I ditched Facebook

I'm feeling excited to have deactivated my Facebook account. I've pondered doing so for years, but I've never had the nerve to let go. It was a really arduous decision, as I love keeping in touch with friends and family, and the wealth of information I attained from carefully selected Facebook groups has been really helpful to me as a parent (aka the hardest job ever).

However, while I already have struggles focusing on the most important things in my life, my Facebook feed was making this even more difficult for me. I pared down my friend list, I signed off for days at a time, I stayed conscience of how much time I spent on Facebook at one time. But no matter how hard I tried to avoid wasting time on Facebook, I'd always get back to a point where I was just browsing my feed, wasting my precious time.

I'll never get that time back, but I look forward with excitement at the times ahead, when I can share my thoughts here instead. maybe I can keep up now that I have no Facebook and a blogging app on my phone! Here's to hoping.

Big Bear Lake 2013

Last year around this time, we went to Big Bear with Scott and Holly (AKA Uncle Scott and Meme).  Chris and Scott went snowboarding.  We hiked from the back yard of the cabin.  We enjoyed watching other people skiing and snowboarding.  We enjoyed the fireplace.  We ate snow.  We sledded in various places.  We had a blast!  

I'm excited to be going to Big Bear again next week.  This year, more than a few things are different.  There likely won't be as much snow (uh, winter seems to have missed southern CA this year); Luke is running (last year he wasn't even walking); and we are staying in a different cabin.  I'm sure it will be a completely different trip this year.  But I'm looking forward to making new memories.

Here are some photos from last year's trip to Big Bear.

Chris and Scott after snowboarding.  

Wrestling can definitely precede walking.

Hiking!

nom nom

sliding down

two sleeping boys on mommy and daddy :)

Rancho Mirage, CA

Chris is on a 10-day work assignment just south of Palm Springs, and the boys and I joined him for a few days in the desert town of Rancho Mirage.  I had never been to "the desert" before and had debated whether it would be worth the 2-hour trek. I am so glad we went!  It was beautiful and so different than any other place I had ever been. Everything was sandy and dry, with very little green foliage, and even the architecture was different.

The highlight of our trip was a hike in Indian Canyons, which was about 30 minutes from our hotel.  In Andreas Canyon, there is a stream that never dries up.  Next to the stream are beautiful, tall palm trees--in the middle of the desert!  I took so many photos.  This place really took my breath away and was one of the top 5 most beautiful places I have ever been (also on my list of most beautiful places I have visited are the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland and Ancient Rome).  Unfortunately, Chris had to work the whole time, so he couldn't come with us.  I must give credit to our friend Katie who told me about this hike.

Here are some of my favorite photos from our hike.

The road that leads into the canyons

The ranger said this stream never dries up.

keeping my promise to include myself in more photos :)

For most of the hike, John ran ahead of me and Luke.  

Luke never turned around while climbing this high.
He slid down on his belly.
Some women passing by thought I was completely nuts, I'm sure, for letting him do this.

Luke wanted so badly to climb that rock, too.

Luke had a lot of fun playing in the sand along the way.

They just played and played in their own worlds.

Called on my time in Girl Scouts to use a stick because I forgot to pack spoons.

Looking down from the canyons

January 2014

I have more than 500 photos from January.  And we didn't even go on vacation!  I thought I would share some of my favorites, which highlight some things we did in January:

Hammering golf tees into styrofoam

 

While everywhere else, temperatures were freezing, we were playing in the water.

No, not push-ups--Luke was lying like this and giggling as he splashed his feet into the water.

More water play

We spent a lot of time in our yard in January.

This month the boys dressed up like cowboys, pirates, monkeys, and firemen.

Fireman John

Fireman Luke

Monrovia Friday Night Street Fair 

John loves to ride his bike around town.

Luke loves to ride his bike around town, too.

We went with friends to see the Rose Parade floats.

Hiking in Monrovia Canyon

Luke "reading" to John

We drew a town (credit to Aunt Nancy for the inspiration).

Luke loves to help.  Here, he is washing lemons from our neighbor's tree.

At the advice of some wise mamas I know, I have started trying to take more "selfies" with my kids.  There is a real deficiency of photos that include me.  I'm going to work on fixing that.  Here is the first one I took with this plan in mind.

Smoothie time!

impromptu smoothie "art"

John and some friends working very hard to figure out how to get a log up the hill

Magic show at an indoor play place

I got the idea a few years ago from the internet to make a hammock under the table with my woven wrap (usually used to carry babies and small children).  The boys LOVED their hammock!

Luke's first time sitting in the hammock

room for two!

John and Chris had some fun with mud.

We all had a great time at our friend's high school basketball game.

John chose their outfits.  I told him we were going to a basketball game, so he decided they should wear their jerseys.

John has been taking a lot of initiative lately to create various things from paper, scissors, string, tape, crayons, markers, and other similar materials.  One day during quiet time, he spent an entire hour working on creating this costume, which he made from paper, felt, scissors, and tape.  He then put on his costume to show to Luke when he woke up from his nap.

Meme came to visit.

The boys and their Meme had fun using the camera timer to take pictures of themselves.

Chris and I went on lots of "date nights" during January. I love this photo.

Family photo before the boys stayed home with their Meme and made
dinner together (personal pizzas) while Chris and I went on date night.

Our Winter garden includes an abundance of kale and tomatoes and
also some spinach, chard, strawberry plants, beans, and flowers.

 

We picked grapefruits at Aunt Sherry's house.

Visiting with Aunt Sherry

Our favorite past time in the car is looking for jet streams.
I took this photo for the boys while I was working at the coffee chop. It made me think of them.