More Halloween pics...

Halloween

It was so much fun tonight. We finished carving our pumpkins, got all dressed up, and off we went to play games and trick or treat. Unfortunatly we forgot our pumpkins at the ward and I didn't take pcitures of their pumpkins before we left. They each did a pumpkin and they both turned out way cute. Alyssa was Little Red Riding Hood. SO cute. Isaac ws the Hulk and everyone had something to say about him. He loked great. Kaila was Gabriella. She looked very pretty, but the dress looked so much like a mermaid, that everyone mistaked her for one. I think they had a great time tonight, if their bags are any indication they had a blast. I hope you all had a great time too.

Update for the grandparents

Alyssa is sitting up. Look at those beautiful blue eyes. She has the most beautiful smile. Enjoy!!

Dennis the Menace Park...

A day of exploring...

Today was the first day I really got to use my new GPS system. I've gotta say, if anyone is on the fence about investing in one, I say do it. It's the smartest thing we have done. It has already made such a difference in my liking it here. I don't feel as trapped anymore. Ben and I decided that every weekend we would try to get away and eat somewhere that we couldn't find in Utah and explore our surroundings. Today was our official first day. We went to the library, a new BBQ restaurant and a way fun park. It's called The Dennis the Menace Park. It's so fun. We were really pleased to find the library because they give you a free pass to the aquarium that let's in 6. Unfortunately for us they were all out, but now we can still get some if we're fast enough when they come in once a month. I did find a reading group for Isaac once a week at the library. It'll be great to start finding things to do with Isaac during the week. (since we can't get him into preschool yet.) The GPS system is fabulous for that too. You don't have to know where your going. You can look up attractions and bam, it tells you a whole lot of places you can go too. Hopefully next weekend we can explore some more. Today it was good, it was fun stuff and very little money. If anyone happens to know of any attractions we must see before we leave CA I would appreciate your input. You can leave me a comment or e-mail me at Yolanda_Cook@msn.com. I hope your all doing well, and I really miss all of you. I'd love to hear from you all.

Just catching up...

Some of you have asked how Ben is doing with his schooling. Well, Ben is VERY stressed out, and it's official, he's the oldest guy in his class. The OLDEST. He's having a hard time with that because he thinks the younger one's are learning faster because they are younger. He works alot. All day at school and then hours at home with homework. That means my hours are long too. From where I stand, this is all very stressful. I'm waiting for that trip to Disneyland that was promised. Hopefully that will make it worth while. I have faith in Ben though, and I'm sure he'll be able to pull it all off. Another question that has been asked is how big is our house? It's a four bedroom house, with a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, two hallway closets, and a storage room. It's a decent size house. We could of had a new house, but then we would of only been able to get a 3 bedroom house. I thought because our kids have always had their own room, we couldn't' take that away from them. To be honest, we couldn't take that away from me. Our kids are always fighting. I need a place to send them to where their not always together. So to me, as long as we don't drive by the new houses, I'm happy with our choice to get a old house. Plus, now I'll be excited to go home to my old house that's mine, and not wish I was coming home to a brand new house. So I've got a little rant. How do these Californians live with the freakin beach right here? The water isn't warm, and the sand is a mess!! We go to the beach and bring home loads and loads of sand. Does anyone here have a clean floor? My van has sand, my kids shoes, pants, floors. Everything has sand. The novelty of the beach is starting to wear off on me. No, I'm just ranting, it really is lovely, but I would like to know their secret on keeping the sand out of everything. I finally got a GPS system. I haven't set it up just yet, (staying busy), but as soon as I do, I intend on exploring some. With the GPS system I feel like I have a safety net in case I really get lost. My only real concern now is there's no high tech gadget to drive me around these aggressive drivers. You fans of California, or prior residents, don't jump on me about that comment, this has been my experience so far. Oh, I am now officially a voter here in California. So I am going to be voting YES on proposition 8. I'd like to say sorry if I offend anyone by that, but to be honest, I'm not offended if your voting no, and I wouldn't expect an apology. That's the great thing about being in America, we can all feel the way we feel and still be friends. Kaila is liking her new school so far and I love her teacher. So maybe this will all be a blessing in disguise. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. This school seems very education driven too. I think it'll be good for Kaila, and it doesn't' hurt that I really, really like her teacher. Till next time friends. Take care all.

It's never gonna end...

We arrived here in CA right as school let out for a 2 week break. I thought, great, the timing couldn't be better. We had planned on Kaila attending Marshall Park because it is right here on base maybe a 5 min. walk away from our home. To my surprise and utter dismay, we were told that the school is at maximum capacity and that we can't enroll Kaila in that school. So we have to take her to Martin Luther King Jr. elementary/Jr high school. That's right, grades k-8Th grade all attend the same school. So the school is set up as a sort of Junior high school, complete with its' own officer. Heaven forbid my 2ND grader is late, she'll have to answer to him. Not at all intimidating! Anyway, at Kaila's new school, it's mandatory uniforms. She has to wear black pants or skirt with a white collared shirt. She's really cute in it. The crappy thing, we just did school shopping and are now doing it again. So all of those way cute clothes we just bought her, I guess they are now play clothes. Ironic isn't it? Ben thought we would be making money out here, and instead I think we're spending more money out here. On a lighter note, I love Kaila's teacher already. So far she's made a very good impression on me. Kaila came home happy. That was a huge relief to me because I was really nervous for her having to be the "new" kid in an entirely new environment. She is so much braver than I am though. She talked and interacted. When we went to church on Sunday, I didn't talk to anyone, and no one talked to me. I keep to myself. It's a weakness I wish I didn't have and I really worried that Kaila was the same way, but no, she is stronger than I am and I'm so proud of her. I'll have to learn from her example. As for Isaac, I can't get him in a preschool right now. I might be able to get him in in December, but maybe not. He's so full of energy, he just needs to get out and have friends. Instead, we're stuck here with no one for him to be a crazy boy with. I'm really bumed out about that. This was the year I really wanted him in school and just my luck, he's not. Who's karma am I getting...? Nothing is really working out right out here.

HERE IT IS...

At last the pictures that I promised. Atleast of the outside of our home. Once I've got things in order inside, I will post some of those too.

I will get to it...

Many of you have been asking for pictures of our house and the surrounding areas. I am working on it and I will post them asap. I'm just trying to get things settled first, but I'll get it soon.

Update for the grandparents

Alyssa just rolled over today all by herself. She did it like a pro. I've been wondering when she was going to do it. Then today when we were recording her, I realized the poor girl doesn't get one second alone. I'm convinced she's been doing it on her own in the crib. That would explain her different positions. Watch the video and you can tell she's finally decided to show us what shes capable of. You'll also see that she's malled. It's a constant thing. She's gonna be tough!! I've tryed for 2 days to get the video to work, and it just won't work. Sorry.

Pictures

I had to include these pictures. There just too beautiful to not show. They really don't do what we've see justice, but it's still a little peak at the beauty we've seen so far.

Petting the birds

On Monday Ben had the day off so we went to the warf again. It was really fun. There's always so much to see. That was the day we went on the boat ride, but we also got to see how taffy is made, and the kids, all 3 of them got to hold birds. The funny thing, they got ones that matched their shirts, atleast Kaila and Isaac did. I'm not sure what Alyssa thought, but it was great to get pictures of it anyway.

Funny story. Isaac has been really testing his limits lately. I think it's the whole new environment. Anyway, he was acting up in the car and I said, "Isaac your going to go to time out for 5 minutes when we get home." Isaac in his sweet innocence says, "no mommy, can I please do 8 minutes?" I laughed and said, "sure, if that makes you feel better." A few minutes later it must of clicked that 8 minutes was more than 5 minutes and he says, "Augh, mommy, oops, I'll do 5 minutes." It was so funny how he said it. I took his sentence away. He carried on the whole conversation with such maturity. It was so cute.

Pictures of California...Beautiful

This ones for the grandparents

Alyssa's started eating solids. She enjoys eating rice, but not much else in the baby food catagory. If you gave her a taste of food off your plate, she loves that. She's really funny, she's learned to scream, (thanks to Isaac). So she will scream until we give her some food. We love you guys.

Just Ranting

If I had had a better sense of humor, there would be pictures following some of this ranting, but for obvious reasons a sense of humor alluded me for this particular incident. Okay here it is... We had just gotten into our house, the second day to be exact, and I couldn't get the dryer to work. Thankfully there was a clothes line outside. Well, the kids and I had just gotten back from the park and Kaila was complaining about sand everywhere on her. So I started the bath for her and assumed that she would turn it off. I went outside and started hanging up clothes. It took me about 10-15 minutes to hang up all of the clothes. When I went into the house I was shocked to find that the floor was covered in water up to my ankles, EVERYWHERE!! I ran into the bathroom and Kaila was just sitting there enjoying herself. I just lost it, I felt like that was the straw that broke the camels back, I officially hated California. It was such a big mess that I had Kaila and Isaac run next door to get help. It just so happens that our neighbors are the maintance guys. I was so stressed out by all of the water and everything of ours was still in boxes, and in comes these guys that take one look at the mess and start smiling. Are you KIDDING me? I felt a little less bad at letting them help me clean up the mess, if they thought it was so funny then by all means, join in the fun by cleaning up. So now it's been a week and I can laugh about it. I just hope Sam and Jen are taking care of our house better than we've managed to take care of this one. I have to say that we did get the water picked up quickly and a dehumidifier set up that absorbed all of the water we couldn't see, so at the end of all of it, nothing was damaged. The next thing that made me want to be home; Ben and I went to the church twice to figure out where it was and to find someone to ask what time our church would start. We finally found some missionaries that told us that church was at 9:00. So on Sunday Ben and I show up at 9. We were actually 10 minutes early! I was really proud of ourselves. We have to drive to this church and made it early, at home we have to cross the street and are generally late, or just barely on time. Hm, I don't get why, but anyway...we get there and sit through all of sacrament. The sacrament room was filled with children. I was thinking, "wow, this will be great for the kids." Then at the end of sacrament we find out that we're in the wrong ward. WHAT?!! I am so out of my comfort zone here. I know no one and here I have just sat through sacrament meeting where I don't see a familiar face anywhere and we were in the wrong meeting!! So that just frustrated me. We're gonna have to do it again next Sunday. I had hoped by next Sunday to have at least one friend, no such luck. Then, as I've already written about, we had to re due our entire bathroom before we left, and I come here to a bathroom that was filled with mold. Then we get our house and it's got an old kitchen and hard wood floors. All the work we put into our house and I get the before version of it. Ironic ha? I think once I've got all of the boxes unpacked and everything in it's place and pictures on the wall, maybe it will be more bearable. Right now I'm just so home sick. I have no friends here, and I don't know my way around anywhere. I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I know, so I don't even dare try exploring. I got lost once when we first moved into our house back home. Kaila and I went for a walk and ended up so lost that I had to say a prayer and go knock on someones door who actually ended up taking us back home. Pathetic, I know but that's my sense of direction for you. I have countless other stories too. I'm also not use to such aggressive drivers and so little customer service. It's just hard right now. I'm so lonely and discouraged right now. Ben on the other hand seems to be having a good time. He loves to explore and see new places. He's really sweet too, he's really trying to make me feel at home here by working really hard to get things put away and pictures hung up. He's started school already, and I know it's stressful. He's one of the oldest ones in the class, (he's only 28). He's also one of the few students who has a family. I guess most of the students there are right out of highschool or bootcamp and so it's just them. So he's got his work cut out for him. He has to be dad and husband as well as student, while the young guys get to just be students. I have confidence in him though. I know he can do it. He's a smart guy. I hope to hear from some of you soon, and hope that all is well with all of you.

October 13, Boat ride

On Monday we took the kids down to Fisher mans warf. We took a ride on a boat named mermaid, it advertised a glass bottom. I thought it would be awesome to be able to look at the ocean from the bottom of the boat, but it was so dark and dirty looking that we couldnt' see anything. Once I got past that dissapointment, it was really neat to look over the boat and see all of the seals. The kids really enjoyed themselves. It was such an amazing view. I hope you don't mind that my blog is primaraly pictures for now. You have to see the view. Oh, and not to rub it in for those of you dealing with coldness and snow, but it was beautiful here. Definatly had to pull out the shirt sleeved shirts, and flip flops. I kept telling Ben, 'it's nuts to know that back home its snowy and cold and here we are wearing summery clothes." So enjoy our pictures of warmth and sunshine, and in return I would like pictures on someone's blog of the snow. Exspecially when Christmas rolls around. It's not christmas to me without snow.