Sunset Beach & Labor Day

We went camping for Labor Day again this year. Last year we went to a great campground in Uvas Canyon, but I've been dying for a beach camp experience. Of course, it was much different than my experiences with beach camping in Southern California, but it was still a lot of fun.

 September in NorCal can be chilly. I thought it was going to be colder than it actually was, but at least we were prepared!

 All the pictures I took of him looked like this :)

 After a fun night of camping and a delicious breakfast, we headed to the beach! On our way down we saw at least two dorsal fins. Luckily we had only planned on beach-combing anyway.

Sunset Beach is full of sand dollars! James found quite a few.

Amelia just liked running and trying to scare me with getting too close to the shark infested waters.

The view is quite stunning. The beach is surrounded by large agricultural farms full of lettuces and strawberries. It's quite different from Southern California, but a fun adventure.

Anyone who knows Paul knows he's a sucker for pie. So before heading home we went to Gizdich Ranch. It's a very cute apple farm with amazing pies. Like, seriously the best pie I've ever had.

It was a very relaxing weekend and we got some much-needed r&r! Now it's back to the grind of life.

Point Montara Lighthouse Trip

Back in February we purchased a Lighthouse Passport when we visited the Point Pinos lighthouse in Pacific Grove. Basically when you visit a lighthouse, you get a stamp (or sometimes two!) in your passport. It's been fun to visit several lighthouses in the area in the last couple of months. I love history and old buildings. Lighthouse properties are typically well maintained and offer free or low cost museums.

So far we've visited Point Pinos, Santa Cruz, Pigeon Point, and last week we visited Point Montara.

Point Montara Lighthouse is actually really small. Apparently it started off in Maine, and was auctioned off to a ship captain. No one is quite sure how it came go be at this spot, but it's unique to Northern California. 

I LOVE this lighthouse keepers house. I would live here now and never leave. The property is lush with organic landscaping and I absolutely loved it.

They aren't kidding. It drops off right there and goes waaaay down. 

After exploring the area and getting our stamps we headed to Pacifica where the weather was much warmer and we had a picnic. We are living in an apartment in San Jose right now so the kids need to stretch their legs and run wild. We try to oblige as often as possible.

It was a great day trip! We are loving living so close to the ocean!

Nutshell Updates

Because I have been absent from blogging for so long, I just can't even begin to think of proper updating, so instead, here are our two most recent Christmas letters! They give a pretty good summary of the last couple of years. I can't believe it's been that long since I last updated this blog! Enjoy!

Back to Blogging & Privacy Settings

I started blogging earlier this year over at www.joyfuljourneyings.com. I love it and love that I have a creative outlet, but I've come to realize that I'm not doing a very good job at documenting our family blog/journal. Recently I've become aware and concerned over family safety and privacy issues, and so I will be changing the privacy of this blog. I want to share with anyone I know who is interested in our lives and journeys, I just want to keep the creepers out and my kids safe. If you'd like to stay posted on our family news blog, send me your email and I'll add you to the approved list.

Thanks for understanding!

Going to School

Ever since reading about Stephanie Nielson's tradition of a back to school feast (5 years ago!) I knew I wanted to something similar. James was looking forward to his feast for weeks. He got to pick the menu this year:

Honey Ham

Cucumber Salad

Sweet Potatoes

Hawaiian Rolls

Chocolate Cake

I'm pretty sure he told every random person who would listen about his feast.

 

 Paul and I thought a long time about a simple, yet meaningful family theme for James' first year of school. Our theme comes from Ephesians 4:32: "Kindness begins with me."
We will take this school year to study the life of Christ, who is the perfect example of unfailing kindness.

I ordered our family theme star (also stolen from nienie) from Piggy & Dirt. I absolutely love it and can't wait to have our own collection of beautiful stars to remind us of our themes over the years and to inspire our children to let their examples shine brightly.

At the dinner table we picked pencils with topics out of a jar and discussed all the things that we felt were important to talk about the night before school:

Choosing the Right

Being Kind

Helping Others

Being a Good Example

Listening

Obeying the Rules

There were several gifts on the table for James that related to our family theme.

I got this copper key chain from Littlefield Lane for James to take to school with him (attached to his backpack) as a constant reminder of our family theme.

I decorated crowns from Socials for the kids to remind them that they are children of God.

After dinner James received a priesthood blessing from his dad and we all felt ready for this next phase of life.

Bright and early Thursday morning I drove James to school. There was tearing up on my part, but no crying! James is adjusting to the rules (being quiet, sitting still, etc.), but he's loving Kindergarten!

We did it! We survived the first day of school!

Willardson Family Reunion 2014

Last Christmas my brother gave everyone the gift of a camping trip for Pioneer Day weekend. Let me just preface this by saying that a few of us developed a very serious paranoia regarding BEARS. So, while we were super excited to see each other, my sisters and I were pretty much freaking out about BEARS for months. Paul, my dad, my brother/brother-in-law all just laughed at us and told us how unlikely it was that we would have a BEAR encounter. Well...

We got to drive up through Yosemite to get to June Lake. It was such a gorgeous day and Paul was so happy to finally have a vacation. The kids were really good for the drive. We ran into a little traffic, but it didn't delay us more than an hour.  When we got to camp we promptly set up camp and had fun seeing everyone. We carefully packed all our food and scented items in the BEAR locker before going to bed. We were almost asleep when we heard a very loud pounding noise on the bear locker. I was pretty convinced that it was my brother or my dad playing a prank on us since they knew how scared we were. Paul found the bear locker wide open and the Red Vines were missing. I automatically assumed that a family member in another campsite stole our treat. Paul said he heard something that sounded like a BEAR eating our Red Vines, but it was so dark and all he had was a weak little flashlight. About 30 minutes later we heard more pounding and a neighboring camper yelling "GIT!"

Yep.

BEAR.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep so well that night. Or the next. Or the next.

The next day was filled with some interesting adventures. First we went to Mono Lake to see the tufa rock formations. After that we decided to explore some beaver dams, but the path that one would usually take to visit said beaver dams was too soggy for exploring. The man in the visitor's center told us that there was a little road we could take to see a waterfall so we decided to take our picnic up there. The road was TERRIBLE. Actually, calling it a road is a joke. It was not a road. It was off-roading in fuel-efficient vehicles. I'm surprised my parents' Prius didn't fall apart. Anyway, when we finally got to the top of this road we discovered that the waterfall was less than impressive but decided to eat lunch there anyway. The mosquitos also had lunch.

Mono Lake Tufa

Trying to get a picture with the Tufa

The men

Later that day we decided to go to the beach at June Lake where we were staying. It looked so beautiful from the road. When we got there we realized that sandals were NOT the proper foot attire. The beach was covered in horribly painful little rocks. I think it took me twenty minutes just to walk out there. That being said, once we were in the water it was beautiful and mostly everyone had a good time.

June Lake beach

On Friday some of the men went fishing while the rest of us headed toward civilization and explored the town. It was a cute little town and we had fun going in to all the little shops. That night we went out for pizza in Mammoth Lake and did some night exploring. It was a really great day. The night, however, got a little sketchy when we heard COUGARS and WOLVES. As if that wasn't enough, the pizza apparently didn't sit well with a few people. James threw up everywhere at about midnight. I don't recall sleeping at all that night.

Amelia and her cousin Alice. They are 2 months a part!

The women

Pee-pa and James fishing

Amelia is such a momma's girl right now

at the poison pizza palace. Actually it's called Nik-n-Willie's

On Saturday we went to town and back to Mammoth Lake to spend the day. It was so beautiful. We got ice cream at a cute little toy shop and I think everyone was so relieved that it was our last night sleeping among wild animals that we all finally slept!

Me and my baby sister

 It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we are so happy that we all got to get together. Love my crazy family!