Swim Lessons

Kayla swimming across the pool!

Cody and Macey showing us one of their strokes they worked on:

Dana Point

I feel like Dana Point can easily be done in a day, and it was a fun day!

More if you go to the beach - but that was for the next day. Baby beach right off to the left of this ship at the institute has no waves and tons of paddle board rentals - we may have to come back and try it out!

We went to the Ocean Institute for a couple of hours.

 I LOVE this quote!!

The kids learned about purchases, pulleys, and how hard it is to pull up 100 lbs. without it,

and a bunch of other educational things like what they use kelp for (tons of things -like toothpaste!)

 We also went to a visitor center at Doheny Beach. They had a little tide pool and a bunch of cool ocean creatures for the kids to see. Plus a butterfly garden with a butterfly that just came out of its cocoon.

Then we went to the Nature Interpretive Center - it has a trail on a cliff above the ocean.

This was my favorite part and the kids least favorite part. I'm doing my best to get them as much exercise as possible this summer! 

Be Still: a Lesson on Reverence

I am teaching sharing time in primary on Sunday and I'm pretty excited.

We are having a lesson on Reverence. 

(Cause we need it. Summer gets a little wild:)!)

To start I am going to tell a very simplified story of

Finding a Treasure:

I have always loved collecting sea shells. 

But the one I found on this particular day is special.

I found it on South Beach in Oregon half tucked in the sand like this one:

 I loved South Beach because you could walk 100 yards into the ocean and the water would barely cover your rain boots.

There were always pieces of sand dollars at this beach, and I really wanted one.

We came alone to the beach. And by alone I mean we were new and alone to Oregon and Ben was working.

He worked 355 days of the 365 days that year - and not 8 to 5 - sun up to after sun down.

Moms of young kids know the feeling of constant chaos and needs of little people and the irony of feeling so isolated when you're constantly surrounded.

And I felt it, even while I loved watching these cute kiddos run around:

To make it more poignant,

While we were there we saw these people on the beach:

Doesn't that look fun?

I wished I could do that.

But they don't let moms with 3 babies go.

Then, I turned around and saw this:

I could see Ben and I doing that. (Except I would look super unskilled.)

But he was working.

At that point, I had a hard time seeing when these circumstances would ever change.

This was heavy on my mind. I prayed for peace while I stood quietly and watched the waves.

After walking just a couple more steps in the water

I stopped and looked down to find my treasure:

Three days before we came here I wrote down my list of goals on my blog and I had listed: find a sand dollar.

I'll be explaining to the kids that this treasure has to be handled carefully and kept in a special place.

How do we treat treasures? How I take care of a treasure is respecting it. In a similar way, we can treat treasures that are Heavenly Father's with respect and care. In places such as the temple, church, or, the scriptures, our family, and even ourselves. This is showing reverence to Him. 

Psalms 46:10 says,

 "Be still, and know that I am God."

If I had been doing this:

I never would have found this:

Finding treasures of knowledge don't always come from fun adventures, they come from quiet moments of reverence and reflection.

And that can bring true happiness.

Wherever you are.

Really, our outside circumstances can be beautiful or holy in and of themselves, but it is what's inside us that determines reverence or holiness to us.

We have been counseled to stand in holy places. Here are some other "holy places" to me:

even though it looked more like this:

“Reverence is an attitude toward Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ... It is something we feel inside our hearts no matter what is going on around us.” L. Tom Perry

In church, keeping our bodies still 

literally helps prepare our hearts and minds to receive inspiration.

And let the spirit teach us about God.

"Be still, and know that I am God."

California does have a lot to do, but I am hoping to find more treasures by finding balance. 

We sure do miss South Beach!!

1. Rev'rence is more than just quietly sitting:
   It's thinking of Father above,
   A feeling I get when I think of his blessings.
   I'm rev'rent, for rev'rence is love.
   When I'm rev'rent, it shows in my words and my deeds.
   The pathway to follow is clear.
   And when I am rev'rent, I know in my heart
   Heav'nly Father and Jesus are near.
   
   Some of the basic ideas aren't mine, they're from a friend from another wards' sharing time, but I heard it was good and she let me use them!

Doowylloh

I've always wanted to hike to the Hollywood sign

 I told the kids we were going on a hike

But I didn't tell them how long it was

 I just promised them slurpees when it was done.

 They were so awesome.

Round trip (with an extra mile tacked on at the end) they went almost 5 miles! 

 Don't get me wrong, it took us a long time.

And let's be honest, I didn't even want to try to make our youngest.

We called her "Giant Baby." (that could have a double meaning in this case-she hates walking very far:)) But we'll cut her slack since she's only three.

 The hike lead us up to the top of the mountain and to the back of the Hollywood Sign, spelling "doowylloh."

 Seeing the view at the top Mackayla kept saying she could see a rainbow which turned out to be the awesome colorful SMOG. bleh.

 Since we were basically there I really wanted to go see the Griffith Observatory too.

It ended up being a half of mile hike to see it...but once again the kids were troopers and giant baby even walked.

The building kind of looks like the great and spacious building to me. There were even people in the balconies looking out and pointing.

 Inside we weighed ourselves to see how much we would weigh on each planet and learned a few facts about each one.

 At night they open the roof to see out in this enormous telescope.

 We didn't stay that long, but just long enough to run into rush hour. yikes.
Ben was missing us!

 I went on a stair run the next morning that made my legs even more sore,

but we had fun running through these arches:

We had a mourning dove nest in our rafters on our balcony

 our diligent doves spent a month gathering supplies and making their nest

and another month sitting on their nest

until a HAWK swooped down and attacked one of the birds.

We heard a crazy scuffle

and then I saw my neighbor sprinting across the lawn trying to save the bird

but it was too late.

I was sad for our birds-the parents and the eggs :(

Their mourning dove cries sound especially sad now (they kind of sound likes owls).

We've loved all our bird friends this year, especially our squeaky flying doves.

A Couple Summer Days

CANNONBALL

The kids are taking swim lessons this month.

They have all improved a ton

I'm so impressed with Mackayla, who had the most to learn,

she just took off with everything and is swimming like a champ now.

Cody and Macey are really learning the strokes and how to breathe better, and doing great too!

 They all love it and we love their teacher!

 We actually took these pictures of Mackayla so that Ben would be sure to see her in her cute outfit.

They have dance in the mornings and she either wanted to wear this all day so he could see or send him a picture~

My life is now complete

I went to a yoga on the beach RS activity

and it's maybe the coolest thing I've done since I've lived here.

I made these again the other day - this is the best chocolate on earth.

cacao, peanut butter, and pure maple syrup. No added sugar. Any excuse to eat chocolate.

 Macy took a cooking class and LOVED it! 

 We went to a little place called Adventure Playground in Huntington Beach.

It's just $3 per kid to get in. So, you get $3 fun. That water they were in had a thin film of duck poop and for only being a 1/2 foot it was the murkiest water I've ever seen. We didn't die and the kids loved it!

 They also had an area to build anything you want out of wood.

We made a bench and a frame. But you can probably tell from the picture. Right?!

We have 12 lbs. of strawberries...

Right after Adventure Playground we headed to Costco.

I always envisioned shopping would be so much easier once my kids were older because I wouldn't be juggling nap times and breakdowns...hahahaha

It's just different now. A different set of patience muscles that haven't been worked out before.

We finally made it through Costco 1 1/2 hrs. later without running anyone over, anyone running, etc. The samples help. It's so hard to move anywhere with three people constantly in your way!!

Checkout, lines are 5 people deep. They are checking my groceries, I realize I don't have my debit card. AAAHHH! I was willing it to appear; they were really uninterested in changing their credit card policy for me. My debit card had been missing for days (but I found it doing laundry today!)

I wanted to cry, not for the embarrassment or loss of my card, but because I had just successfully maneuvered my way through an entire shopping trip with my kids and failed!

Ben came to the rescue and went and picked them up on his way home. I love him.

They had my cart pulled off to the side and for some reason random people kept adding strawberries to the basket.

And we already had strawberries.

Good thing we love jam.