Goodbye California

A long, long, long time ago, in a land far, far, far away, we moved.  I will now attempt to reach far back into my memory, and catch up.  It's probably going to take a long time, so make sure you're good and rested before you start this.

The end of school days were filled with reports, and moldy rice (science experiment), and activities, and awards.

 Field Day Fun.  Not exactly how it was when I was a kid.

 This was the third time that Madelyn has been student of the month, but only the first time we've gone to the "ceremony".  It was funny because there were FIVE other kids from our church who were getting it at the same time!

 Joe graduated too!!!

As hard as it was, this was such a great opportunity for Joe.  He really enjoyed learning the Iraqi dialect, learning about the Iraqi culture, and his teachers were wonderful!  And can I just take this moment to brag about my awesome husband? He now speaks Spanish, Korean, and Iraqi.  Plus he is proficient (understands it, tests out of it, but doesn't speak it well) in Portuguese and Italian.  This despite the fact that we're pretty sure he's dyslexic.  He has worked soooooooo hard to learn these languages, and I am so proud of him!

Here's our traditional wall of art for the school year...well, actually it's for the past two years.  We never took anything down last year.

 

We kind of got a head start on our move, because we actually moved out of our house in May, but didn't leave California until June.  This saved us some money, and it's a good thing, because the housing nickel and dimed our butts. Seriously, never live in Pinnacle housing - NEVER!  We moved into our trailer for the rest of our time in CA, which wasn't bad at all. We got out a lot, and drove a LOT, because we wanted to see/do everything one last time.

 

One last time eating clam chowder at the Wharf.

 One last time getting fresh guacamole from the farm stand in Carmel Valley.

 One last time driving along the coast.

 Stopping at the spot where John Denver died.

 One last time at Cannery Row.

 Finally saw the Carmel Mission - very pretty - don't know why we never went there before.

 p.s. Joseph made a model of this mission for a school project, which we never took a picture of :(

I'm definitely going to miss living near the ocean!

 

And of course we had to say goodbye to all of our friends.

 

 

I really need to take more pictures of my friends! I don't even have a picture of me with some of them!  I miss my friends - they were the best part of California.  Even better than the ocean :)

 

Cora was not with us for all of this, because she left for Utah with Marie and Antione when they came to visit.  But more about that in the next post.



Last, Last, Last Call

After we had our "last" visit, we were lucky enough to get two more visits.  First from Joe's parents.  They were only here a couple of days, but we took them to see the redwoods, which they hadn't seen before.

And then Marie and Antione came with their kids.

 We tried out a new beach that we hadn't been to before, the Carmel River Beach.  There was a HUGE hill of sand (that's Alex up on top)...

...and on one side was the ocean...

...and on the other side it was more like a lake.

Even though the sand was better on the ocean side (not to mention the ocean), we stayed on the "lake" side because the water was shallow and calm and warm, and because that's where all the other people were, including all the kids that our kids befriended.  They befriended the kid with the kayak.

They befriended the kids with the huge floating living room.

And Alex befriended a cute little girl that he couldn't get enough of ;)

 AJ befriended the sand...

 ...and the laundry basket back at home.

Marie and I took this selfie...

...and laughed because we thought we had nice smiles for it, but, not so much. Plus our hair is all crazy, plus I need new sunglasses that don't make me look like a bug ;)

 We went to Phil's Fish Market one last time, and we timed our departure perfectly, with the setting of the sun.

 Perfect.

 

And now we move.

No Words

If pictures are worth a thousand words, then here are twelve thousand words....without any actual words....so you can see some of the things we've been up to in the last couple of months.