Chumash Houses

Chumash Houses

At Owens’s school today they had a school wide History Fair. The kindergartners had to do a presentation on something related to the Chumash. We decided to learn a few facts about their houses and then build one. We learned: that the houses are called “ap’s, they had holes in the roofs to allow air to circulate, they had fire pits inside, they averaged about 20 feet in diameter and when it rained they covered the top hole with animal skin. I had Owen write all of his facts on a poster board, cut and paste pictures of houses by himself. He did a great job. We then (as a family) made a house. It was a great project to do together.

The start of our "ap," we first took the dowels and soaked them in water so that we could bend them. Then Owen and Tony drilled small holes in the board to place the dowels in. After that we glues burlap over.

The fire pit

The finished product. We used moss to cover the house and the flooring

Owen's poster that he made

Owen in front of his project at school this morning

Please Pray……we will be homeschooling next year!!

Please Pray……we will be homeschooling next year!!

Owen will be in 1^st grade next year and this year has been a bit challenging. Not what we expected kindergarten to be. Owen has had a really hard time being away from home all day especially with Emma home with me.  His day is from 8:15-2, a lot different from three days at preschool l from 8:30-11:30. I volunteered a lot in his class hoping that would help, and it did for the most part. The school is a new school with a lot of needed growth and we were willing to help them with that. Long story but, we received a letter a few weeks ago stating that they will be closing the school at the end of this school year. Kings Academy is / was the only Christian School in Ojai. We really want Owen at a Christian School and with Kings closing we decided that for 1^st year our best option was to home school him. We have a handful of other families that will be doing the same and we plan on meeting up with them weekly. Owen is very excited about this. We are hoping and praying for a positive experience and will relook at the education system for second grade. We have already ordered our curriculum, sonlight.com, if you are interested in checking it out. Pray for Owen and for me during this new and exciting journey that is in our future!!

San Diego for the weekend

San Diego

We took the kids to San Diego last weekend. It was really great to get away for a few days with just us and the kids. We got down there Thursday night and took the kids to Sea World on Friday. The kids really were not into it as much as I had hoped. It is very expensive for what it is. Don’t get me wrong, they have some great exhibits, but it is very costly. I think that maybe they thought there were more rides and things like that. We still had a good time, but did not see the Shamu show. They only had two shows and we missed the first and left around 2:30, kids wanted to go to the hotel and swim. The Sea Lion show was great! The sea lions were completely misbehaving and made for a one of a kind show! The trainers did a great job just going with the flow.

We love the hotel that we stay at. It is across the street from Sea World on Mission Bay. They have three water slides and the kids can roast s’mores at night. We just hung out there all day Saturday and it was great. We were able to meet up with Sherry (friend from High School, actually since Junior High) that lives near there twice. We are hoping to go back in August with a group of friends with kids. All in all we had a great trip! Kids had little colds but they did wonderful!

Nature Walk

Nature Walks

There are some great trails that are about a block up from our house that we started taking the kids and Dakota (5 year old lab) on in the evenings. The kids were a little hesitant at first but now they ask to go on the walk. There is a great Oak Tree that the kids enjoy climbing on and a swing that we stop and play on.

Crazy girl jumping to daddy!!

Owen and Parker

Owen climbing the tree on his own

Daddy is always nervouse with Emma - she is one crazy girl!