Short trip ~ Big Bear Lake, Part 1 (July 26/27)

We decided to just get out of the house and go on a little road trip to Big Bear Lake.   It's only about 2.5 hours away so not too bad of a drive at all... considering we used to drive over 10 hours to Gilbert, AZ where we used to have a house there.

Graham and Charlie never miss a beat in these road trips.  We are packed with chips and DVDs.  It felt like there was enough for a 2 week trip when we are only away for 4 days and 3 nights.  Ha ha!

Feels good to be out again!

What is with this traffic?!?

Okay, that was just a delay because of road work.  Look at all the traffic leaving Big Bear on a Sunday afternoon:

This is a nice change of scenery since who knows when: 

I really can't remember our last road trip.  OMG, I just looked it up - it was August of last year to Las Vegas to meet up with our good friends who flew in from London.  Yikes!

Here's our cabin for the next few days!

The cabin could have been cozier if it was just a bit cleaner.  The kitchen and sheets were thankfully clean so I suppose it could have been worse?!? Graham and Charlie are excited about the bunk bed:

... although Charlie didn't like Graham being on the top bunk.  He said the bunk squeaked and he was worried that Graham and the rest of the top bunk would fall on him.  Anyway, they are quick in getting comfy on the master bed and watching their channel:

I almost miss just having regular TV, where you just watch what is available in the area.  Now with all these on-demand/streaming TV, you can watch any of your shows anywhere in the world. It's almost good and bad because you can miss so much of just the local stuff, even if there isn't much of it.

Anyway... big day tomorrow, we are going fishing!  And with the power of technology, fast-forward to the next day - Graham and Charlie are super excited!

We were here at Big Bear Lake last year in April, where we were actually hoping to catch the last bit of snow -  but ended up on the lake instead.  Coincidentally we had the boy's fishing rods in the car so we went on an impromptu fishing trip. 

But this time, we came prepared. Graham is not wasting any time while Bobby gets the orientation on how to drive the boat:

And we're off!  We ended up with a "luxury" pontoon because the regular ones were sold out.  These boats come with a radio.  Fancy!

And this year, we talked about getting some real bait:

Oh boy... I'm just glad I brought some gloves!

I don't think Charlie was too enthusiastic about it either about these "night crawlers", although it was actually his idea on this worms.  They were MASSIVE!

After a few practice swings, we are ready to fish!  Charlie is using his "fishing stance" here to stay steady on the boat:

I'm glad he got the hang of casting pretty quickly:

Although we did lose both bobbers.  Oops!

Graham is like a pro here casting his line:

He actually didn't want to use any of the real worms.  He had a fake bait and was happy with that. And when he wasn't fishing, he was happy just looking out into lake :-)

Once we found another spot to fish, Graham and Charlie switched spots.  Graham is looking so relaxed.  Ha ha!

The boys both took turns to co-pilot.  It's a good thing it wasn't too busy on the lake:

It would be so nice to own a boat and live by a lake.  Both boys really enjoyed this:

Thumbs up from Charlie!

That's before he got tired.  Ha ha!  He didn't like the bumps too much:

And Graham is busy playing with his "virtual pet", the Tamagotchi.  

Food always makes Charlie feel better:

I decided to take my turn with the fishing rod and ended up with a couple of really funny moments.  When I was casting my line out, my worm broke off the hook and flew further than my line.  LOL!!!

Too bad there weren't any videos.  I still laugh to myself thinking about it as it happened not once but twice.  Ha ha ha!!!

Family we-fie! I love LOVE this photo of all of us :-)

Okay, heading back in as we only rented the pontoon for 2 hours and the time went by so quickly!

Here's our dream-home along the lake.  Just look at that pretty (and huge!) house:

As we arrived near the dock, fish were being released into the water:

The kid that was helping us dock said that he had never seen that before.  And I think he said he had worked there for 12 years or more?

What a fun day!  To be continued - with golf tomorrow :-)

Graham's (violin) posture

I don't know much about playing the violin but I think I've seen enough professionals play, especially more recently online via the LA Philharmonic.  And I know their postures don't look like this:

I brought up my concern to Graham's teacher and sure enough, she said the same thing!  That's unfortunately something that is missed during online lessons since Graham's entire body is not on the computer screen.

Graham's teacher was nice enough to have a quick video chat with us yesterday despite not having a lesson this week.  And wow, what a difference a few minutes make!

First off, we had to switch out his old shoulder rest to one that is padded from one end to the other end.  I still have to constantly remind him to keep standing taller when he is practicing, but at least we are back on the right path.  The worse thing I want Graham to have is a crooked spine and a bad back for the rest of his life!!!

Hmmm.... not too sure about these TV-watching postures though:

These two are definitely brothers in this sense.   Ha ha!!!

Recent happenings

I told Bobby to get me some baking soda, which I normally use for baking.  I was totally amused when he brought home this super value size one.  Ha ha!  Well, I guess I have no reason not to use baking soda for cleaning now:

Yes, my husband loves me. Look what he brought back from the supermarket. Plenty of biscotti to stock up my cravings.  Ha ha!

My blue-light blocking glasses finally arrived!  I'm not really seeing much of a difference when I work on my computer, but if they truly say they work, then so be it.  I believe everything I read on the internet :-P

I've been making fun of Charlie's ears lately.  I don't know why his ears flap out a little more than me and Bobby.  Neither one of us has ears like that.  Well, Charlie is truly quite the character on his own.  Can't believe this little monkey is going to be 8 years old tomorrow!

Only this kid can pull off this look :-D

It was cool enough last week for us to actually have a fire.  And of course, when we have a fire, we always have s'mores!

Charlie loves to just char his marshmallow.  Ha ha.... Charlie and char.  Maybe that's why.  Ha ha!

Graham and Charlie are constantly arguing about who is stealing whose money.  So eventually, I decided to just create a ledger for the boys - teaching them about debit and credit.  We'll see how it all goes:

We had a recent trip to Big Bear this past week so in order to prepare for our few days there, I decided to make some more masks from an old t-shirt.  Charlie didn't seem to like this shirt anymore for whatever reason.  I was able to cut up 6 more mask - 2 each for me, Charlie, and Graham.  And looks like I can make 2 more for Bobby.  Funny enough, we were complimented on it during our trip!

Finally decided to buy an air fryer!  I've been thinking about getting one for the longest time.  Well, it's been a couple of weeks and it's still sitting in the box.  Ha ha!

And I totally forgot to use it when I was frying up some perogies the other day:

I will eventually use the air fryer.  I promise!  And actually the boys have been asking too about using it.  I really need to clean up some part of the kitchen counter first so there is actually some space to set it.  Maybe I can put some of the other smaller appliances in the garage??? I was just in the garage today and believe it or not, I did actually see some shelf space in there.  Now that's an idea ;-D

And oh, here's the overwatering.  Booo hoooo...!!! 

And yes, after returning from our roadtrip, the lavender v2.0 is officially dead :-(

I finally figured out how to put up some family photos and cards on this one side of the kitchen cabinet.  Cork potholders/trivets!  And I glued on a couple of little baby clothes pegs too which I've hoarded throughout my lifetime.  Ha ha!

I had used this idea on our bedroom wall in Abu Dhabi as the wall was concrete and I couldn't put up any photos.  So I taped about 7 to 8 of these cork potholders on the wall and it worked perfectly!  Now to find the rest of them. I'm guessing it's still in some sort of box in the garage??? Or did I give them away?  Grrrr.... looks like I will eventually have to go through ALL the boxes to find out.  Blah!  By the time I get through the last box, I swear Bobby is going to tell me it is time to move again!

Ladybugs

Both my orange tress have not seem to be doing very well.  The very end tips of the leaves are all curly and also full of bugs.  I have sprayed them with organic pesticides and yet, the trees still don't look very healthy:

See what I mean?  I finally then thought about getting some ladybugs to help with my bug (looking mostly like aphids) problem.  I couldn't find any at the nurseries nearby that had them so I figured I'd just order them online.  Ya, can you believe that? You can order LIVE ladybugs online!  And as promised, they were delivered alive :-)

I didn't want to order too many but my options were limited online.  So I ended up ordering 1,500 ladybugs?!!  That's suppose to cover 1,000 sq ft:

I'm glad I didn't leave them out on the porch for too long.  These ladybugs are busy!

Somehow it didn't look like that many in the packaging, but I had to wait a little while to find out as the instructions say to only release a bunch at a time, and only when the sun starts to go down.  So in the meantime, the ladybugs will hibernate in the fridge.  Bobby was not so keen on the idea but thankfully I had some space in the meat drawer :-)

Release the "soldiers"!!!

I love Charlie's expression here.  Ha ha!

Here's Charlie's handiwork with the camera:

We did help place some of the ladybugs on the most infested leaves:

Eat, ladybug, eat!!!

No, not be eaten!!!  This poor ladybug definitely did not see this coming and needless to say, the spider had a nice snack:

Hmmm.... I'm not sure what these 2 ladybugs are doing??!  It's like they are hugging.  Ha ha!

I'm hoping the ladybugs will at least hang out for a bit.  I even bought them a house!

Coincidentally I saw this ladybug house in the improvement store when I was there picking up mulch last week.  The instructions says to hang them lower to the ground so hopefully this might work:

It almost looks like a bee hive on the inside:

So every day since we've released a few lady bugs, I've been going around and looking through all the leaves seeing if there are any left.  I did notice a pupa so that's a good sign!  Looks like a previous ladybug was already here!

And look what else I found a couple days after releasing the ladybugs.... ladybug eggs!!!

Hopefully we will have more ladybugs naturally and I won't actually have to buy some. 

We've released some ladybugs in 3 batches now.  Some are still hanging around.  Charlie would bring them off the tree to show me.   And I keep telling him to put it back in the tree.  Ha!

We did just get back from a 4-day trip and I didn't notice anymore ladybugs in the tree :-(  Well, perhaps the aphids that are left on the leaves are actually dead?  Maybe I need to wipe all those curly leaves down.  In any case, I released a few more this evening just for good measure.  We still have plenty left in the fridge!  I've been taping the little slit from the bag and stapling it up so the remaining ladybugs don't escape.  I can't imagine a fridge full of ladybugs.  Bobby would definitely not appreciate that.  Ha ha!  Well, this has been an interesting experience to say the least :-)