Second to the right...

Celebrating turning 50

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 19:47:00 +0000

So I turned 50 in October. How could I not write about that. It felt like such a milestone and fortunately I'm in a really good spot in my life. I enjoyed celebrating with my family and also with some women friends.

I didn't take many photos myself, as I was too busy enjoying myself, as it should be. The one above is of me and my sweet friend, J. Lee from our unschooling group. I wish I could have had a photo with all my friends, but I want them to know how very grateful I am to have them in my life. A special thanks to my dear friend Spramani, who put together the celebration with Indian food and beautiful decor. We had it out back in the evening with some Indian music and tealights, painting a collaborative painting, henna painting, yoga, dancing and just a lot of laughter and fun.

There's many wonderful things about turning 50 and entering the 2nd half of a century of life. I've been through so many experiences in my life, some harder than others, but it's made me stronger, wiser, more resilient, more compassionate, more aware, more spiritual, and ever so more grateful for the gifts and blessings that I do have. May you celebrate yourself at whatever phase of life you are in. Celebrate it with grace, love, family and friends.

Thanks for sharing mine.

Mandy

Here's a few that my mom took.

The food table

The table we sat at to eat

Beautiful Indian themed artwork that Spramani brought

Violet and me

Spramani and her handsome man, Andre served up the spread

Me, enjoying some yummy dessert (with a photobombing Violet)

A collaborative painting

Here is a beautiful bouquet that my husband brought me.

Earlier in the week, on my actual birthday I went to dinner with my family at Hacienda de Vega, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in the area. It was great to spend it with my mom and dad, husband and the girls. Such a beautiful place to celebrate.

Dan and I also celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. It's been a lovely year and I'm excited about what the future brings! I love you honey!

Fall Fun

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 19:06:00 +0000

Catching up on some blogging. I didn't post anything Fall/Winter of 2013. We're really enjoying the new place. It's an older house on a very quiet street with some really lovely neighbors. I had fun with Fall crafts at our Welcome Fall gathering with Unschooling friends. The kids, as always, enjoyed being with friends on a beautiful fall day at the park. And Oliver always enjoys when we bring him along.

Early October brought a trip to Bates Nut Farms for a farm tour and pumpkin picking. Fall is my favorite time of year. So many fun activities, dressing up for Halloween, the Fall colors (yes, we get those in S. Cal).

We carved pumpkins on the patio.

Halloween brought with it a party at our house with our unschooling group. It was a huge turnout and a lot of fun and good food. Here's a few treats that Violet made.

Violet and her friends dressed up for Halloween. Olivia had a MLP outfit, Derpy, but changed her mind at the last minute and instead dressed as "Shell" from Portal, much more comfortable!

You can see why Fall's my favorite time of year, so much laughter and fun.

A Flavorful (& Colorful) month of Pomegranates, Pride Flags, and VidCon

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 17:57:00 +0000

(Fandom musings on a whiteboard at our monthly Lego/Crafts/Games Club at the Library)

We are mid-move and I'm taking a little break this morning, reading some blogs and some fun links I came across on facebook. The girls are still sleeping and I'm enjoying a cuppa and just enjoyed a chat with my mom on the phone. Reading other blogs inspires me to check in and write about what's been happening around here. There's the moving thing....which was a really sudden decision and just happened by chance. I was driving home from the store and saw a sign in a nice neighborhood, that said 4 bedroom house with pool for a really decent price (for San Diego). I drove by and it was surrounded by trees and plants and if you know me at all you know I love trees and plants! It was on a quiet cul-de-sac in a nice neighborhood on a hill. There was other people looking at it so I didn't go up, but told my husband about it when we got home. I had taken a picture with my phone of the sign so that we could call about it. My husband called and he and Violet went to have a look. They both really liked it, so I also went later to have a look. With the market and economy being what it is, there were a LOT of people interested in. We moved quickly and let them know we were interested and low and behold we got it! We're pretty excited and have spent the past week packing up and getting ready. I'll show some pictures once we get settled in. Here's one of one of the pomegranate trees, yum, we'll get to enjoy pomegranates soon!

From August 4, 2013

On to what we've been up to, or rather the girls have been up to. July brought with it a visit from friends that Livie met at LIG two years ago. They're a really nice unschooling family that enjoys many adventures and it's always a treat to see them and hang out with them. The dad's from Australia and loves to surf and the mama teaches cello lessons and is just very sweet and fun to hang out with. The boys both love Minecraft and running around and playing (lots of energy!) which makes them great friends for Livie to hang with. They came down for a visit and we went to the beach with them and just had some fun hanging out. We'll be seeing them again in October.
Livie's also been spending a lot of her evenings out front riding her scooter with friends that she's made in the neighborhood. It's funny that most of the friends that she meets and becomes friends with are often times younger than herself. Being a younger sister though, I think it makes her feel good to be the older, wiser kid in the group.

Violet had a Teen party with some local unschooling friends that she invited. They played some music, had snacks and sodas, chatted and played games. One of Violet's favorites right now is Cards against Humanity, which she discovered at LIG this year. She and her friends were laughing so hard I could hear them from the house (I stayed outta their way to give them some space to talk freely). We set up the back yard with tables and lights and had it in the evening. I started a fire in the pit for s'mores and they hung out there for a few hours. She's looking forward to more teen get togethers with her friends.

From Tween/Teen Party at Violet's

We had a creative showcase for our unschooling group at the library. So many talented young people we have in our group. We had art, stories, singing, cartwheels and light saber action play. As you can see in the 1st photo above, they always enjoy writing on the large white board while there. You can definitely see what all the kids are into through their writings.

From SDFS Creative Showcase at 4S Ranch Library

July was Pride parade month in San Diego, so we got together with friends and made pride flags. Though we didn't make it to the parade we often talk about equality and fairness for all and we celebrated the overturning of Prop 8 here in California. We're so excited that one of our friend's moms are going to get married next month and we will get to celebrate with them! We're so honored.

From Making Pride Parade flags

Another really exciting thing we did was go to Vid Con. I'll have to write an individual post for that and maybe Violet will help, but she got to meet so many YouTube Vloggers that she watches and admires while there. I took a lot of photos her with some of her favorites. She had been wanting to go SOOO badly, and we fortunately were able to get some waiting list tickets, just in time. I can't tell you how many times she thanked me and filled my heart to see her so excited and happy about going. Thanks to my mom and dad for letting us stay over so we were a bit closer driving back and forth and for helping out with some of the costs.

For now, I'll leave you with a photo of one of my favorite viral video stars, YosemiteBear of Double Rainbow fame.

San Diego Comic Con 2013

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 19:14:00 +0000

We went to San Diego's Comic Con this week, just me and the girls. We had a great time just walking around seeing all the great cosplay, gaming booths, artists and comic books! Lots of squealing, oohs and ahhs as we walked around and saw so many fun things.Violet's really into Dr Who, Sherlock, and Supernatural this year and Livie, of course, is still very much into Minecraft and Legos. She's into Dr Who, as well. Violet dressed up as the 11th Doctor. Livie kinda had a half costume. We had a hard time finding a jacket in her size for her to be a Doctor as well, so she wore her Creeper shirt with a brown corduroy jacket and some Uggs. Gotta love her unique style. They both got Fezzes while there, so that was a nice little addition to what they were wearing. Livie picked up a gold Minecraft sword and also a Minecraft gun (I didn't know there were guns in Minecraft, but they're pretty cool looking) at a couple of the booths. (The gold Minecraft sword & a pick axe are available at Think Geek as a LIMITED convention week exclusive, so go on there NOW, if you want one!)

The Lego Booth had Minecraft Legos this year, which Livie was really excited about. It also had Legos and Mega Blocks for the kids to play with. There was a great art gallery wall with Lego creations that kids had made, as you can tell there's lots of Minecraft fans out there!

Here's a few more of the cool Lego Creations that were there;

Some of the other creative cosplay costumes we saw were:

Violet as 11th Doctor with lovely lady in a Tardis dress.

Violet with a person dressed in a gasmask from "The Empty Child" episode of Dr Who. Violet used to get really creeped out by that character and gas masks in any format....she's over that now. It was fun to see her pose with one!

I really enjoyed the zombies that we saw there. I've recently enjoyed watching The Walking Dead's first two seasons on Netflix and looking forward to watching Season 3 in time for the new Season 4 this fall. They actually had a cage full of "walkers", too cool!

Some other fun stuff we saw:

My little pony, Equestria. And we got to vote for our Favorite ponies and get a button for it.

Domo!!

And of course, we always love our favorite Sea Critter, Sponge Bob!

More pictures can be found here on my Picasa/Google photos.

We didn't make it to any panels, though we would have loved to. The lines are generally long and tiresome for younger ones. We really wanted to get to the Hunger Games Catching Fire Booth/Lionsgate, but it was closed every time we went by. However, Violet did get to enjoy the new trailer once we got home and is very excited about the movie coming out in November.

So there it is. Our 2nd time to Comic Con and we couldn't have gone without the help of our good friends, the Perkins family, so thank you friends!

I also have to add that we really enjoyed the Artist's Alley and independent comic book booths. So many great artists out there and it's a great inspiration to young aspiring artists to get to meet and talk to them up close, buy their artwork and have it signed.

Violet and I will be heading to VidCon in Anaheim in August. She's looking forward to seeing and hopefully talking to and getting autographs from lots of her favorite YouTubers. More info on that is here. It's currently sold out, but we were able to get on the waiting list and were sent an email with some availability, so you can try that route if you haven't already registered.

Oh, and here's a pic of the girls in their fezzes, (taken from my phone) on our way home while we waited for the trolley.

Hope you made it to Comic Con, and if not, that you are able to enjoy the experience virtually!

Kite Flying at Mission Bay

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 23:17:00 +0000

From SDFS Kite Flying at Mission Bay

We had a fun time kite flying with our unschooling group this week down at Mission Bay Park in San Diego. It was wonderful weather, clear skies and windy enough to keep the kites up in the sky. We had a beautiful assortment of kites. Cost Plus has some really great kites if you're looking for one. We actually got ours (below) at a yard sale, gotta love those yard sales...I find so many wonderful things!

From SDFS Kite Flying at Mission Bay

Here's some cool Dragon Kite's I lomo effected, just for fun, but they really are quite colorful as you can see in the first photo (SOOC) up above.

From SDFS Kite Flying at Mission Bay

Violet and a friend flying kites, above.

It was a great area for kites just east of Fiesta Island and there were several other kiters out there. It's a wide open grassy area right next to a huge park with lots of fun playground equipment. There was lots of blossoming clover in the grass, and sadly, Olivia got stung by a bee, but fortunately recovered quickly. Some of the kids were playing Magic the Gathering as they often do at our park days, and many were over on the monkey bars monkeying around. It was a gorgeous day, so perfect to be out in the sunshine.

Hope your week was great!

Mandy

Life-A-Palooza and more fun at the 2013 Life is Good Unschooling Conference

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:53:00 +0000

From LIG LifeAPalooza 2013

We are so lucky at Life is Good Unschooling Conference to have Amy Steinberg come out every year and perform for us in Vancouver, WA. She's so full of energy and love and light and embraces the unschooling community as much as they embrace her. She hosted the Life-A-Palooza this year at Life is Good and we saw some really wonderful talent that night.

These little girls were enjoying the show and enjoying watching with their good friends. Sometimes it's more fun to watch the kids' reactions to the performers in the audience than the actual performers.

From LIG LifeAPalooza 2013

Frank of the Greybeards and the Greybeards and their Hot Back Up chicks ended the Palooza with some great music and little ones and teens alike enjoyed and danced to the music all night.

From LIG LifeAPalooza 2013

This year we finally made it to VooDoo Donuts in Portland and mmm, those donuts were worth the wait in line! (which goes out the door!) And, yes, that's a maple/bacon donut on there!!

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

Livie and I enjoyed this great Jugglemania and Science Circus Show...

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

That is, until the giant pizza came right at us, and on top of that a dozen or so kids! Yikes! But, we made it out safely! Whew!

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

I didn't see much of Violet this year. She was off and about with new friends and old. She went to a few of the events and funshops but mostly just enjoyed hanging with other teens. She made some wonderful new friends from other states, some of whom she skypes and texts with now, weeks after the conference. She dressed up for the Better Than Prom Extravaganza, sadly I didn't get a photo, but she looked very cute!

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

I hosted an International Candy Funshop this year, idea ~~stolen~~ borrowed from the Good Vibrations Conference in San Diego.

From LIG Int'l Candy Funshop 2013

Lots of great candies to sample and it was a hit with kids and adults alike. The candy disappeared in about 1/2 an hour! Funny enough, my kids weren't even interested. Not too surprised, though, as candy is not limited in our house, and it's really become no big deal for them to have unlimited candy around. Violet really loves Japanese Pocky and it's available at a local supermarket. Livie's not really into candy, except occasional sour candies and bubble gum.

From LIG Lobby and other fun 2013

Livie had fun in the Minecraft/Computer and fort building room again this year. Also, some fun times swimming with some friends she had made last year, and who have since visited San Diego a few times. They're up in L.A. area, so not too far away. She skypes and plays Minecraft with them online.

My good friend Ginger, and I enjoyed the Zentangle Funshop. Ginger's gotten really good at Zentangles and makes these beautiful name in Zentangles creation that she's given as presents to friends (and I'm honored to have one).

Here's a nice little box that she made with Zentangles on it.

From LIG 2013 Zentangle Funshop

and some other great artistic creations going on

From LIG 2013 Zentangle Funshop

And, of course, I love enjoying the scenery up in the NW and taking photos when I can.

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

Here's a funny sculpture we saw on a bike shop in Portland when we were driving around one day.

From Life is Good Unschooling Conference 2013

Here's a few more photos I took with the iphone while out and about. During a break from the rain, Dan and I took a walk down by the Vancouver Fort along the river and saw some really cool things.

This collage is of Esther Short Park across from the Hilton, where we stayed and the Farmer's Market and local area.

It was another great year and it was great that my husband joined us this year. It was so nice to come home to sunshine and warmer weather. I love visiting the NW and all the beauty that the rain brings to it, but this sun lizard needs her sunshine!

Till next year, Life is Good was another good time.

Sadly, I have to add my condolences to a family that lost their dad and husband that weekend. I was really saddened by the news after I got home and my love and thoughts of comfort go out to them during this time.

Mandy

Catching up...

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:26:00 +0000

From Thanksgiving 2012 at nanas

I haven't blogged here since May?!!! Holy Schmoly! So Sorry! Well....I've been very busy with Soaring over San Diego, a blog where I post about all the great places and activities to do in San Diego. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to pop on over and also follow me on Facebook where I post more frequently, events and things to do as they come up, all family friendly and mostly affordable or free! I know my family appreciates a good deal on some fun family times. I've also been very busy lately with my photography business, Sweet and Sassy Portraits. I don't think I've mentioned it anywhere, but I named it after my kitty, Sassy, who passed away a few years ago, but who I loved very much. She was my first "baby", having rescued and raised her from a baby kitten and having been bottle fed, she was very much my baby. I still miss her. I love to capture family's, kids, pets in mostly natural settings, outdoors at parks and such. Feel free to check out my website, Sweet and Sassy Portraits on SmugMug and shoot me an email if you live in the San Diego area and would like your family portraits taken. I love to capture special occasions, I was honored to take photos for a friend when her husband retired from the military earlier this year. I've also donated my skills for the Rosebud Society, a no-kill, exotic cat rescue that a good friend fosters for. I've also done many family photo sessions recently for friends. It's been a lot of fun and has kept me very busy. I also enjoy very much taking nature shots and places that we visit on our outings. I almost always have my camera with me. I enjoy taking photography classes with a wonderful husband and wife duo, whose business is called IFLC and are located in San Diego.

We continue to unschool, living life freely, learning all the time, playing with friends and having lots of fun and interesting adventures. It continues to amaze me how busy we are and how many friends my girls have both in real life and online with skyping, texting, facebooking friends from afar. Also, gaming has been big lately. Olivia's a huge Minecraft fan and we finally set up a server so that both she and Violet can play with friends that they know. Violet loves skyping friends, drawing, cooking, baking, hanging out with friends. Olivia took a short break from parkour because her asthma was acting up. We'll probably rejoin once she's doing better.
Something really interesting is that Olivia has really started picking up her reading and writing skills, and I would say it's mostly from playing Minecraft. She likes to watch the videos about Minecraft, and picks up ideas and how to do certain things in Minecraft, then applies it to Minecraft. She skypes with friends while on there but she is also chatting with them online by typing. I'm close by so she often will ask me how to spell something, and quite often she already knows, she's just verifying the spelling. There was a wonderful (& very funny!) article on Sandra Dodd's website about skills kids learn while playing Minecraft. Actually, there's a couple of good ones, if you're interested, here's another one. I don't really worry about the learning skills, but I'm really excited to see it happening especially in such a natural manner.

One thing Olivia really wants to do and I want to try to make it happen for her is making and narrating (or commentating, as Violet says) videos about Minecraft. She narrates out loud as she's playing (much like the videos that she watches), and she's very knowledgable and articulate. It's fun to hear. I'll need to get a mic and a video capture program. Any help with that would be appreciated! : ) ( I will google though and shop around for the equipment).

From Nana's tea party

Violet cooks so much!!!! I hardly ever have to do the cooking myself. She makes pretty much anything. She enjoys baking and oftentimes volunteers to make birthday cakes for friends. She also helped my mom with Thanksgiving dinner this year. She made a dairy free green bean casserole, a trifle, and some spinach rolls which were all really good. She also set a beautiful table! We recently had a tea party at nana's and she made some mustache cookies!! So cute! She helped nana with the egg salad and cucumber sandwiches.

From Nana's tea party

A couple of months ago she took a cake decorating class. While she did enjoy decorating, she did not enjoy the prep or clean-up! She decided she wouldn't like to own a bakery, afterall. ; ) You never know though, that might change someday. But, she has so many interests, I'm excited to see where she goes with it all.

From Nana's tea party

From Thanksgiving 2012 at nanas

One of Violet's specialities is pizza! We get to enjoy homemade pizza on a weekly basis! YUM!! She often helps me with a weekly menu and with the grocery list. It's a huge help to me.

From Dec 3, 2012

I just have to share some of Violet's drawings. Here's what happens when a kid has the freedom to draw any and all of the time. Her art continues to get better and better. The passion she has for drawing is something I envy. I remember loving to draw as a young person and somewhere along the way I felt it wasn't "good" enough and gave up. But she doesn't have to and just continues to grow as an artist and continue to love drawing. As you can see in some of her pictures one of her other passions right now is "The Hunger Games".

From Collages

From 12/5/12

This was sitting in my "drafts". Gonna go ahead and post it, and try to keep up with blogging. I so enjoy going back and reading old posts and see what we were doing, I'd hate to miss out on this part of the girls' lives.

Mandy

Parkour!!!

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:27:00 +0000

From Livie-Parkour

Livie's been enjoying a Parkour class at SD United Sports in Miramar for a few months now. She's taking it with many of our friends from our unschooling group. They have so much fun together and have a really great coach, Coach Dan. They enjoy jumping off the walls, climbing ropes, doing obstacle courses, flipping into the foam pit, jumping on trampolines and so much more. It's so fun to watch them do all their tricks and gives them a great outlet for trying some great Parkour moves (much safer than the couch at home!).

From Livie-Parkour

I think most everyone's probably heard of Parkour by now.

From wiki, "Parkour (French pronunciation: [paʁˈkuʁ]) (abbreviated PK) is a physical discipline which focuses on efficient movement around obstacles. Developed in France by David Belle, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing, and jumping. Parkour practitioners are known as "traceurs". Parkour's modern history began in the 1920s, though similar movements can be found in the Eastern martial arts ninjutsu and qing gong. Georges Hébert began teaching the fundamental movements related to parkour during this time period, and eventually the training became the standard for the French military. David and Raymond Belle would expand on Hébert's work, and David would eventually find the Yamakasi group, the first group dedicated to parkour.

There's some great videos and some great movies about it out there. Just google it or look for it on YouTube. The trailer for the movie, District 13 has some great parkour moves in it. Also, there's some really fun spoofs out there about parkour. The one from "The Office" is hilarious, and we really enjoy watching "Ridiculousness with Rob Dyrdek", which shows a lot of Parkour fails. One of our favorite lines from the show that we often say around the house is "Parkour Hurrrtsss", (said with a whine).

"Parkour! Parkour!"

Bone

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:44:00 +0000

We said goodbye to our beautiful boy, Bone, this week. He was in our lives for 13 years and came to us when he was 4 years old. Violet was just walking when he came and Olivia wasn't even born yet. He was the most amazing pet we've ever had. So gentle, so loving, so sweet. We loved taking him camping with us. He'd always go to bed when the sun went down. He loved everyone who gave him some attention. He had a smile, where he'd show his teeth, it was the funniest thing. Domino, our cat, loved him very much as well. He'd rub up against Bone when he'd come in and sometimes cuddle up next to him.

These last few years, Bone really slowed down. He spent most of his days sleeping. He enjoyed his dinner meals and an occasional snack. The arthritis was so bad in his back legs, we were giving him pain pills and joint muscle medicine to help him out. Occasionally, he'd get some energy and walk around in the back yard, then roll around for a good scratch. After putting wood floors in, we had to put down some carpet runs to help him get around as he'd slip on the floors. Towards the end, we just couldn't even get him up. Weighing about 90 lbs, he was too heavy for me or my daughters to get him up. His eyesight and hearing were not good. He used to get up and greet us when we'd come home, or if out back rush to the fence and await anxiously for us to let him back in the house. Had he been a smaller breed he definitely would have been a lap dog! We loved Bone so much and are going to miss him so deeply. Many of our friends had met him and grown to love him as much as we did. It warms my heart to know that. It was so very hard to say goodbye, it was really hard on the girls as well, and we all hugged and told him how much we loved him and how much he meant to us. We're still going through the grief and moments of sadness and moments of happiness when we remember all the wonderful things that we loved about him. He was camera shy and would avoid the camera whenever possible but I do have a collection of pictures I've taken of him through the years and you can enjoy them here.

We'll Miss You Bone!!!

Earth Day fun

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:48:00 +0000

This is the 2nd year in a row that we hosted an Earth Craft Day at our home for our unschooling group, the San Diego Funschoolers. I always end up having more ideas for recycled crafts than I have time! I got many of my ideas this year from Pinterest. Have you discovered Pinterest yet? Um, yeah, set aside several hours if you have it.... It really is a lot of fun and you can end up spending a lot of time playing around with it. I really do think it's a great resource for unschoolers, though. I see it as a "strewing" site, to store many ideas that I can share with the kids, our unschooling group, or things that I might want to do on my own. It's great that you can compartmentalize all the ideas and it's easy to go back and find stuff when you need it. I created a Earth Day crafts board for all the great ideas that I wanted to share on our Earth Craft Day. I had many moms available to help with the many tables and "stations" we had set up. My good friend Spramani set up a Recycled City art project that was a big hit with everyone, moms included, and will be shown at the San Diego Earth Day celebration in Balboa Park this weekend. We made recycled paper, art with toilet paper rolls, tile remnants mosaic, puzzle piece artwork, a the Recycle City art project. Kids were making animals, play guns, people out of the toilet paper rolls. We also had a used clothes/toys swap that was so popular we may do it quarterly with our group.

Here's a few pics from the day, of recycled crafts that you might like to try with your kids sometime:

Recycled trash city

Recycled tile remnants mosaic

#6 plastic shrinky dink art

more shrinky dink art

recycled paper

A "bling-i-fied" blown out egg by my good friend Erika, and owner of the Funschoolers group made.

It was a really fun day. Some kids joined in on the crafts, some just enjoyed playing with friends and jumping on the trampoline, playing with Legos, playing air hockey and other fun stuff to do that was available. Moms had just as much fun doing crafts alongside the kids as just hanging out and chatting with other unschooling mamas and kids.

Can't wait for next year! Though I'm sure we'll be doing more recycle crafts throughout the year!

Happy Spring Time!

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:37:00 +0000

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

I love Shutterfly! Here's our spring time/Easter card I just made there. Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

Baby Goats

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:45:00 +0000

From 2012-03-07

We fell in love with these 5 day old nubian kids. So soft, and a sweet little "baaaah". They were nuzzling and kissing on my girls. Our friend invited us over to see the new babies as well as some funny little naked neck chicks!

From 2012-03-07

They're so funny looking, but cute, with their little mohawk-looking tufts of feathers on their heads.

Sorry for the absence, I've been busy with "Soaring over San Diego", but will try to post more frequently here as well!

Mandy

Pomona, Corona, Ramona, next stop Sedona!

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:43:00 +0000

From Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona AZ 2011

I just LOVE Sedona! I grew up in Pomona, lived in Corona, am now in Ramona and where else to go..... but Sedona. Really, though, I would absolutely love to live there. The energy they speak of there is so very real to me. It draws me there. I actually cried when we arrived there for a vacation recently. I don't know what it is, but I truly feel "home" there.

From Sedona vacation rental

We spent a week there over Thanksgiving week. First time in years that we didn't spend Thanksgiving with my folks, and missed them much, but we did spend it with family, my husband's mom and husband on Thanksgiving Day. We rented a house we had found online, the house's name was "Tranquility", how appropriate. It truly was tranquil, serene and spiritually a perfect fit for our family. On the west side of town, it was right below some beautiful red rocks and a short stroll away to the Amithabha Stupa.

From Amithabha Stupa in Sedona, AZ

From a flyer I picked up there, "Sacred stupas have graced the earth for over 2,600 years. Stupas are the physical embodiment of the Buddha's enlightened mind. Their blessings are immeasurable. Their presence, extremely rare in the West."

Also, "By seeing a stupa or hearing about a stupa, remembering it, visualizing it-any kind of connection'will imbue you with a blessing, will connect you to enlightenment."-Tulku San-ngag Rinpoche, master stupa builder of the Amitabha Stupa.

More information about stupas can be found here.

There you go, I'm sharing it with you, may it bring you kind blessings!

From Amithabha Stupa in Sedona, AZ

There was also a lovely buddha in the backyard of "Tranquility". My girls left her an offering of some drawings they had made.

From Sedona vacation rental

The house also featured a little pond and a very relaxing jacuzzi. We enjoyed it all so very much.

I really enjoyed just driving around, seeing the beautiful red rock formations; Coffee Pot, Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Courthouse and Chimney Rock. The town of Sedona has strict coding ordinances which include the colors used to paint the buildings. They all blend in nicely with the surrounding landscape, so much so you don't even notice the typical McDs or Walgreens (my husband drove right by it while looking for it!) And, no big box stores in this town! Which is wonderful, because there are so many wonderful little businesses that continue to be able to stay in business as a result of it. I don't think I saw any empty store fronts while there (unlike where I live, there are many right now). We enjoyed going to the new age shops where "vortex" rocks and crystals, Buddhas, and gems could be found. I went to a few bead shops and picked up some nice charms to use in the future. The galleries were wonderful to stroll and there was an art mall with many independent artists booths and a wide variety of goods to purchase. Small, independent toy shops and apparel stores were plenty. Alas, no Legos to be found!!! Livie made due with some fun little building type sets and we had fun with puzzles back at the house.

While we ate many meals at the house, we really enjoyed the CoffeePot Restaurant on the main road. "Home of the famous 101 omelettes" and we tried at least 1 each of them and went there twice during the week. We did a lot during our week there, which included hiking Red Rock Creek, visiting the old mining and ghost town of Jerome, going to a Chuckwagon and dinner show at Blazin' M Ranch, visiting Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is built into the red rocks in Sedona. I've posted some pictures from our trip below, and there's many more in my picasa web albums. I'll definitely be back to Sedona some day, hopefully in retirement, if not sooner.

From Red Rock Creek, Sedona, AZ

From Jerome, AZ Mining Town 2011

From Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona AZ 2011

From Blazin' M Ranch in Cottonwood, AZ Dinner and country show

It was great spending time with our family from Arizona and we look forward to seeing them again soon!

From Red Rock Creek, Sedona, AZ

A Week of Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:04:00 +0000

From San Diego Safari Park

Halloween seems to have become one of the most celebrated holidays lately. It has with our family anyway.... I actually had to turn down some events, it became too much. Anyone who even thinks of saying homeschoolers/unschoolers are unsocialized, obviously doesn't know my kids! We went to a Ghouls and Goblin LARP with our unschooling group the San Diego Funschoolers, an evening time Halloween Party, also with our unschooler friends, a neighborhood Halloween party, Violet went to an anime/Halloween party, trick or treating on Main St, and Trick or Treating on actual Halloween with some good friends in town. We also went to Oma's Pumpkin Patch and had a fun time being with friends and coming home with yet 2 more pumpkins!!! I wanted to get to a Dia de los Muertos celebration as there were several going on in San Diego, but we all came down with colds towards the end of it all and decided to spend a few days at home recuperating.

From 2011-11-01

We had fun growing our own pumpkins this year. What started as accidental patch (from seeds thrown over the fence the year prior), was soon added to and we ended up with about 11 pumpkins this year! The girls and Dan had a lot of fun carving them and made some really great designs! We also decorated the front porch even though we don't get any Trick or Treaters.....the house are too far and few between I think it must be too much for the neighborhood kids. We got to enjoy it though, and it looked great! We even had C.C. the rescued feral cat join in the decorative look.

From Instant Upload

The girls both got a ton of candies. When we were Trick or Treating on Main St, we walked by one store on our way back to the car and some ladies out in front (of a salon) asked Livie didn't she want some candy? Livie replied that her cauldron (candy bucket) was already full so "no thank you". They all started laughing at her (which I wasn't happy about and was afraid it would embarass Livie) startled that a kid would turn down some candy, I guess.... Livie was okay about it, she thought they were silly women. When we went trick or treating with friends, Livie was quickly done after a couple of streets and we headed back while Violet continued to have fun with friends Trick or Treating and checking out all the really cool and sometimes scary decorations in the neighborhood (this neighborhood really goes all out!)

It was a fun week. We also made a trip to the Safari Park with friends we don't see as often, so it was an overall wonderful week!

Hope you had fun as well!

Mandy

Road Trip and visit with good friends

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:58:00 +0000

Sunset at Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, CA by Mandy Sicard

i "heart" Moonlight Beach by Mandy Sicard

It's been a busy last two weeks, with a visit from our good friends, the Sabos from Corvallis, Or and a trip to the Getty and the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino.

Buried alive!

Kai & Vi

We enjoyed a beautiful day at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. Clear, blue skies and a warm temps ending with a bonfire and illuminescent waves! Our friends came and stayed a few days and then we went up to the Getty with our unschooling tribe followed with a 2 day trip to the Wigwam Motel, an iconic motel on Route 66 also of which the Cozy Cone in the Cars movie was based on. My friend Erika, wrote a guest blog post for me over at Soaring over San Diego. Go check it out!

Olivia enjoying some s'mores at Moonlight Beach

Snickerdoodles!

We enjoyed some yummy Snickerdoodle cookies, which my friend Ginger (a master baker at Sunnyside Up Cafe in Corvallis!) helped the girls make and some fun times smashing pumpkins and watermelons with baseball bats.

Pumpkins and Watermelons from the garden

(Just the ones that we found were not ripe upon opening, or already cracked on the ground)

Moonlight bonfire s'mores

We also enjoyed some backyard s'mores and some fun with our Funschooler group's Ghouls & Goblins LARP (Live action role play) day at Big Rock Park in Santee.

The Getty Center

The Getty Center was gorgeous! I could have spent many days there, but we mostly just walked around enjoying some of the amazing artwork, the gardens, and the really fun Family Center where the kids got to create and a play and hang with friends.

Ginger and Kade with their masks on

The WigWam Motel was great fun. Mostly, because we just got to relax and hang out with our friends. Playing in the grass area, the pool, gaming in the rooms (it got really hot first day there, up to 100 degrees, and the pool wasn't quite warmed up yet with only a day or two of heat).

WigWam Motel in Rialto, CA

Parkour in the WigWam!

We also got a visit from my brother his wife and daughter while there, as they only lived about 15 minutes away from there and my brother is now working down the road from the Wigwams.

It was a really great time, and I'm going to miss our friends so very much but will see them next year at Life is Good Unschooling conference, if not sooner!

If you get a chance to visit the Wigwam Hotel, check it out, even if it's just to stop by their little shop with lots of great Route 66 memorablia and postcards to choose from. I think it'd be a great place for an unschooling non-con!

Who's in?! : )

Mandy

Halloween Time at Disneyland

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Halloween Time at the Disneyland Resorts in Anaheim is always so much fun! We went recently and enjoyed all of the Halloween decorations and special Hallloween treats as well as all the rides that we always enjoy. One of our favorites at Halloweentime is the Haunted Mansion which is taken over by Jack Skellington and his crew. The mansion undergoes a transformation to Tim Burton's "Nightmare before Christmas" with lots of spooky characters and spooky music.

The Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, altars in Frontierland are one of my favorite displays to see during this time of year. A Mexican tradition which is a fascinating and festive display of color and culture with altars, sugar skulls, marigolds, and favorite foods and drinks to honor the deceased.

Also during this time of year is a visit from some of Disney's favorite villains; Cruella de Vil, Malificent, and Captain Hook!
The whole park is decorated in Halloween decor. Starting on Main Street you are greeted with a giant pumpkin and hundreds of pumpkins and other fall and spooky items to get you in the mood for Halloween. We enjoyed some yummy Halloween cookies and cupcakes while there.
Space Mountain Galaxy is also spookified, as if it could be any scarier!

Lots of great fun to be had at Disneyland and California Adventure. And, don't miss out on Mickey's Halloween Party. Advanced tickets are required and it's on limited days, see website for details. It includes a special Halloween Screams Holiday Fireworks Spectacular, entrance to the park, photos with villains, Costume party, candy stations, Pirate Palooza, Space Jam hi-energy dance party, Space Mountain ghost galaxy and Haunted Mansion holiday, and more....

Have fun and have a great Halloweentime!

The night the lights went out in San Diego....

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:09:00 +0000

The night the lights went out in San Diego we were attending the 2nd annual Good Vibration's Unschooling Conference in Del Mar, San Diego. The first one was 2009, with a hiatus in 2010, but to be continued annually going forward. It ended up being very eventful! Earlier in the week we had some very uncommon for September, wet, humid weather. Then, on the first afternoon of the conference was a blackout that affected almost all of San Diego, and parts of AZ. It lasted 9 hours at the Del Mar Doubletree hotel, where we were staying. The following days resulted in a sewage spill caused by the outage which closed the local beaches. Then, my dear little Olivia slipped, hit her head and had a concussion!
You would think it was a very bad week indeed......
However, being the amazing unschooling community that we are, the conference continued, in fact thrived and became one of the most memorable conferences that I'm aware of. While most were at the hotel when it happened, many continued to swim in the pool, hang out in the lounge and playrooms, hula-hoop by the pool, and continued with nerf gun and light saber play. Once it got dark, the hotel had handed out flashlights, the generator allowed the hall lights to stay on and some of us had beeswax candles we made from the art supplies room. So, many continued to play, hangout in the halls with neighbors, making new friends and making the most of an otherwise bad situation!

Before the power went out, Olivia had a Ninjago Funshop. For those not familiar with Unschooling Conferences and Funshops, prior to the conference, in fact many months prior, the conference organizer takes requests for Funshops. Usually someone will offer to do a funshop that involves something they are very much interested in such as Pokemon, an arts or crafts project (ATCs-Artist Trading Cards, Recycled material tutus, Sponge Art), Legos, Nerf Gun Wars, etc. That person would be responsible for the supplies or letting conference goers know what they need to bring for the Funshop. It's really just "strewing" your own interests and sharing it with others to enjoy and possible pick up a new interest.

The Lego Ninjago Funshop went really well. We had brought Ninjago Lego spinners and Ninjago spin-jitsus. We made arena boards to spin and battle them on. We brought some chopsticks for chopstick races, ninja swords, as well as light sabers, made ninja headbands, rice in a bowl-to pick lego pieces out of with chopsticks and some origami paper for ninja stars....and other fun origami ideas.
Olivia had a great time, and Violet helped out with the organizing and assisting in getting the games going.

Prior to the Funshop was a Knights, Armor and codes in Chivalry and an International Candy Tasting Funshop. The Knights Funshop was presented by Scott Farrell of Chivalry Today and he showed us his knight's armor, wearing it, showed us swords and other weaponry and displayed how it was used. It was really interesting stuff. The kids all enjoyed it immensely and had many terrific questions about it. Afterwards, some of the kids tried the armor on. It was so heavy!!! I'm amazed Olivia could hold it up without crumbling to the ground!

The International Candy Tasting was hosted by our friend Gardenia. It was such a hit last conference that she decided to do it again. There was so many wonderful treats, the kids as well as adults were enjoying trying all of the different flavors and textures, some from as far away as Japan & Turkey!

Later, there was the Pool Party and BBQ. Despite the blackout at that time, there was some delicious food waiting for us after a fun swim in the pool.
It was after the BBQ that Olivia hurt herself. She was over by the jacuzzi and slipped and fell back and hit the back of her head. She got a rather large gooseegg and was crying incessantly. I could tell it was serious. I took her back to the room and gave her ice and some pain relievers. It helped a bit and she was able to get some sleep for the night. The following morning she was still in pain and feeling nauseaus. So, I ended up taking her to ER and had her checked out and CT scanned. Everything checked out negative and she was diagnosed with a mild concussion. It is only now, a week later that she is finally feeling her back to normal self. She missed much of the conference, but had a really good time while there. Dan cheered her up with a new Ninjago lego set and lots of one-on-one daddy time.
Dan took Olivia home and took good care of her and I took Violet back to the conference so that she wouldn't miss out. I was able to attend the speakers talks and some of the chat circles. I kept in constant contact with Dan and Olivia via text and calls. The next day I went home for a few hours to help out and just sit and be with her. She mostly slept for the first 1/2 of the week home. While at the conference I really missed her and Dan but Violet really enjoyed herself and it was nice that we were so close to home (1/2 hour) if needed.

The rest of the conference included more funshops, more speakers, round table discussions and just being around good friends. Many of the San Diegans there were friends from our local unschooling group. I'm glad so many were there and that they enjoyed themselves and missed those that couldn't make it. Also missed those dear friends from afar that didn't make it this year (& looking forward to seeing you next month!!!)

During the conference there was a great space for non-stop art, it was the Nature of Art Creative Space hosted by my dear friend Spramani E'Laun. There was lots of art supplies available, some available for purchase, recycled art projects, mixed media, and a beautifully created Collaborative art project that was presented to the Conference Organizer, Flo Gascon.

Another part of the conference I really enjoyed was the Untrepreneurial Artisian Bazaar. Unschoolers brought their home-made creations and sold them during most of the conference. Adults and children alike made available some very creative products; crocheted earrings, pottery, bottlecap magnets, duct tape flowers, fiber dolls and so much more. I came home with a few goodies from both the bazaar and the Nature of Art Space shop.

Some of the funshops that Violet enjoyed were the Ace of Cakes Funshop, Upcycled Tutus, "Stone" Statues (made of sponges), Geocaching, TShirt Surgery, Rock Star Drama Camp with Amy Steinberg (which was sooo much fun!), and Nature Journaling. I was so glad she was able to stay and I appreciate the help that I recieved from friends who kept an eye out for her when I went home to be with Livie.

Violet and I also enjoyed Amy Steinberg's concert under the stars on the Conference's last night on Sunday. She sang many of our favorites, Exactly, Round and Round, as well as some new stuff off her newest album, Love Divine. It was such a lovely, evening outside. Dancing, singing being with good friends, seeing the little ones run around, hula hooping as background to Amy's singing. Singing Happy Birthday to our little confence baby Lena. Perfect end to an unforgettable conference.

We missed out on the after conference park day where they made nitrogen ice cream and hula hooped and had many hugs and other fun. Sorry if we didn't get to say goodbye, but I know we'll see you again at the next GVC and possible sooner to those of you closer by!

Thanks to my dear friend Flo for taking this on again this year and allowing my family and I to be a part of it. We're really looking forward to next year, can't wait to see how you top this memorable year!!!

Mandy

In the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:04:00 +0000

I've been really enjoying all of the wonderful bounty our gardens have been producing this year. We finally learned from the past and moved our gardens to better soil and mother nature did the rest! We've had lots of grapes, nectarines, oranges, tomatoes, and soon to have watermelons, cantelopes and pumpkins! I haven't done well with herbs, I think they need more shade, less sun, so will probably be trying them indoors and see how they do.

Our local natural food store had a garden swap recently, where locals brought home grown fruits and vegetables to swap and share. I came home with some squash, cucumbers, eggplants, & basil. People also brought eggs, goats milk, homemade cards, and other food items. I'll be joining them again soon, next time they do one.
I've really been enjoying our tomatoes. Enjoying making bruschetta, corn/tomato salad, pizza, and just sliced up with some dressing on them. They're so sweet and delicious!

We've also done some apple picking which I posted about here.

Not bad for a city girl. Having grown up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, we didn't have the amount of home-grown, local produce that we now have here. Though my mom and dad did have a little garden out back for many years. They still have a little one where they live now, as well as a lovely flower garden out back.

We've got some nice waterwise plants and flowers out front like lavender, rosemary, mexican sage, witches broom. I recently started to little potted cactus gardens as well which I really love and was able to utilize some old thrift finds (a soap making metal bucket and a tin milk container that Dan found).

I've been drying out some of the grapes and we'll have raisins to enjoy soon as well. It's been a great year for gardening and it's been great to be able to share our bounty with friends and family.

Hope you're also able to grow and enjoy your own little (or big) gardens this summer!

Mandy

It's been a fun & busy Summer!

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:07:00 +0000

We've done so many fun and exciting things this summer. I'm just gonna bunch them all in one post and share many photos of the fun times that we've had.

We started the summer with a Zodiac LARP (Live action role play) with our Funschooler's (radical unschoolers) group. LARPs are always so much fun. Some kids dress up with the theme, some kids dress up in other costumes and some don't dress up at all. Sometimes moms (& dads) dress up and there's usually fun theme-related games, crafts, foods to go along with it. For the Zodiac LARP we had it at beautiful Big Rock Park in Santee. It's a beautiful park for role playing because there's a castle play structure, lots of trees and a creek that runs through it. I brought some Zodiac charts, which indicated your sign and information about that sign. Both the mamas & the kids had a lot of fun with them.

July 4th we hosted a Funschoolers Pool/BBQ Potluck and later watched fireworks from the local Jr. High School. There was lots of delicious dishes, many of them vegetarian and vegan, some international dishes, and some BBQ for the meat eaters in the group. The kids all had a wonderful day swimming, jumping on the trampoline, and playing with their friends. It was a wonderful way to spend the 4th, with great friends!

Also, in July we had another LARP, this one a Mythology LARP. We dressed up as our favorite Greek Mythology characters, had fun role-playing, playing board games, reading about Greek Mythology books that someone had brought and played in the playground. I brought some ivy vines, wire and floral tape and made some awesome ivy laurels (If I do say so myself!). Everyone loved them!

We went to Comic-Con for the very first time! A good friend invited us for the day and it was such a good time! Both the girls really loved it and really want to go again someday.

Olivia was in Lego and Star Wars heaven, and Violet was too as well, with the Vocaloid posters, dolls, as well as Pokemon, and other anime that was there.

We enjoyed a Good Vibrations Pre-con, non-con beach day with some unschoolers from the local SD area and also from the LA area.

We've enjoyed a couple of beach days with friends and lots of pool days at home and local with friends. We've been ice skating a couple of times, yes Ice Skating in August is the best!

We've had several visits to local museums like the Flying Leatherneck in Miramar, the Timken in Balboa Beach and the Mingei to see the Maneki Neko exhibit! Next week we'll be going to the Museum of Man with an unschooling group. We took a tour of the Lindberg Airport, where we actually rode a VIP bus on the road around the airstrip. It was amazing to see the number of airplanes coming in and out of that airport daily. They also have a new "green" terminal they are building. We got to see the Bomb sniffing canines in action through a demonstration that the airport tour included.

We've been to a couple of plays, the amazing and indescribable Festival of Arts-Pageant of the Masters, in which a new friend who is an unschooling mom, Tiffani Bearup was one of the models (from freelifeplay.com and also upcoming speaker at Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference. She so kindly gave us a tour of the backstage where we saw the backdrops, the make-up room, wigs, and actually met the director while there!

We've had fun creating rockets, lava lamps, fairy houses, and creating windchimes, jewelry, masks from clay. Had out of town friends visit and well as grandma & grandpa from Arizona visiting.

Such a busy summer!! And, we're really looking forward to the upcoming Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in Del Mar September 8-11th. This'll be the 2nd year for GV and there's some wonderful Funshops, entertainment, Speakers and activities planned. Olivia will be hosting a Lego Ninjagos Funshop, so if you go please be sure to visit us! Entertainment includes the amazing Amy Steinberg. There will be beach parties, pool movie night, surfing lessons, open mic night, and a post conference picnic in the park!

OH, I'm exhausted just reading all this back! But, really, it's been fun, it's been full, and everyday is spent enjoying life and being fully in every single moment! Thank you dear friends for being in our life and thank you to my dear hubby, Dan, who doesn't always get join in on all of the fun, but is being supportive and joins in as frequently as he can!

Happy Summer!

Mandy

Life is Good conference (our 5th year!!!!)

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 01:13:00 +0000

It's already been a month since the 5th Life is Good Unschooling Conference. I usually blog about it and post a bunch of pictures, but have been busy with another blog lately. I've really missed this one and as I look through my flickr and picasa accounts I notice how much I've missed posting about. Life goes on whether you blog about it or now. But, I know my mom really enjoys seeing the posts as well as who knows who else....lol. Hopefully, other relatives that we don't see often are enjoying it.

So let me get on with posting about the conference. It is something the girls and I look forward to every year. Since our good friends, the Sabos moved up to Corvallis, Oregon last year we decided to pay them a visit for a few days pre-conference as well as spending the night with an unschooling family that we met online through our unschooling circles. One could probably travel all over the country stopping and visiting with other unschoolers if one wanted to. It's such an amazing and surprisingly large community.

We drove up to Felton, CA which is in Santa Cruz and stayed at this really cool house, a geodesic dome house up in the hillsides of Santa Cruz. We stayed with Matt, Brandi, Jacqueline and Joshua. Jacqueline had about has much energy as Olivia so it was great that they played together so well. They also love gaming and many of the same things my girls are into. They were wonderful hosts and it was lovely to meet and become friends with them. The also came up to the conference and we enjoyed hanging out and going to the movies with them while there.

We then made the long stretch up to Corvallis to visit our very dear friends, the Sabos. Jeff, Ginger, Kai and Kade who we became good friends with while they lived down in Carlsbad and were a very integral part of our unschooling community. We missed them dearly..... It was nice to spend down time with them, just hanging out, walking to the park, late nights crafting, playing computer games, wii. We had a really nice time. Thank you Sabos! We love you!!!

After a few days we headed up to the LIG conference. We had quite a bit of sprinkles this year but the temperatures really weren't too cold. The drive through Oregon up to Vancouver, WA is really beautiful. Everything is green and blossoms are blooming. Really, really lovely. Portland is a beautiful city. If ever there was a large city I'd live in it'd be Portland.

I'm always a bit anxious when I first arrive at conferences. It can be overwhelming as the masses start to arrive, some I know, many I don't. The lobby quickly fills up, you here laughter, see hugs, see free children smiling, connecting, re-connecting. I get through my anxiety as I start to see faces I know, recieve hugs, settle into our room for a little down time before all the real excitement begins.

There really is so much to do at the conference. There's numerous Funshops most hosted by kids and their parents sharing something fun, interesting, many times different to create or particpate in. This year there was fort building, candy sculptures, Hoopa-Rama (making hula hoops), Warrior Cats (hosted by Violet, Kai, & Astrid), juggling, skateboarding, geocaching, fingerknitting, Where are your Keys?(learning language), Mine crafting (they actually created a virtual LIG conference, so cool!!!) and so much more.....

There's wonderful entertainment. We had Amy Steinberg, Kimya Dawson, the Greybeards. We heard Patti Digh, author of Life is a Verb and blog, 37 days.

There were wonderful speakers talking about various topics, not just unschooling which included the Lovejoys, and the Sabos, Laura Flynn Endres. There were circle chats, a very entertaining Film Festival, Art Gallery, Untrepreneurial Fair where many beautiful, handmade items were being sold. Dances, talent show, picnic in the park. It was a very full weekend!

Presententation recordings will be available for sale for the 2011 conference, if you were not present at the conference on the website soon. And, prior year's are also available there.

This was the largest LIG conference yet. I don't know the numbers, but look at all of the unschoolers that showed up at the picnic on Memorial Day. Such an awesome thing to see so many happy, fun-loving kids in one place! (Olivia's down in the center in red). Violet was off playing as were many other kids, so this isn't even ALL of them!

Life is Good is such an inspiring, life-choice affirming, fun conference. This was our 5th and I'm sure we'll be back for as long as Mary Gold continues to provide it. Thank you Mary! And, all those that support her in making it happen every year!

Mandy, Violet & Olivia

Chicken Love.....

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:32:00 +0000

Violet's been involved with 4H a few years now. The first couple of years we participated n the non-farm animals groups mostly like crafts, dog-training, cooking. We already had a couple of chickens, two frizzles we had been given by our neighbors and Dan had built a chicken coop for them from a kit. This year she decided she wanted to join the poultry group and raise some chicks. A good friends of our already has a a mini-farm going with chickens and goats and was putting in an order for some chicks so we decided to order some bantam sebrights with her order. They are delivered via the post office when they are about a day or two old! This really surprised me, but it was fun to go pick up our chicks from our friends home and bring them home where we had a cage set up with a heating lamp and everything else that they needed. The grew very quickly!! Within a week they were no longer the fluffy little chicks we had received the first day. They had longer feathers growing and were up and about....so very cute! The girls names them Coal, Lacey, Cheese and Fira. It turned out that they were all roosters!! What are the odds of that?

This is our Sebrights at about 2 months old. They have really beautiful coloring.

We really wanted some egg-laying hens, as we only have one right now. So, we ended up finding homes for them with a very nice family that we met at a chicken meet-up (backyard chickens group) that wanted some smaller chickens for their kids to play with. We currently have 2 roosters and 2 chickens. They are paired off and we keep them separate otherwise the roosters tend to fight over the girls. Sol is a handsome man with beautiful color and takes very good care of his woman. Hans Solo is a frizzle who found a new wife after the original frizzle died. They all seem quite happy.

This is Sol. Isn't he handsome?

Violet's been enjoying her 4H but decided not show at the fair this year. She continues to enjoy going to chicken meet-ups and seeing all the many different breeds and learning about them. She has a good friend who's also very into chickens, we call him the "chicken master" has he knows so very much about them and has cared for ours when we were out of town recently. We still would like to get some more egg layers, but for now our little farm is doing well.

This is a beautiful Silkie we saw at a meet-up. So fluffy and magnificent!

This black Silkie was also very beautiful!

Olivia enjoys loving on them too!

A Serama Violet made friends with. They're very sweet birds.

This baby emu we saw at another recent meet-up.....so cute!

Look at the size of the emu eggs compared to a regular chicken egg!

It's been a fun learning experience and Violet's learned how much work chickens can be (very messy!), but we all chip in and help out as needed.

May Faire Festival

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:32:00 +0000

We went to the Waldorf School of San Diego's May Faire recently. There was lots of activities going on there. Crafts for the kids, vendor booths, clown and puppet shows, Maypole dance and more.

Olivia really enjoyed the petting zoo. She fed and pet the miniature goats, there were some exotic chickens and a giant rabbit.....I could not believe the size of this bunny! He was as big as the pygmy goats!
Violet enjoyed making a fairy stick out of a real stick, ribbons, & felt. She also made a flower crown, but didn't get a picture of it.

I loved this one, though, that I saw an adorable little girl in braids wearing....

and you know you're sure to see fairies, fairy wings or fairy skirts at a Spring festival....ah, I remember when Violet would wear these.

A very fun day indeed. Hope you're enjoying this lovely Spring time of year.

Mandy

Celebrating Earth Day

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:55:00 +0000

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

We celebrated Earth Day by having our Funschooler's (unschooling) group over for some fun eco-friendly crafts this week. We had a good turn out of kids and moms and had a great time making ATCs from recycled boxes (cereal boxes and such), recycled paper(from old drawings, used construction paper) and added some nice earth elements-lavender, rosemary, rose petals, tiny weed flowers, seeds.

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

We also made "fish" from recycled wet suits provided by my friend Spramani, owner of Nature of Arts Kids. We decorated recycled bottle caps and added magnets to make fridge art magnets. We made picture frames from used puzzles. Rainmakers from toilet paper rolls. We altered some small children's board books. We also planted some seeds in used egg cartons.

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

There's so many things you can do to recycle, re-purpose, and conserve not only on Earth Day but every day! Even before we recieved recycle trash bins from the county, we were separating our recycles from un-recyclable trash. We mostly give our chickens our scraps, so they go to good use. I save bottles and use them as vases for flowers from our garden, they make nice gifts. You can alter the bottles with remnants of material, and other little "treasures" you come across around the house. It's fun to draw on them with Sharpies as well, and make beautiful designs on them.

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

We enjoy recycling tshirts. We have fun altering them and making them into something new and fresh! You can also make bags out of them. Here's a great book we picked up at the library, Generation -108 ways to transform you tshirt.

From SDFS Earth Craft Day ~ Apr 14, 2011

It's also a great idea to go on nature walks in your neighborhood and pick up trash while you're out. Or go out to the beach clean-up days that they have monthly.

Go Celebrate our Earth by being kind to it this Friday, April 22nd and everyday!!!

Mandy

Birthday Time!

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:06:00 +0000

I now have an 8 year old and a 12 year old!!! Wow! Time just flies....

My joyful 8 year old.....

My lovely 12 year old....

More posts and catching up to come.....

(sorry for the delay, this was sitting in my drafts.....)

Pretty Spring Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (mandaroo63) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:53:00 +0000

My friend Dawn needed support inspiring her to use her camera more often, so suggested a couple of friends to share a daily favorite. I was going to the park to meet up with some friends anyway, so brought along my camera and visited the beautiful little waterwise garden at Collier Park. It's so lovely. The kids enjoyed looking and smelling the flowers and climbing the rocks and playing with each other. And, I got to take lots of photos of these lovely flowers! Here's one of the kids and their friends:

All flowers are SOOC, except the two pink ones added a vignette in picnik, and cropped. More flowers here.