Pinterest Project #1- Death Star Pastel Art

Our summer officially began yesterday! YAY! It's still not warm enough to spend all day at the pool and I'm also trying to clean house before my mother-in-law arrives next week so this means the boys have to be creative and play well. But as you can imagine I think that only lasted for about an hour on our first day of summer break.

I have a gazillion pins on Pinterest that I haven't tried yet so I thought this summer we would work our way through several of them...actually 30 of them. That's my goal.

This project is from the blogger Hodgepodge and was pretty easy. She calls for chalk pastel but I don't have any so we used oil pastels which worked real well and I think are probably a lot less messy! I also didn't have black construction paper but I had black poster board so we used that.

The boys enjoyed this project and Nathan even got creative with his spaceship. Jojo didn't want to add a spaceship at all.

You can find the project here : Death Star Pastel Art

Summer Time = Beach

Some nice man had kites and was teaching the boys how to fly them.

When I was single, my goal every summer was to get the best tan I could! I had big dreams back then, didn't I? Once you have a family though your priorities begin to change a little......ok a lot! Your goals aren't as superficial anymore. This summer I've tried to ensure that we have a relaxing and fun summer and the beach is a big part of it. Now that we are living in Moorpark, the beach is a lot closer. Our first two beach outings were to Zuma Beach with some friends from our PSP. I love Zuma! It was always my beach of choice growing up.

Overcast even in July.

There's one thing about Zuma I don't like though. The rip tide there can be vicious. I remember having to be rescued when I was younger. An experience like that leaves quite a fear and respect for those waves. Last summer Jon was boogie boarding and got caught in a wide and awful rip tide.

He had to get rescued by a life boat.

A few weeks ago I started researching some beaches in Ventura since we are only 25 miles from there. I found one that a ton of people gave high reviews for..........Harbor Cove Beach.

Watching the sailboats.

Since it's a cove there are no waves! Yay! Since there are no waves, it's a family beach. Lots of kids, plus mommies who aren't dressed in tiny bikinis. Across the street from the beach is a visitor center with lots of info. There's also a tower that has some great views of the surrounding harbor and beaches.

There are big rocks on each side of the beach and one of the sides has great tide pools.

The boys spend a lot of time digging in the sand.

Last week Jon joined us for a couple of days!

Mason Park-Splash Pad

Naynay

We recently visited the Splash Pad at Mason Park in Chatsworth. I didn't even know it was there.....I found out about online somehow. When we first arrived there weren't so many kids playing in the Splash Pad but there were a ton of "summer camp" kids hanging out in the shade. Around noon all the kids invaded the Splash Pad!

It's actually real clean!

Just hanging out.

There's not a whole lot of shade but we found a decent spot to sit and eat our lunch. The boys were a bit cold so they asked to sit out in the sun.

The boys and their friend.

Summer Camp

Last year for summer camp our church put on a one day summer camp but this year they had an overnighter! Thank God it was just one night because I was a nervous wreck.....I can't imagine if it was a whole week. When I was Josiah's age I would go to summer camp for a whole week. I don't know how my mom was able to send me off for so many days.

Jojo and his roommate.

 

This is Jojo with his Sunday School teacher the amazing Mr. White. He's going on 82!

On Saturday Jon got to hang out with Jojo all day.

There were several sessions with skits, worship, and teaching.

Game time!

Jon was sweet enough to Instagram the whole day for me so I could see what they were doing. Jojo had a great time of course but he was absolutely exhausted by the time he got home.