My two year old is demented.... 

she takes after her dad.

Yesterday Ben and I went on a 7 mile hike at Garrapata State Park.  You see, we are preparing for a trip to Kauai next week where we will be hiking the Napali Coast Line!!  All in all we will be doing about 15 miles in two days.  We're pretty pumped.  

Here are some amazing pics from our trial run:

And this is just ten miles from our house!

Can you see Hwy. 1 down there?

These pics turned out a little hazy, I guess because I was using my camera phone... they don't really do it justice!

So, Ben totally biffed it.  In all fairness, I think I got in his way.  We were going down a steep incline and he kind of tripped on my heel and lost his balance.  It was kind of funny because it took him a really long time to fall... you know he had almost hit the ground but kept trying to regain his footing and I was trying to catch him, but yeah, he ended up on his back in the bushes.  His 30 lb. pack didn't help.  

The California poppies in all their splendor

We came across this rowdy group.  They yelled to us, "Come on over!  Are you thirsty?  Come have a drink!"  So we went over and they were part of a "Tuesday night wine tasting/hiking club" or something like that.  Seriously.  They said they do this every Tuesday night.  This is why Californians are so chill.

Pacific Ocean

 

Chores

Believe it or not, my girls are having a great time in these pictures.  When I ask, "Who wants to help me clean the toilets?!" they stop what ever they are doing, yell "Meeee!!"  and make a mad dash for the bathroom.  However, their immense enthusiasm is directly disproportional to their actual effectiveness in cleaning the toilet.  They just like to stir that wand around in the water.  I do the real scrubbing.  I figure when they finally gain the skills needed to scrub it clean, they'll have lost all interest.  Sigh.  

Despite their obsession with cleaning toilets I can't elicit the same excitement when it comes to other chores.  In the past when I've asked Emily to pick up her toys, she looks up at me and calmly says, "No.  I don't want to."  As if!  I swear I never so brazenly talked to my mom like that, especially as a four year old!  But my wise sister who is a mother-of-five tells me kids are more headstrong and obstinate these days because the Lord has saved them for the latter days to fight against Satan whose influence is stronger than ever.... I'll take it!  But, in the meantime, I've got to deal with an obstinate four year old.  So, I created this handy dandy chore chart.  I'm pretty proud of it I must say. 

As you can see, she's not too great at cleaning her room before bed

And Em is all over it. At first I was trying to figure out what kind of reward I should attach, but for the time being, putting a star on the square is reward enough!  Em is asking me in the middle of the day if she can set the table just so she can put a star on her chart.  She was so funny the other day.... I had set the table because she was out with her dad.  After dinner she put a star on her square.  "What are you doing Emily?"  She replied all proudly, "I set the pepper."

Of course making a chore chart for Em brings back memories of the "job lists" my mom made for us eight kids.  Each summer and school year she would come up with a new list as we graduated to more advanced chores.  There was a lot of anticipation waiting for the new lists to come out. My all time favorites?  Unloading the dishwasher (ironic because it's my least favorite now) and watering the plants.  My least favorite?  Vacumming the edges, which involved me on my hands and knees going through the whole house (including the stairs mind you) with the vacuum hose.  And when I was a teenager, the all time worst was sweeping and mopping the tile floor in our new house.  For whatever reason, my mom picked out white tile that went through most of the main floor and every Saturday I had to sweep it and mop it and it took me a good hour (which was an eternity back then).  Then my mom would inspect it and I swear I always had to do part of it over again!

What were your least favorite chores?

Slim Pickings

Today was one of those very bad horrible no good days.  We went berry picking. Sounds like a great activity with the kids, right?  After all, these here parts contain the heartland of America's produce, including yummy delicious strawberries.  We eat our fair share, let me tell you. I had organized this activity for our church play group... everyone was excited for the outing.  Little did I know it was doomed (for us anyway) from the beginning.

We had to scramble this morning to meet at the church by 9:30.  My daughters are by far the slowest eaters on the planet.  Caroline took her usual three bites of oatmeal and then announced she was done and wanted down.  But I wasn't having it today.  I knew if I let her down  as soon as we got in the car she would squeal she was hungry and demand chocolate chips.  So, I insisted she have five more bites.  After 30 minutes of crying and protesting she finally relented (only after, of course, I had added a little more agave and cinnamon to her bowl).  We were finally on our way... met everyone at the church and then jumped on Highway 1 towards Watsonville, when Caroline proceeded to vomit up her breakfast.  Doh! That's what I get.  It was all over her, in her hair, down her chest, all over her clothes and the car seat. Who knew eight bites could be so much? So, I took a detour home, gave her a bath, changed clothes, cleaned out the car seat, and was back on the highway.  When we finally arrived about 11:30, most of the moms from the ward were finished picking and were on their way out.  Em saw her beloved friend Elsa long enough just to get mad when she was gone, "Where'd Elsa go?!  I want to find Elsa!" 

Here are the only pics I took from our ill-fated adventure:

If you can't tell from these pics, C did most of the picking while Em did most of the eating

Hard at work

Yeah, she pretty much just stood around and waited for us to drop berries in her bucket.  

After picking for a little while, we headed over to the barn where they sell renowned fruit pies and pastries.  We stood in line for a long time... me anticipating a slice of raspberry pie and Em a bowl of ice cream.  I saw they offered ice cream with strawberries on top...  I thought this would be absolute paradise for Em since it was the glorious fusion of her two favorite foods.  Apparently, I do NOT know my daughter.  You see, there can be absolutely NO TOUCHING of berries and ice cream.  Her world evaporated in an instant when she saw that her ice cream was contaminated with strawberries.  It was meltdown time.  I'll spare you the details, but it was ugly.  VERY ugly.  But I happily sat and ate my pie and Caroline happily ate my ice cream, but Em's poor bowl of ice cream and strawberries ended up in the trash :(

Impure ice cream, sadly destined for the garbage can

Oh, and in case you're wondering why she couldn't just eat my ice cream that came with the pie, well, it had a few raspberry swirls in it... the very idea!


So, I think I'm done with ambitious outings with my girls for awhile now.  I'm not taking them anywhere unless their dad comes too!  Thankfully, he literally just finished his last final, so I must go now so we can celebrate!  Ice cream topped with strawberries perhaps?