Grandparents visit for Halloween

Halloween week has been fun. It started with cub scout pack meeting featuring a traditional doughnut-on-a-string eating contest. Nathaniel has a huge smile on his face while he's trying to get his doughnut. This is one of his last pack meetings before he goes into boy scouts.Grandma and Grandpa Johansen drove down to see our new house. Nathaniel received a basketball as an early birthday present and he enjoyed learning some skills with Grandpa.

Then we decided to see something new in our area. We went to a teaching zoo at a local community college. It was small and a little sleepy, but it was OK.

There were cockroaches to hold

and condor silhouettes.

It was a very pretty day though. Pretty good for Oct 30.

This was Davis' Halloween Costume. He wore it to a Stake dance and the ward Trunk or Treat. Since Halloween was on a Sunday we didn't plan to go trick or treating, and neither of the boys seemed that keen on it. We bbq-ed with the grandparents and watched a couple movies and met a couple neighbors when they came trick or treating to our door.

We took a drive to the beach to get out of the house. We're looking for a new favorite beach - I don't think this is it, but it was OK.

The boys liked fighting with bamboo sticks they found on the beach.

The life guards aren't around this time of year to enforce the rules about bamboo stick fighting on the lifeguard towers. We'll keep looking for the perfect beach. In the mean time, ask yourself if you wouldn't rather be on a sunny beach instead of the cold state you live in right now... We have a guest room and soon we'll be done with the master closet so we don't have to store all of our clothes in the guest room closet. Come see us - there are vacancies available for the holidays!

Nearing the end of the season

Davis is near the end of the cross country season. He is running 4 minutes faster for a 5k (3.1miles) than he was at the beginning of the season. Friday was the Ventura County Championship meet at Lake Casitas and he ran about 2minutes faster than he did at an invitational on the same course about a month ago. Its been a very fun season and he's done a great job. I love going to the meets.

Where has October gone?

I decided it was time to finish the entryway. One wall was unprimed texturizer and the other was halfway painted with yellow by the previous owner and left that way. So I taped all the carpet edges on the stairs (wish I'd have done that wall before the carpet went in) and primed everything. I tested painting over the yellow paint edge but the yellow was a different finish than the white they were painting over, so the new paint had a different sheen on the two surfaces. It seemed better to prime everything.
The flash washes out the picture, but the color is a darker peat. It looks much better now. Now for painting the living room...

The only costume I am making this year (that I know of) is Nathaniel's, so we went all out on it. He had a homemade bow made out of a bent stick and string from a friend that he wanted to use. And after seeing a make-your-own moccasin kit at the scout shop, he knew he had to be an indian (or blond indiginous north american).

We found some cool embroidered buckskin-like fabric and a ready-made war bonnet.

Little Hiawatha is on the war path.

Not sure what we'll do on Halloween since it is on Sunday this year. Tomorrow the elementary is having a fall carnival, to which the kids can wear costumes, and next Saturday there is a trunk-or-treat at the church so he will get plenty of costume time and candy. Maybe Sunday will be a night to sit on our porch and give out candy and try to meet neighbors. I wonder what trick or treating will be like in this neighborhood...

Not much work getting done

Not much work is getting done nowadays - none that make anything look different anyway. Chris finished gluing down the vinyl in the master bath. I cleared out the last few boxes from the loft. I'm trying to get the garage cleared out so we can park both cars in it (my neighbor laughed because it is almost unheard of to use your garage to park cars in. Everyone fills their garages with junk or makes them into bonus rooms or laundry rooms.)
To get rid of the last few boxes in the garage (after I organized the boxes of food storage) I needed to find a place to put all of our framed pictures until I can put them up. Now, I really need someone to visit me and tell me where to hang them all. Just give me decorating advice. I won't even make you do any of the work hanging them.

So, the only home improvement work I got done was painting the closet under the stairs just off the entry way. White - very exciting.

But then this weekend we had a S.Pas. visitor. Nathaniel's buddy from our street came and stayed over. So much fun. They have missed each other. They spent time in the spool (spa-pool) and Davis joined in to "help" set up the pirate island.

Nathaniel took us to Satwiwa - the National Forest area where his school visits once a month to hike and plant native plants to restore the biome.

We hiked up below Mt. Boney.

The trail goes all the way to the ocean (8 miles from parking lot to beach - good mtn bike ride I've heard).

Then we had lunch in the shade near the Chumash interpretive center.

And the boys had a rousing game of tar-and-seashell-filled-walnut-shells. Anything can be fun when you do it with a friend.