Santa Margarita

so beautiful!

Almost finished!

Here is a picture of Jordan's room so far. She has worked diligently on it and we are both thrilled with the progress. We've all been cleaning and organizing around here lately. Alex cleaned out the piano bench and we found a music newspaper dated 1903. We also found many items belonging to the former owner. We saved most of them. Jordan took some of the old sheet music and made cards with it - how creative. We're not sure who the first owner was, but the last owner had musical programs, report cards and newspaper clippings from the 1950s. She also had tons of sheet music - some pieces she wrote. Very cool.
We ate a zucchini from the garden yesterday! yay! Lot's growing. Our lettuce didn't seem to make it, so I tried one more batch - I think it's too late, but I wanted to try anyway. I can't wait for the tomatoes! The peacocks seem eager to clean up all of the beans, we're trying to keep them out of the garden so the beans have a chance.
Almost summer!

Let the fun begin

lovely lavender!

Tide pool & beach fun!

What a fun home school day. We heard it was going to be a big negative tide so we called some friends and headed down to the beach. What fun! We had a great time and saw starfish, sea slugs, crabs, etc. It was a beautiful day and a great reminder why we home school, also why we live in southern California!

it all started here...

I came across this picture of Alex when I was looking for pictures for Alex's graduation ceremony - sob! I'm not ready for this. Anyway, it's funny how when your kids are little and they say they want to be a firefighter or a pilot or whatever you think they'll grow out of it. Well, Alex didn't grow out of wanting to be a pilot. He almost has his private pilot's license! We're so happy for him.

the garden is in!

yay! I'm so thrilled and relieved. We planted a bit smaller garden this year, but will for sure have plenty of yummy veggies to eat and share. We also planted a bunch of gourds, so we hope to be able to make them into birdhouses to sell at the local farmers market in the fall. We started the garden last weekend and finished it up on Mother's day. I was so happy. I realized how truly sick I am that I was out in garden on Mother's day, when I should have been in the house relaxing. But I really love the garden. I read a quote the other day -
"The purpose of agriculture is not the production of food, but the perfection of human beings". I loved that.
One of our sweet chickens died yesterday - Patty! She didn't seem well, and we found her this morning. bummer.
We're making headway in Jordan's room - the painting will begin today or tomorrow. We can't wait.
Attached is a picture of my sweet babies! When they were still sweet! :)