Sunday, March 15, 2015

Pompeii

I took the kids on Saturday to the Pompeii exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.  This traveling exhibit had original artifacts from the excavated site.  It was amazing to think that the objects you were looking at were almost 2,000 years old.

The Pompeiians were a pretty advanced culture with theatres and bath houses that included heated and cooled pools.  Also included in the exhibit were gladiator armor, glass vessels, medical implements and kitchen wares.

The grand finale of the exhibit were the body casts of some of the victims.  Scientists seem to think that people were killed pretty much instantly in a giant wave of heat.  The heat was enough to kill them, but not to burn the bodies so that when the ash fell, it encased the bodies.  Back in the mid 1800s  an archaeologist figured out a way to pour plaster in the crevice made by the decomposed body and to therefore make a cast of the person.  They were amazing in detail, but pretty creepy too.

fishing hook and weights (there must have been some big fish!)

2,000 year old glass jug

Gladiator helmet

Body cast


This was a pregnant lady
While waiting in line to get in, I realized that I had actually been to the real Pompeii back when I lived in France.  Cannon was laughing at me for having forgot.  Getting old is not fun!

Also while we were waiting our turn, we took these selfies to pass the time.  I love the last one!








Saturday, March 14, 2015

Super Pi Day

Did you know that once a year there is a holiday known as Pi Day?  No, I'm not misspelling it, Pi Day takes place on March 14th - and when the date is written in numerical form it is 3.14 as in the mathematical ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. 

This year was a once in a lifetime occasion - Super Pi Day - because the date was 3.14.15, which happens to be the first 5 numbers in Pi.

So in honor of Super Pi Day, we made a Super Pie - brownie crusted, mint Oreo, grasshopper pie.  It was delish!


The matching Pi brothers!


Sunday, March 8, 2015

Piano recitals

Cannon has been playing piano for six years now, but Emmy just started in December.  She has been very diligent about practicing and is convinced she will soon be better than Cannon.  I love her confidence!

Today their piano teacher hosted a small recital in which they both played.  This was Emmy's first recital and she did great!




Kassia, their teacher, put a twist on this recital and made it about music history so each student had to give a short speech about their piece before playing.

This is Cannon playing Sonatina in A Minor


Next up was Emmy with Ode to Joy and Russian Sailor Dance


Cannon played a second piece, Tarrantala Espangnole




So proud of my kids!




Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Emmy's new do

Emmy decided that before we move to South Carolina, she wants a new haircut.  Shorter so it's easier to deal with in the pool.  Originally, this cut was supposed to take place right before we left, but this week she decided she wanted it sooner.  So I took her to my stylist to get it chopped.

The client before Emmy had a cute little dog that Emmy was loving on.  Here's her impression of the dog's hair...


Before...

After...

My beautiful girl




Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Field trip

Emmy and London have been working hard all year in school - I'm really impressed with how excited they are every day to get to lessons and learn.  Since we just finished our science curriculum on animals and since they both memorized all the state capitals, I promised them a field trip.

We started the day with breakfast at Shakabra where they have plate sized pancakes with a whole list of possible add-ins.  These pancakes are massive, but London somehow managed to eat the whole thing.  He even impressed the waiter!




From breakfast, we went to the zoo where we had a beautiful, cool day to enjoy the exhibits.


London's favorite - Myrna, the gyrfalcon

Emmy and the tigers



Saturday, February 21, 2015

Mexico Mission

Every February our church sends a group of students and adults down to Tiajuana, Mexico to build houses for families through an organization called Amor.  Last year, Cannon invited Stevie to go while I took Emmy and London to St. Louis.  This year we switched positions and I got to go to Mexico while Stevie went to St. Louis.

This was such an amazing trip that it's hard to sum it up in a few words in this post.  It was amazing because we were able to build a house for a family in 3 1/2 days.  It was amazing because I got to see how hard my son works and how good he is at speaking Spanish.  It was amazing because I met new friends.  It was amazing because I got to be a part of a tight community brought together by hard work, dust, sweat and bare-boned living.  It was amazing because I unplugged from a technology infested world for a week and didn't miss it.  It was amazing to see what God does in people's lives.  And to top it all off, it was amazing weather.

In a nut shell, here's what we did:

Flew to San Diego very early Sunday morning.




Crammed 10 vans and two Penske trucks full of people and supplies and drove across the border and into Mexico.  Set up camp on a dry, dusty field somewhere outside of Tiajuana.  There were 117 of us!  I shared a tent with 2 other ladies, Jessica and Beth.

That wall on the hill is the border between Mexico and the US

Me and my tent mates

Home sweet home for a week

Every day we ate meals and had fellowship in a big circus tent.

Monday morning, we drove in a caravan of vans among the rutted, unpaved roads dodging dogs and people and crazy drivers until we got to our site.


The roads
Immediately we got to work - our team, No Pollos! (meaning we're not chicken), was made up of 5 adults and 11 teenagers.  Our pastor, Mark, was on our team and let me tell you, that man can work!  Half our team started on the foundation of the house while the rest of us started framing the walls.  Cannon chose cement and I chose framing as I wanted to hone my hammering skills.

The site when we started.

Making walls

Cannon and his cement mixing mask
 By the end of the first day we had a foundation poured (all the concrete is mixed by hand) and 5 walls made (all the lumber was cut by hand and all nails hammered by hand).

 

At the end of the day, you just want a shower, but the showers are a bit basic - like a gallon of water in the bottom of a five gallon bucket.  It made for quick showers!

Day 2 - after breakfast and quiet time, we headed out early again to work.  On the second day, you put the walls up and then the roof

walls going up


The house is a two room structure with a concrete floor, a door and two windows, a roof and stucco outside.  That's about it.  No interior walls.  No plumbing.  No wiring.  No carpet and bead board and crown molding.  And consider that is luxury for most families.

The house is together!
 At lunch we'd pause and eat our sack lunches.  The mom of the family (Patty, who was 20 years old) offered us some horcheta (a rice milk drink) but we politely declined.  We all wanted to be able to finish the house without spending the rest of the trip in the hospital.  She then offered us a courtyard to sit in, which we gratefully accepted since the weather was warm and the sun shining.


With the walls up, we started the roof while others ran baling wire all around the house in 4 inch strips Which then had to be pulled tight.  The wire provides the support for the tar paper which goes on the house next.



This afternoon, neighborhood kids started showing up.  They were curious and wanted to help. We would give them candy and other left overs from our lunches and try to talk with them in our very limited Spanish.


All the sand had to be sifted from a big rock pile.



The view from our site - that's a road in front.
 The house by the end of day 2 - beginning to look like a house!


Inside the house


Day 3 starts the same as days one and two.


Cannon and his friends, Eric and Casey


We started Day 3 by wrapping the entire house with a layer of chicken wire.  The chicken wire gives the stucco something to stick to.


And then the stucco starts going on.


Stucco, in case you didn't know, is cement without the rocks.  Which means more cement needed to be made and more sand needed to be sifted.  The neighborhood kids showed up again and they wanted to help!  As soon as they saw us shoveling sand into the mixing pans, they grabbed shovels and started helping.


Then they took over the job of taking stucco to the people slapping it on the walls.


Even this little guy was carrying big dollops of stucco - he was so cute!


About half way through the afternoon I turned around and saw a whole herd of goats coming down the street.  There was a man herding them up the street like it's what you do.


Working together - big and small


At the end of day 3 - we have only one more coat of stucco to finish!


Right before dinner we were treated to a beautiful sunset.


Day 4 is a big, powerful day.  We accomplish our mission today and finish the house and turn the keys over to the family.

After putting on the final coat of stucco, we added a few finishing touches - like cleaning the windows, laying a rock border for drainage and pouring a small front porch.

Final coat of stucco is on

The finished inside.
 We had our last lunch inside the house.




Then Patty (the new owner) put Jesus' (her son) hand prints in the porch.


We finish by having a "key ceremony" where we present the family with the keys to the door.  The keys were first passed around to everyone to say something to Patty (we never did see her husband who we assumed was away working).  Cannon and another kid, Nolan, translated for us.


Our team leader also gave her a Spanish Bible.


Jesus and his new soccer ball
 Our team and the house.



The evening was filled with a special worship with lots of tears and laughs.  It was a hard, gritty week that I would do again in a heart beat.  Cannon has said he will come back next year from Hilton Head - it was that great.


Friday we packed up the entire camp and then headed back across the border.  We didn't have a problem getting across and were at Moonlight Beach State Park in Encinitas by noon.  We had to hang out there until we could get into our hotel rooms.  We were all dying for those showers!  But hanging out on the beach was fun and eating some good Mexican was good too.  Cannon actually went in the ocean!  The water temperature was 62 degrees.  The kid is crazy!

One of those fools is Cannon







That night we had a bonfire on the beach then all met back up in our groups to have the Great Affirmation.  It's a time to share compliments about the other people on your team from what you have observed from the week.  It was really neat as a mom to hear what others had to say about your son.  And it was really touching to hear what the kids had to say about me.

Saturday morning we headed out to Mission Beach where we had a few hours before catching our flight home.  I had contacted my friend Suzanne who lives in San Diego so she met me there and we had a long walk and lunch.


Waiting for our flight - tired, but happy!