased with how well they turned out. I shall begin with the most dramatic before and after picture. We bought a pretty dirty foreclosure in 2008. It was considered "turn key", but it was so gross. It's fun to see how far it has come and I'm thankful that most things could be fixed and cleaned with a coat of paint.

We had a friend in mind to help us with the job, but he typically has a full work schedule. When we heard he had two weeks off, we asked him if he was available to help us and he was! So a less before and after picture is our living room from April 17 and our living room today. We changed the flooring, re-arranged the furniture for a more open flow, and we repainted a soft grey. The mantle got a face lift too.

I made this video with a weird voice-over. If you can get past the poor quality, it does explain all the changes that came about while doing our floors.

I've always had strong feelings of dislike for our fireplace. Not only is it unusable due to what I suspect was a meth explosion, it's not symmetrical in the room. The raised hearth made for an awkward corner we couldn't make good use of. When you have a tiny house, gaining some extra floor space is like gold.

The fireplace has come a long ways through the years with paint and most recently we removed the hearth and added the "wood" mantle. We kinda of make ourselves laugh, but we glued floor planks to the fireplace. Yup, glue! Don't forget, I have sticker back splash tiles in my kitchen. I will look for the cheapest way to do a DIY project.

While we are talking about the fireplace, here are some photos from that project.

At this point we knew we were committed.

I painted the brick a bright white and we added the mantle for a bit more character. I didn't actually get a picture of it without the painters tape before we put the furniture in front of it. We will switch things around in the fall and enjoy our fireplace then.

Backing up a little bit, we did our own demo. The kids were great helpers.

Oh yes, I did vacuum it before we tore it out. I don't know why, but I just had to.

12 years ago I said I never wanted to paint that tall wall again. I made myself do it and we do love the soft grey. It was different to see our living space so torn up.

We did run in to an LARGE hole under our flooring. It was a badly sealed crack that was decaying from underneath.

We filled the hole with water and watch it leak right out of our foundation. That confirmed our suspicion that we had a crack and water was eroding our kitchen floor from underneath. It was somewhat of an alarming discovery, but our friend Simon is amazing and knew how to fix it right up. No task was too hard for Simon. He did say "Ai Yi Yi Seniorita" quite a bit. I may have had him fix a door and a few other random things while we had his expertise.

So the cracked foundation is no more.

We poured cement inside and outside and we should be all fixed.

So back to the finished project, here are all the AFTER photos. Aren't my mason jar fairy lanterns cute? Josh and the kids got them for me for Mother's Day and I adore them.

We cannot get over how much more space we have by putting the couches on the other side of the room. Without the hearth we are able to use that corner. We also dropped our cable a few years ago so we we could move our TV anywhere as well. We used to be tied to the other side of the room to plug in for that too. It's so freeing not having cable! YouTube TV is way cheaper and has all the same options for us.

We also took down the blackout curtain we had so the room is much brighter. I put up a privacy film so hopefully we don't fade our couch, but we do enjoy the natural light from our oddly placed skinny window.

So far I haven't missed having carpet. It's easy to sweet and clean. I still vacuum the rug and that provides comfort if we do want to sit on the floor.

We are very happy with this project we were able to get done. It was on our radar, but we weren't sure when. I'm not a very spontaneous person and while we did save for it, we did jump on the job with very little notice. It's the silver lining of being stuck at home.

Mother's Day

2020-05-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

Every Mother's Day I can see my allergy ridden eyes. It's that time of year. This year I just look haggard. It must be the endless days at home.

Even Smokey got in this picture. Can you spot him?

Annabelle and I did a Walmart Grocery pickup, printed some papers for her class, and then grabbed Panera for lunch. We brought it home and enjoyed it together.

Then we made ourselves frozen coffee.

Josh and the kids got me these adorable fairy light lanterns to complete the look on our freshly painted walls.

They have great ambiance and it was a lovely Mother's Day.

For online church, Josh and I played a song that is humorous in hindsight for Mother's Day.

I Need Thee Every Hour....sure do!!!

Charlie's Birthday Parade

2020-04-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

I will have to do a separate post of Charlie's birthday because we had such a full day that I can't get it all in one space. This was his main event.

It's trending to have a birthday parade since we can't gather for parties. I've been watching and learning as others have executed their parades. Last Sunday my neighbor had one for her daughter. Our street has been busy with Teacher and Birthday parades.

We baked 48 cupcakes and made goodie bags for Charlie's friends. The parade was a surprise, so I told him we would get them to his friends on his birthday. (When they came for his parade, but he didn't know that part). I carefully baked and wrapped everything so it would be safe to distribute.

Grandpa Logan started the parade. The Hummer was a fun addition to the parade.

We invited a few church and school friends and casual invites through IG stories if anyone wanted to stop by. We were blown away by how many were able to come. We joked that people must be super bored! Not really, we have really kind friends. I ran out of cupcakes and I think we had 65 people stop by.

There was a surprise to me in the parade too. My friend asked two CHP officers to join the parade.

IF you watch the video you can hear the very special birthday song provided by the lady in the front seat. :)

We were so touched that they took the time to make Charlie's day more special.

Ooops, we failed on social distancing 101.

Of course I'm capturing the moment, but I did put my phone away after we got a photo with almost everyone.

We appreciated all the signs and love for Charlie.

Parade on Our Street - Sunshine - Bubbles - Cat Walking and Chalking

2020-04-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a good day. I had moments of peace and happiness that I haven't felt in a while. That sounds dramatic, but it feels like we are finding our way and everyone knows the schedule and expectations for school at home. We are getting more comfortable with it all.

The teachers at our local public school had a parade that came down our street. It doesn't matter that we don't go to that school, we appreciated the gesture and went out to enjoy it. Who knew our little street was a main drag for a parade!

I had to laugh because "Jeffrey" on the Nextdoor neighbor app was not having this parade. He wrote to us neighbors:

I notified oakley police dept of this violation of the stay at home order, they told me they would do there best to pull over and issue citations to anyone that partcipates.STAY HOME! THIS WILL NEVER END IF PEOPLE COMTINUE TO DO STUFF LIKE THIS!

Poor Jeffrey on Woodglen. The joke was on him since this parade was led by an Oakley police car! I am not sure how it was a violation either, but people need to set aside their anger. There were more then a few neighbors that gladly let him know of the leader of the parade.

We set out our bubble machine, enjoyed the sunshine, and did some sidewalk chalk art. It was nice to see our neighbors up and down the street that stayed outside for a while too. All this time at home is strange and yet feels like the good old days too.

After the parade we spiffed up our sidewalks.

Charlie loved the bubble machine. I actually bought it for something I have planned for his birthday, but I got it out early. Stay tuned for his birthday I'm planning in a few weeks. Hoping to make it unique and special.

We went on a walk to our friend Ginny's house so we could brighten her sidewalks with some chalk art. Look who is tagging along behind Charlie.

Smokey walked the entire .4 miles there and back with us.

There's a cat house on the corner by our friend's house. Depending on the day there are 8-13 cats that gather in this vacant house. It's hard to see, but Smokey is under the street sign. We are hoping he comes home with us and doesn't join the cat house.

He did come home with us. A person out taking a walk yelled from across the street, did you see you have a cute little cat following you? We laughed and told her it was our cat. She was so tickled he went on a walk with us. She told us her mom had a cat who would do the same. I am guessing we have ourselves a unique little cat. There's a video at the end of this post with some footage of our walking and chalking.

Our new version of Monday

2020-03-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

Mondays look a little different around here, but I think we are finding our way.We have kept the leaf of our table in the last few weeks because we've needed the extra space. Usually the leaf goes in when we have company coming over, but now it stays in for school books and laptops.

This is kind of funny. In the 10 years we've lived in our house we've never put the table in this direction. Usually it's a square, but when we do have it rectangular we've had it come out from the wall. In a moment of boredom while sweeping the floor I decided to turn it. It's a square room so it should fit either way. Sure enough, it does and it's easier to get out the back door with it in this direction. So there's a super boring story you just read. My mom had a good joke about it. She said I "rearranged the classroom" Maybe the table will go a different direction next semester.

If you like woodsy scented candles, I highly recommend this one.

Here is Annabelle doing her piano lessons via Facetime.

She had a to run from piano lessons to a google meet with her class. Busy girl.

Our online schooling takes 3-4 hours for the boys. We won't talk about how long Miss Annabelle's takes.It's painful.The boys have to keep quietly busy while they wait for her to finish.

Mongolian Beef for the 2nd time in a few weeks. IT's good.

Still parking the cars outside and enjoying the ping pong space.

Grandpa Logan's Birthday

2020-03-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

It seems like a horrible joke to say you've cancelled birthdays, but we actually did. We were supposed to gather and celebrate Mike, Logan, Vanessa, Luke, and Charlie's birthdays. Maybe we can combine them with early summer birthdays with four more? It's quite strange not knowing what the immediate future holds.

With all our spare time, we wrote Josh's dad a song for his birthday.He has been bringing the kids donuts since they were old enough to eat them. Each of the kids (with some help) wrote a verse to the song.

On this bright sunny day, I wanted to say
I think you are great! On this or any date.
So have some ice cream, no one’s trying to be lean.

You come to our door, with donuts galore
I can’t hide my joy, because I am a boy
Who likes to devour, many donuts per hour.

While sheltering in place, we miss seeing your face
So we wrote you this song, to make your face not so long
And we wanted to say, Have a happy birth-day!

Grandpa picked up on the hints in the song and brought us donuts the next day! :) From a safe social distance of course.

Donuts are a great break from online school.

I don't want to talk about how many donuts we consumed.

We are living in times that will be penned in history!

2020-03-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

In some ways we have all the time in the world and yet I also feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Lots of unknowns. Is this Coronavirus really going to sweep our nation like it has other places? As we live in these times that will no doubt be penned in history, I thought it's quite important that I keep the blog posts current. The kids might enjoy looking back on these stories and telling their kids about the pandemic they lived through. The hype or the actual scare that hit America?

Hopefully their memories won't be their parents pulling out their hair and complaining they have to home-school. I don't even know if it's one word. Homeschool? Home-School? Home School?

So far we are doing something right. All three made an announcement at dinner of all the great things they've been doing and things they were looking forward to. They rattled off how they liked the ping pong games, tent city, sleeping in each other's rooms, bike rides, etc. We set the bar so low that any new form of entertainment is a winner. While they've had their bored moments, no brains have turned to mush with too much TV or device time.

I was glad they weren't too old for tent city. We haven't had them out in a long time so it was a novelty.

Bike competitions.

As a mom I like sitting down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner without being rushed. We have all the time in the world. Which is strange since these are typically our most busy months. Charlie will ask us every day, multiple times of day...

what time is it?
what day is it?
did we eat lunch yet (as he holds a sandwich)
what's for dinner
is today Wednesday?
do we have church today?
what day is it?

It's become a joke, but he's for real. He's like the elderly person at a nursing home that can't remember what day it is. He's killing us.

So things started to brew last week Friday when they said we had to close school til the end of March. I wrote this post thinking we had a few weeks at home to fill. Use this gift of time wisely...blah blah blah...thinking I had less time to keep them occupied.

By Monday, things took an ugly turn. We were the first part of the country to have an official "shelter in place" order that went into affect for 3 weeks. We were on our 3rd full day at home, 3rd day of rain, and the house was feeling super small. Then the governor said, "schools probably won't go back into session this school year." While it's not for certain, it's sobering news for a mom who doesn't have a desire to school the offspring at home. This post was how I was feeling by Wednesday.

That news also meant Josh and the school staff had some major work to do to finish the school year online. He's been working furiously to get the school set up with google classroom, taking webinars, and organizing things the best one can with short notice. We pick up our books and clean out the lockers and desks on Friday and embark on a new adventure of learning online. The character of a teacher really shines at these times. I was encouraged to get logged in for Jack's classes and see the format. We can do this! I'm so thankful the teachers will be helping us.

In other news we are eating too well. This Cheaters Sesame Chicken was delicious. It was healthy and I would make it again, but the stores don't have meat restocked yet. The ground chicken was quite good.

The sun was a welcome friend today.

The gym is closed so we try to walk and do online workouts each day.

Smores were our "activity" for tonight.

We need to pump the brakes on our food intake, but we've been enjoying treats to pass the time.

I think that about sums up our last week of life. We will continue to document our 3 weeks at home. I always say that time goes by too fast. It's going turtle pace now, so maybe I asked for this! :)

Sunday school Pizza Party

2020-03-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

This was our last social gathering before we entered the Twilight zone. We had our Sunday school class over for a pizza party. Half the class was sick, but we had fun with those who could come.

PIZZA

Found this cute pizza themed set on Amazon.

There was some basketball...

Then many rounds of Catch Phrase.

Walter and Josh played chess.

More Catch Phrase

Jenga

Walter won!

It was a nice time together outside of the Sunday school classroom setting.

Hearing Check & Headache Update

2020-03-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

Annabelle had her 6 month hearing check. Her levels fluctuated a little, but nothing concerning. They were within the normal range of changes we've seen in the past. They were able to adjust the decibels of her hearing aid to accommodate for the changes.

She got to pick a new ear mold because hers was getting stiff. They can swirl, add glitter, and she has all these color options. Basically she should have been preparing for this decision days in advance. We didn't know she would get to pick a new mold. I was afraid we would never get to a decision, but we peeked on Pinterest for inspiration.

This is what her ear mold is supposed to look like when it's ready.

They had to squirt a mold foam into her ear to make an impression. We were supposed to get the new mold in 2 weeks, but well....Coronavirus. I have no idea when we will get it now.

Annabelle has doing so well with little to no vertigo symptoms or headaches. We have been being careful with her sodium intake. It's a theory with Meniere's disease. We don't know that she has that either, but we sure are happy that she's been feeling so well. She is also completely weaned off her migraine medication for the last 3 months. She even looks healthier.

We had her re-tested for Sleep Apnea. The results were not as good as they could have been, but they said she passed. They don't think her sleep was contributing to her headaches.We are dotting our i's and crossing our t's.

Her only ailment, because you know it's always something with Annabelle, is her hip. She's still having issues with it being aggravated. We did physical therapy for a month and it got worse. They have her resting it this month and after the virus passes we will re-schedule another appointment.

We were telling the audiologist how much she loves pickles. We even found lower sodium pickles that haven't been bothering her if she minimizes how many she eats. We were given the tip by her audiologist to dip pickles in sour cream. Wow, it's very good. It's kind of like sour cream and onion chips for a flavor profile. You must try it.

Jelly Belly Field Trip

2020-02-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Some people tour box factories, but in California we visit the Jelly Belly factory.

This was our last 1st grade field trip to the Jelly Belly Factory. It won't be our last visit though.

I had to dig into the archives to find the picture of Josh and Sam from 2003. Apparently Charlie knew the photo because it was his idea to take that picture.

Happy 1st graders with Mrs. Wallace.

A selfie gone terribly wrong! :)

Field trips are more fun with friends!

The jelly belly colors are so pretty!

When we got home, we spent some time in the front yard with our pretty trees.

Black Diamond Mines - President's Day

2020-02-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

We had another Monday off. We made last minute plans with Grandma Logan and spent our afternoon exploring the Black Diamond Mines in Antioch. She is a wonderful guide and took us to a part of the park that I wasn't familiar with. It was fun for all of us to explore new places.

The kids may take for granted all the adventures they have in their "backyard", but I'm still quite in awe of beauty California has to offer. It's too hot in the summer to get out and do these hikes so we are getting them in during our mild winter days.

Charlie took the high road, Grandma took the low road. They didn't meet in Scotland.

We stopped for some apples and Jack climbed a tree.

Charlie was quite taken with this "stick" and was trying to take it with us.

We made him leave it.

This was the most exciting part of our adventure. We found a mine that we could go in. We didn't know how deep it was or what was inside.

If you listen to Charlie he's not having it. Good thing he was with patient Grandma Logan to help him through.

We aren't sure what this is, but possibly Mica.

Jack touched it and he hasn't died so hopefully it's safe.

Made it to the end and Charlie is happy because it means we can go back out.

We survived the mine. Some of us are happier about it then others. Some wore sunglasses in a dark mine. To each their own I suppose.

Jack isn't going to appreciate this part of our day being talked about, but he had this coming. He kept getting way ahead of us and then he took an unfortunate fall into a cow patty. He will tell you it was mud. There wasn't any mud or wet earth besides cow patties on our whole walk so I'm afraid he is mistaken, but he might have felt better thinking it was mud.

Our hike was a few hours, almost 5 miles, and lots of steps.

We went home for Jack to clean up, ate dinner, and then finished our day off with ice cream at John's.

Valentine's Day 2020

2020-02-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

We had another wonderful Valentine's Day. I actually ran across this video from 2014 and I had to laugh because so much is the same and yet so much has changed at the same time. Charlie's changed the most, he's not on my hip anymore.

I use the same basic decor each year, but try to change it up a bit. I thought the tulle idea was new, but turns out there was tulle in 2014 too. I wasn't ambitious enough for white lights, but it would have been pretty.

I like to add the corny touches too. The kids notice and groan.

We went a little crazy with our pizza choice this year. It had fried mozzarella sticks bordering the crust. It was insane. The first few bites tasted amazing and then it was kind of too much cheese and grease.

Charlie stretching out his cheese.

We enjoyed the cards that were delivered from Michigan. We always feel so loved.

This one got my punny bone.

You know Annabelle appreciated the cat card from Aunt Sandy.

Charlie got a hand made paper football.

A cat tattoo Purrrfect for Annabelle

Just trying to capture the pretty moments from a quick holiday. We've been risking our lives to get Pizza Hut pizza in the depths of Antioch since 2004. It's delicious and sometimes this is the only time all year that we have it.

We tried our hand at making our own cards this year. HERE is a post about how we worked with water colors.

A Spring Trot

2020-02-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

We are entering my favorite season in California. We still have crisp chilly mornings, but the sun warms things up by the afternoon. Sunshine feels so good and I don't think I'll ever get over having so much of it January - April.

Jesslyn and I planned a few weeks ahead and carved out a day in our schedules to hang out and enjoy some fresh air, green hills, and the great outdoors. Jesslyn jumped on the BART and I picked her up at the Concord Station which was a great halfway point. Only a 30 minute drive away. We were just a few minutes and illegal U-turns away from Briones Regional Park where we began our adventure for the day. We felt like the word HIKE was a little too serious for us so it was more of a trot through the hills.

Speaking of hills. My Fitbit awarded me with a new badge for my 88 floors. Make that 88 hills we climbed. I usually get like 1 floor a day because of our one story house. Pictures don't do it justice, but WOW was it a pretty place. I have "hiked" at this park before, but it was on a different side. I love the varying topography. (I feel smart dropping that word.)

So Jesslyn and I have lots of funny childhood memories we like to recount. The great thing about living close again is that we are making new funny memories. Nothing quite as good as hanging out of the car window in a snow storm to clean a frozen windshield wiper while driving down the highway, but maybe that's because we are older and hopefully making better decisions.

We read the signs at the beginning of our "trot" and knew not to eat mushrooms, act big if we saw a mountain lion, beware of the cows, and watch out for snakes. One more thing that should have been on the list was a warning about the porta potty. Sure there's a healthy fear of the germs in there, but how do I tell this story discreetly? After relieving myself and adding to the tp collection that was piling up fast in the porta potty, I saw a spider on my piece of tissue. Nope! I can't even think about when or how it got there or where it was before it got there. Nope-nope-nope! So I shuttered for a few reasons as I left that porta potty and I will have a new fear of porta potties and spiders.

Moving on, I can't wait for the next adventure. We of course have a few ideas. I can't even tell you how much I look forward to the time we get to spend together. We finished our day at The Counter and split a burger and salad. Talk about a perfect lunch date, we wanted the exact same salad and burger including the removal of onions. The Hippie Salad and the Chicago Burger. YUM

Then I dropped Jesslyn off at the Walnut Creek BART and headed home before the traffic started to pile up. I was pleasantly surprised how well the locations and times for the day worked out. Of course I'm a planner, but I didn't know the area super well. I know it better now and we have a whole lot more of Briones to explore.

Lincoln's Birthday

2020-02-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

We had Lincoln's birthday off of school so we decided to enjoy our day by taking the kids to a new (to them) Burger place and getting out in the sunshine.

The Habit has some really delicious food!

We showed Josh the big ball park.

They liked it when Josh made the moving monkey bars pull them up suddenly.

I almost forgot to share the criminal activity on our way to lunch...

We got an alert text from our city to avoid an area in Oakley as we left for lunch, but we weren’t familiar with the street listed. We saw a helicopter 🚁 overhead and I decide to google the street to avoid. 🤔 it’s .3 miles from our current location. Oops.

Then we saw an abundance of cop cars in driveways, the side of the road, and sprinkled here and there on Empire. You know I was enjoying piecing together what was going down. Then we saw a white vehicle in the field behind JcPenneys. We wondered if it was the suspects vehicle, but police were just kind of casually hanging out in that area.

On our way home from lunch we saw the tow truck dragging the white vehicle and I saw the East county reporter on the scene with his camera so I was excited I would get the whole story soon. Here it is...3 ladies robbed Ulta (again), rammed a police car (which we could see the damage from on their towed car), drove their car to Oakley and into a field, and fled on foot. We drove by when they were locating the lovely ladies. All 3 were apprehended and the guy they called to come get them was arrested too.

Sadly I’m sure they will be out of jail to do it all over again tomorrow because the penalty for these crimes is minimal. However, good job to Brentwood and Oakley PD! Maybe they will, they made out with $10,000 worth of stuff from Ulta.

https://eastcountytoday.net/brentwood-police-vehicle-struck-during-pursuit-after-theft-at-streets-of-brentwood/?fbclid=IwAR3I8aMdToLlHQ494vDVBipjJXx9EhSo9h26SseU2YglzeERdC_p7lEh2OY

First week of February

2020-02-07T22:35:00.000-08:00

We had a Soup(er) Bowl potluck with yummy soup, sandwiches and more. Here is Charlie enjoying his food and his friend Micah who was across the table.

This made me so happy. The little ones wanted to help put the tables away after the potluck. Even little Zachary. It encouraged me after I was discouraged by lazy teenagers. I politely suggested to them that they help when I started to take down the table they were sitting at. I wanted to give them a chance to help without being told. They ended up standing and I bumped into their feet with the vacuum later when they wouldn't move. If you have teenagers, PLEASE teach them to help and then make sure they are doing it when it's time to clean up. The cute little ones were so eager, I hope they never change.

We are trying to grow our music program at church. These sweet girls played the offertory with me and Josh.They could have done it without us, but we were there for moral support.

Father I Adore You and Abba,Father Medley

Our weeknights are pretty busy, but Monday was a quiet one. Charlie got this plane for Christmas and I tucked it away. I knew it would be more enjoyed on a quiet day in February and I was right. It's also telling that he never once asked about the toy. Sure we take off for Michigan and the toys are in short term memory, but they clearly are quite spoiled at Christmas.

This toy was challenging in a good way for the most part, but really tested our patience at the end when it wouldn't quite come together. We overcame it and Charlie was very pleased. I like that it's a toy that can be taken apart and done again when he's ready.

Here is the toy in action.

Lots of parts and pieces that work together to spin when it's put together correctly.

The boys have their weekly basketball practice on Tuesday nights. I don't know why, but I think Charlie's little team is the cutest. They even make stretching look adorable.Charlie's always goofing around with the girls. I saw them tapping his shoulder or hip checking him. Not a lot of practicing happening. They practice late too...7:30-8:30 for 6 year old's...Charlie goes to bed at 8. Maybe that's the lack of attention or he's just having a good time socializing because that's what Charlie does.

It won't be long and the tree will have pink buds. I like peeking outside and seeing Jack in the tree.

A good place to think. Especially when there's no video games during the week. Try it, it's wonderful!

Smokey continues to be the best cat. Annabelle had him wrapped in a blanket and was carrying him around. He just goes along with it. He's everything she ever dreamed of.

This made us laugh, he snuck up on the Amazon delivery guy. He even got in the delivery picture. There's one driver that stops to pet him. He is so friendly and not scared of anyone.

That's the recap of our first week of February.

We survived our busiest Saturday we can remember

2020-02-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

The calendar warned us that today was going to be a doozy. We had all good things to do, but a whole bunch of things to fit in one day. Annabelle took advantage of some reading before we set ourselves in motion for the day. Just a book at her cat, she was a happy girl.

Josh and an open house at school from 9-12 so he was out the door early. I had to bring the kids with me to my haircut at 10:15. Then we had to get Jack and Charlie to basketball games at the same time in two locations. Grandpa came to the rescue and took Jack to his game. We dropped him off at his house on our way to Charlie's game.

Here is Jack's nice shot that Grandpa captured for me.

Charlie's game was a blow out. His team lost.

We had a housewarming/house dedication party for our friend Ginny. She moved in around the corner from us and we are quite happy to have her even closer. Her house is the same as ours, but it's been remodeled. It's fun to see what our home could look like with new floors and more.

The food was exceptionally delicious.

I don't know if you can picture my kitchen, but the took down the wall so its more open concept. I love all the counter space she had for the food.

We had an hour or so at home before we headed to Oakland for Supercross Live. It was a blogging gig so we got free tickets. Sadly we didn't get free parking...it was $40 and this was the spot we got.

Charlie ran into his friend Jameson. They were excited to see motorcycles.

Look Dad, we brought our ear protection and I hope Rapid Packaging made this box!

This is going to sound ungrateful, but our tickets were too close. This was the only portion of the track we could really see. Having seats higher up is actually better for this event. We didn't get to pick our seats, but mental note it if you ever attend an event. You want to see the whole track.

You can laugh, the California kids were bundled up for the 50 degree weather.

Here is a video of the event.

A Giant January Post

2020-01-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

I blogged about a few of the more memorable moments from our last week such as Annabelle's hip appointment and Logan family birthdays, but here are the in-between things that kept us busy.

My sweet friends got together for a belated birthday lunch. I appreciated everyone taking time out of their busy days in my honor. It was the perfect little lunch. I marvel how God brought us all together from all over the world.

Annabelle's enjoying her Terrarium growing.

I took Annabelle to work with me and made her run in Peet's to get my pre-ordered coffee. There's never any parking spots so that was quite ideal she's old enough to grab my coffee. I gave her a few sips as payment. :)

Basketball Season is in full motion.

Jack's team is 2-0. He had a slow start to this game, but the shots starting dropping eventually.

This was Charlie before his very first game. He has a team of very cute kids. They are like cats chasing a ball of yarn.

Charlie's 1st and 2nd game ended in a tie. But Charlie scored his first career point in the 2nd game. There were some magic fingers begging for a pass and then he got his shot in.

Annabelle is always up to something creative. She got water colors for Christmas and has been working on some Smokey masterpieces.

Jack used some of his Amazon Christmas money to get this sweatshirt. He's been wearing it for days! It reminds me or Russell's Rush Limbaugh sweatshirt that he lived in.

I got a flute with my birthday money. Look away if you're a music teacher, but it was another $63 flute from Amazon. Now Annabelle and I can both play. However, I played a duet with Josh for the first time on Sunday. Annabelle accompanied on the piano. I don't have a recording of our Sunday special, but a visiting friend snapped a picture.

This video might make you motion sick, but Charlie got some footage of our Saturday night practice. We played I Stand Redeemed. Beautiful lyrics that make you want to belt out the song.

We had Monday off of school so we played some brisk tennis. It was in the upper 40's. I did some walking to stay warm. I think I went around the court 432x and I didn't ever get warm. :) Wimpy California girl I've become.

Despite the chill in the air, what a sunset we had!

This is blog worthy. I was on my last Holiday Blend pod when there was a Christmas miracle. Grocery outlet had these on sale for $9.99 a box (usually $17.99) so I have more of my favorite coffee. Maybe another 1.5 months worth. :)

No Gym January came to an end. I get so fed up with the gym having no parking or machines available that I wait out the New Year's Resolutions before I go back to the gym. Also, I make a grumpy face every time I punch in my age on the elliptical. I used to be irritated I had to punch the age up when I passed 35. Now I'm horrified I'm nearly 40. The good news is, I do have to punch the weight down from the preset. I'll take that as a tiny win. Sure it starts at 200 lbs, but ehhh. Just Kidding.

A Hippy Happy Day in Oakland

2020-01-22T15:42:00.002-08:00

We no longer mind going to Oakland for appointments because it means we get to sneak in a quick lunch or dinner with Jesslyn. You really should beg one of your friends to live in Oakland so you can have something to look forward to as well. I suppose another option would be to share her if you need a good lunch buddy to take you somewhere fun to eat.

Annabelle had an appointment with a pediatric orthopedic hip doctor. She isn't in great pain, but she aggravated her hip ice skating 3 weeks ago and the limp and tenderness didn't seem like it should be back from her issues this summer. Dr. Zmugg did lots of stretches to test movement and pain. We went over the x-rays too. He didn't see anything on the x-rays which is good news. He wasn't even sure the hip avulsion diagnosis from summer was correct. Either way, she did something that took a good 12 weeks to heal. His suggest is physical therapy and we are getting set up to do that in our area next week. It's an understatement to say we are thankful we have medical insurance.

We arrived to our appointment 25 minutes early only to use that entire time looking for a parking spot. It took 20 minutes to get to the 8th floor of the parking garage and we got the last spot. Whew. Thankfully I knew to plan for lots of time to park. It's not my first rodeo at Oakland Kaiser.

Fun fact: when kids take your picture the angle adds 25# to the hips. :)

We met up with Jesslyn and walked to lunch. Ohhhh what a glorious and sunny day it is. We found a cute place called Rolling Dunes Crepe house and I think I may have had the best potatoes of my life. We had a crepe, salad, potatoes, and a pancake. We almost poisoned Annabelle with pecan butter on the pancake, but thankfully we asked before she dug in. We've had too many close calls with nuts this month! In hindsight though, I wish I had gotten to eat the pecan butter. They took her pancake away and kindly replaced it.

That's our exciting Wednesday adventure. We left the house at 9:45 for an 11:10 appointment. While we did take a break for lunch, we didn't get home til 3. My full stomach has me begging for a nap. Annabelle is being studious and doing her work she missed today. On that note, I was glad we could book her first PT during PE next week so she won't miss more class time. She's supposed to take a 3 week break from PE as well. All in all it was good news that nothing serious is amiss.

Newlywed Game and Birthdays on MLK Day

2020-01-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

When you celebrate 20 or so birthdays a year, you have to get creative so the parties don't all blend together. We had a good run with Family Feud. Andrea put together a fun night with the Newly Wed game. Our studio audience was the kids. For those that paid attention, they learned a few things about their parents, aunts, and uncles. :) Annabelle had a few questions on the way home about the dating years that came up.

Jack was the photographer for the night and he focused on videos. So this will be as much representation we have of the evening in still shots.

We had a lot of good laughs as we tried to remember our first dates, guess what is most precious to our spouse, etc. We did learn one thing, the Newly Weds (Sam and Caitie) had the best memory since they just celebrated their 2nd anniversary. The rest of us tied for last.

After our game night, we stuffed our faces with Andrea's most-deliciously baked birthday cake and ice-cream.

Jumping into January 2020

2020-01-16T09:38:00.002-08:00

I have set a tiny goal to get a blog post on here once a week. I want to try to hit the highlights of our week on here. We have too much history recorded on this old blog to let it go. We were chatting at dinner last night and I told the kids they should actually go back to the beginning (2007) and start reading about their lives. It's all there whether it was interesting or not! We also had a laugh that I had way more time on my hands back then.

Jack honest to goodness thinks he remembers stuff from when he was one. We just laugh and chalk it up to him seeing a picture or blog post and thinking it's a real memory. Most recently he said he remembers Daniel getting him Otter pops at the cottage. While I would love for that to be a real memory, he wasn't even one yet. We do have some sweet pictures of the moment that he's seen.

The boys started basketball practice our first night back. It felt like 10:30-11:30 p.m. due to time change adjustment. Okay, maybe more like MST. The boys had energy due to their excitement. Annabelle and I weren't as lively watching on the sidelines. They had practice at two different locations at the same time so Josh took Charlie and I took Jack. We may have over committed a bit with this basketball schedule (they have games in two locations at the same time too), but Charlie's so thrilled to be old enough to play. We will make it work. Somehow!

See those Santa jammies under his uniform. That's how excited he was to try it on after practice. Junior Warriors is the name of their community league.

Annabelle continues to make us thankful we have medical insurance. Her hip was aggravated from ice skating in Michigan so I messaged her doctor if she should do PE or what we should watch for. It didn't seem right to me that 6 months post healing it would be sore. We did however realize that she was rollerblading when it was hurt before. It must have something to do with that motion. Her doctor ordered xrays. It was actually kind of humorous because we went through two techs before they were familiar with the pictures the doc was requesting. Her soreness did pass within a week, but the orthopedic doctor wants her to be seen in Oakland next week by a pediatric hip doctor. I really think it's precautionary, but we will follow through on it.

In other Annabelle medical news, she isn't suffering from migraines or dizzy spells right now and we've taken her off her migraine medication too. That's a huge deal for which we are very thankful. She has a follow up sleep study (they forgot to order it after her tonsils were out) on Saturday. Like I said, always glad for insurance with our Annabelle.

Here she is enjoying her new cat mug from Uncle Sam and Aunt Caitie.

We finally got school pictures.

Oh, here's a Jack story. He gave us a scare one day at school last week because he bummed a bite of Oatmeal Cookie off a friend and it was made with walnuts. His throat got itchy immediately from the tiny bite. He had Benedryl and was observed in the office for a while. We knew he was allergic per his tests to walnuts, but he's never been exposed. This confirmation tells us he's allergic to tree nuts and legumes. So we will continue to keep that boy away from all nuts. We are very thankful this allergic reaction wasn't more severe. It was a good learning lesson from Jack and everyone who had no idea where his epi-pen or Benedryl was! I was quite frustrated that despite my precaution of having safety measures in place, they were clueless where to look. All is well and everyone knows all 3 places they can find help if needed...office, car, and backpacks.

The kids got home after our vacation and enjoyed playing with all their toys from Christmas.

Rain is coming for the week and the leaves weren't going to pick up themselves. Here's the before...

Still bleak, but all the leaves fit in our green bin which is a big deal. I get behind on the foliage removal. I'm going to work on the crab grass removal next. It over took us last summer. I have it burned out, but I need to dig it up and replant some areas.

My helper getting the leaves to fit in the barrel.

That's what we've been up to since we got back. Also, a shameless plug to read The Simple Moms. I got my idea to do one post a week on this blog because that's my commitment on The Simple Moms. We have two giveaways right now if you want to win the following:

Arm and Hammer Products

4 tickets to Supercross in Oakland

Groupon Skating

2020-01-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

We were big fans of Groupon this past trip. We went skating for a steal too. The kids love to ice skate. You may recall we went twice last Christmas trip. We only made it once this time and it was busy, but fun. Everybody is getting better each time we go.

It was so good to see my friend Jaime from The Simple Moms in real life! We had a nice time catching up.

A humorous rendition of this photo that Josh's dad sent us. :)

Cousin enjoying every moment together.

Skating with Macy, she caught on so fast.

Happy New Year!

2020-01-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

2020 is here. A new decade! We spent the day enjoying a movie, the snow, eating, and laying around.

We went and saw Little Women with sister-in-law's, Aunt Kathryn, cousin Katie, Aunt Sandy, and my mom. It was a wonderful movie, even if it did make us cry.

Why the sad faces? Because we got the one row in the theater without reclining seats. We were duped, but that was also the only row left in the whole theater when we got our tickets two days prior.

The snow was trying to melt, but we got another day of sledding and snow boarding.

Charlie was doing quite well on the snow board.

Exploring the woods.

Setting up the shooting range.

Watching the shooting practice below.

3 weeks apart in age and getting close in height.