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Fall in California

We've traded falling leaves and winter coats for tank tops, shorts, and little boys running around outside in bare feet.  As much as I miss the changing of the seasons that we experienced in Seattle, we've had a lot of fun doing special outings, field trips, and family times that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

October
Our most exciting event this month is that my brother got engaged to his lovely girlfriend.  Since both Phil and I only have brothers this means that I finally get a sister and my boys will finally have an aunt!  We are very happy for them.

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School is also in full-swing, and we've had a lot of fun with various outings.  We went to the Mini-Maker Faire in Riverside.  N and Z got to shoot off rockets of their own making.  N's flew so well, it went right over the building!

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We also took advantage of the free museum days here in San Diego and went down to the Natural History Museum with Grandma and Papa.  It corresponded nicely with our study of Genesis at the time.

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Of course, we are in Southern California now so naturally we have been to the beach a number of times.  This particular time, we found out that there was going to be a lunar eclipse at the same time as we were there.  I tried to get a picture of it on my phone since we didn't bring any of the right equipment to view it.  You can't tell at all, but at least we had a nice outing!  =)

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We have also gotten to visit some family that live here on Phil's side.  It's nice to hang out with cousins!

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We've seen a lot of Alisha's family as well.  Since the boys have no first cousins, they love hanging out with their second cousins that are closer to their age.

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As homeschoolers, we also spend a lot of time reading and going to the local library.  The boys love getting new books and hanging out in the kids area.

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November
In November we celebrated my grandmother's 80th birthday.  My parents hosted a large open house and invited a large group of extended family and friends to celebrate with us.  It was a really great time of connecting with people I haven't seen in 10-20 years!  My grandmother is an amazing godly woman, and I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of her (or anything else) that night.  But here is a picture of her holding Z shortly after he was born!

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Somehow during all the big get-togethers I fail at getting pictures.  Thanksgiving happened too.  It was fun, and I spent all my time hanging out with great family that I didn't think about taking pictures to remember it by.  Oops!

Other things that happened this month....

We went to the Getty Villa with some good friends.  We will be talking about the Greeks and Romans soon in Story of the World, so hopefully the boys will remember some of the stuff that we saw while we were there.  It was also great to spend time with our friends.

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We also visited Green Oak Ranch in Vista during their Fall Fundraiser.  We hung out in the petting zoo, had an amazing BBQ lunch, played on bounce houses, climbed "rock world" (the boys' name for any grouping of rocks that they can get on), and got covered in foaming soap.  It was a good day.

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Although technically my dad's birthday is in December, we celebrated his 60th a couple of weeks early so that my brother who was here from Baltimore could join us.  The whole family went to Joe's Crab Shack in Oceanside to celebrate.  Happy birthday, Dad!

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So, that's our catch-up from the Fall.  December is proving to be busy, and we are trying to squeeze as much quality time out of our time here before we move to Thailand.

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