Along with traveling about half the year, Nate and I own a low maintenance farm in the rural hills of San Diego. This is definitely one of the things we get asked about most. How on EARTH can we manage to be away for days, sometimes even weeks at a time, while still keeping a bunch of animals alive?
Our family likes travel and movies and we LOVE Disney, so we were stoked that our Disney Cruise Line trip gave us the perfect opportunity to marry that all together! Disneybounding is one of our favorite pastimes, and we decided to channel some fun silver screen characters for pirate night. There was a little sneak peek of our outfits in our post about what to pack, and now we’re laying out all the details for these Peter Pan family costumes.
Living on a small farm, we’ve had a LOT of cats. Indoor cats, outdoor cats, feral cats, domestic cats. Fancy breeds and mixed, short hair and long. We’ve adopted both kittens and adults, and talked about it all here on the blog. It’s not surprising, then, when readers email us with questions like: wet or dry food for cats? Which should I pick?
I have four kids ages 7 and under. People always ask if I had a set of twins in there. Nope! It’s just been a solid seven years of pregnant, nursing, weaning, crawling, toddling rambunctiousness. My kids – all boys – were born back-to-back-to-back-to-back all approximately two years apart. That means that we’ve been elbows deep in baby food for over six years. I know a LOT about feeding little kids. And I have the magic secret to getting a baby to love vegetables.
It’s back to school time, which means lots and lots of after school snacks. We have four little boys coming home every day looking for food and fun. This Yummy Dino Buddies bento box serves up a big bunch of both!
There were few things I was sure of as a small child growing up in Southern California. One, I loved dogs. I always knew I wanted one and after watching All Dogs Go To Heaven, I knew I had to have a German Shepherd when I grew up.
When I was a kid, one of the coolest sets of lyrics to be put to a dope beat was “jump up, jump up, and get down.” The song “Jump Around” by House of Pain included the word “jump” approximately 94 times which, coincidentally, is about how many jumps I have to do to get a full workout. Working up a sweat as an adult is SO much easier than it was when I was a kid, so our son’s trampoline birthday party recently doubled as my gym visit for the day and his celebration. Score!
When I went off to college at UCLA, I knew that it would be the start of a whole new world of experiences. Sports were a big deal at school. Coming from a decidedly non-sports family, my first games were in the Rose Bowl where I cheered on this dude named Nate who lived on my dorm floor. Back in those days, my football tailgating bags were built from the ground up out of sheer necessity. Through trial and error, I learned what items I needed to get through a long day. Now that most stadium events have implemented a mandatory “see through” bag policy to speed up security lines, it’s more important than ever that items in that bag be compact and useful.
Getting out and exploring the world is definitely something we identify with. We live for wide open spaces, trees, mountains and streams. It’s all part of our life plan. So much so, in fact, that Chelsea and I recently invested in something to keep us out in the wilds for longer than normal. After a few years of sleeping in a tent, then in the back of the truck, then in a tent on top of the truck (which is still fun), we gave each other permission and bought a 37-foot trailer RV. Specifically, we bought a “toy hauler,” so we have extra space in the back to make the boys a room and to tote toys around. First on our list of upgrades was a new RV mattress – and here’s why.
Our big boys started back to school last week. Second grade and kindergarten! To be honest, I was anxious after a couple of bumpy years. I’ve shared that we do sort of a “modified” schooling situation, pairing long stretches of independent study with a more traditional elementary school setting. This summer took us on a new homeschool adventure, with an educational consultant and lots of fun curriculum, but we ultimately decided to continue with the part-time classroom situation for at least another year. I was nervous that the kids wouldn’t want to head back.