First Year!

Lorien FINALLY got to go to girls came this year.  She has been waiting patiently for a full year...which seems longer than what other girls have to wait.  She is a fall birthday an in our church the kids are grouped into classes by their birth year.  So most of her classmates at church are a grade ahead of her in school and have birthdays before Girl's Camp.  Making her church classmates eligible for Camp before her.  She has regretted my decision to keep her at home an extra year ever since we moved over to the East Bay.  She has a lot of friends in her church class and is sad, sad, sad that she is not in the same grade as they are.  

Poor baby girl.

Anyway, she got to go to Girl's Camp this year.  We packed her up and sent her off bright and early Monday morning.  And I didn't hear a word from or about her for almost a week--until late Friday night when I picked her up.  

Good bye my darling girl!

She returned home to us, safe and sound (and filthy).  She also came home glowing with love and appreciation for all of God's creations--even her family!  She had adorable stories to share of friendship and support from her fellow campers.  It was lovely.  

Hard work rewarded...

When we set the goal of reading the whole Book of Mormon as a family back in January we decided there would be a fantastic reward for meeting out goal in time (cover to cover by May 19th).  I mean, a reward other than the "increased measure of the spirit" etc. promised by the Prophet.  When we were about 2/3rds of the way through we thought we actually had a shot at success and had better come up with the reward.  After a family discussion we decided that if we finished by May 19th we would take a family vacation up to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg.  We would make it an overnight trip and even stay in a hotel!  

Because of birthday celebrations, end of school madness and other commitments we were not able to make the trip until almost a month later, right after school got out. 

We drove up early Friday morning and went straight to the beach.  For some reason or another it is impossible to get to a beach in Northern California without taking a lengthy drive on windy roads, through redwood forests and over a mountain pass.  The route we took to Glass Beach was particularly windy and we all got carsick.  Poor Colter was doubled over and crying in his car seat.  I finally gave up on law keeping and took him out of his car seat and let him sit in my lap.  

We made it to Glass Beach around 3 in the afternoon.  If you haven't heard, in the early 20th century the residents of Fort Bragg would throw all of their trash over the cliffs into the ocean.  After a while you can imagine the mess this practice made.  There were clean up and restoration efforts made in the 70's and 80's but the broken glass remained.  The sea did its work and turned the broken glass into sea glass.  There is an official Glass Beach in MacKerricher State Park where the actual trash dumping took place.  You are not supposed to collect glass from the state park.  However, thanks to human folly there are plenty of beaches with sea glass shores south of the state park and collecting is A-OK there.  We went to the unofficial Glass Beach--because I knew I wouldn't be able to restrain myself...or my children.  

The beach did not disappoint.  It was so cool!  

The beach we camped out on for the day had the best of all beach worlds: tide pools for checking out ocean life, sea glass for collecting, sandy beaches for playing and gigantic rocks for climbing.

While the big kids were building a sand castle a wave came up and ate Colter.  He was not happy in the least.  It took several "Mom and Colter selfies" to cheer him up.  

On the first day, Wyatt went up to use the port-a-potty up by the parking lot.  He got a little lost on the way back but came across an even cooler glass beach in his search for his family.  The next day we followed Wyatt's lead and checked out this amazing beach.

Will said: "It's not every day you get to bury your daughter in broken glass."

It is beautiful and depressing at the same time.  Can you imagine the amount of trash it took to create this?  And all this glass is here because the dumping happened in an era of glass and metal...instead of today's era of plastic and styrofoam.  Rarely does such gross human error turn into so much beauty.

I loved finding pieces with numbers or letters still visible and pieces that were rounded and threaded.  It was easy to imagine that these little pieces were once part of a large dish or bottle that sat in someone's home.  The milk glass pieces were by far my favorite--they maybe held food for a family dinner or flowers cut from a home garden.  It felt like holding personal history.  Do you think a resident ever imagined (as they flung their trash over the cliff side) "Some day a Mother, Father and their five children will be pawing through my garbage--picking up bits and pieces like they were nuggets of gold."  

What a trip!

Here is a picture taken from the car as we zoomed through roads that were literally curved like snakes.  You can see the road curving off to the left.  This was one of the few straight shots where I could get my phone out and snap a picture before throwing up.

Ugh, I feel sick looking at this picture.

Carsickness aside.  It was so fun and so cool.  Totally worth the drive--and the carsickness.

Father's day..

That William James Anderson sure is one amazing Dad.  We sure feel lucky to have him for our own.  Happy Father's Day!

And every-other-year we get to show him how grateful we are by serving him breakfast in bed.  On the off years we have early church and nobody has time to eat breakfast...forget about making it for someone still in bed.

End of the school year madness

We made it.  The 2013-2014 school year is over.  Lorien had a successful first year of middle school, Clare and Wyatt got another year of elementary school under their belts and Adell finished preschool.  The last month of school was crazy...the last two weeks were total madness.  Every day one kid or another had some end-of-the-school-year-activity.  I think I cooked dinner at home twice in those last two weeks.  We all need a vacation!

Wyatt's 4th grade teacher is retiring this year.  She was very strict...I loved her.  I am sad none of my other kids will get to have her for a teacher in the 4th grade.  He learned a lot from her and grew a lot as a student.  She was pretty fond of Wyatt.

We made it through open house at the elementary school.  It was nice to only have two classrooms to visit instead of the three we had to visit in years past.  

Lorien attended her first middle school dance (it was also the last dance of the year...which they had postponed due to some pranks at school).  

We made it through our first middle school open house.  It was very long...Lorien needed some extra credit in one of her classes and earned it by showing us every inch of her classroom.  

The orchestra concert...not to be confused with the district wide Strings Festival that happened five days earlier.  Lorien sure loves to play viola.

Adell "graduated" from preschool.  She had such a fantastic teacher in Miss Carrie.  Adell got to attend preschool at Miss Carrie's house with a small group of girls.  She had a blast and learned a lot.  In the fall, Adell will head to "transitional-Kindergarten".  

The elementary school band concert.  Lots of amazing music in my life these days!

And the very last day (today).  We made it.  Now, I am going to leave a package of Oreo cookies out on the kitchen table and sleep in tomorrow morning.  

Let summer begin!