Random recent happenings

Charlie has been quite the computer game addict.  Equipped with his blue-light blocking glasses, he's got his "game face" on playing his favorite "tank game":

A good friend brought over some homemade Kombucha.  Ps. Never shake the bottle (not even a little!) before opening.  Oops on getting the fizzy bubbles everywhere!  By the way, the cherry Kombucha was delish!

Another friend mentioned that there were mooncakes available at Costco.  Yummy!  Although just the mung bean paste one so far. This box had a mixture of flavors compared to the usual suspects of red bean or lotus paste.  Instead, there was pineapple and nut mixture??!  Never even heard of those flavors before so needless to say, I was a bit disappointed :-\ 

Charlie managed to build a super tall marble run.  Impressive!

And somehow, my orchid has lost all of its leaves??!  It was all nice and green and growing and then, all of a sudden, the leaves just fell off.  NOOOOoooo...!!!  Maybe it will just be easier to buy another orchid plant? Or just give up on orchids.  I haven't had much luck.  Orchids seem so finicky:

A lemon clock, anyone?  It was suppose to be a potato clock but the lemons worked too.  Pretty neat how this works!

Bobby sort of made a joke about how I should measure the zucchinis based on the length of my shin.  Well, here you go.  Ha ha!

We can't keep up with this zucchini plant!  I can only make so many loaves of zucchini bread.  Looks like its time to make some more:

And look, we have cucumbers now too!  

The cucumber vines are super huge too.  I will need to try and get creative on how to build some sort of trellis.  I do have some leftover wood scraps.  Hmmm....

Graham and Charlie haven't used the Outdoor Library or "Creative area" or... "Thinking Chair" very much.  But it's always such a cute sight when they do.  This was Graham drawing in his Inventor Book :-)

Until next time!

Seal!!!

The boys and I were back at the beach again the weekend before school restarted. Still styling the new surfing hats and Charlie has new fancy goggles too.  He lost his old ones to the ocean.  Oops!

And to our surprise, the day started off by spotting a seal!  Well, I think the seal actually came over to us.  It looked like it wanted to play.  Thankfully the seal wasn't aggressive:

I mean, we were really close to it!  The kids were actually in the water when the seal was swimming by.  And it was a good thing the kids were quick to get out of the water. Ha ha!

Charlie was totally shocked and baffled at the same time I think:

And then, the seal proceeded to swim towards some surfers.  Two of them got out of the water, but this surfer decided to hang out in the water:

Looks like the seal is still wanting to play as it continues to follow the surfer.  I probably have wet myself with the seal so close.  Ha ha!

Here's a short video:

The seal eventually swam away.  Well, now that the excitement is over, we can continue playing.  Graham as usual, loves to just dig holes in the sand:

It's late morning and the fog is rolling in???

Lunch time!

Back into the water after lunch.  I love how the boys try and catch the same wave.  As you can see, it is still foggy:

The sun is finally out and of course, we will be getting ready to leave soon.  But first, let's swing at some sand with the shovel.  Boys, I tell you:

Another great day on the beach!  I'm glad it was a nice seal sighting vs a shark sighting. LOL!!! :-)

Painting boys' bathroom

I've been wanting to paint Graham and Charlie's bathroom for the longest time.  I just did not like the green color in there!  Hmm... somehow it doesn't look so bad in this photo:

Icky stuff along the grout lines.  Thankfully, scrubbing baking soda works nicely!

I finally took off the towel holder.  I had been wanting to change this out even before the arrival of my uncle and aunt's trip from England during Thanksgiving of LAST year.  Ha ha!

I decided to paint the inside of this "block" too (inside the shower).  I'm not sure if I like this "block" above the shower door, but it's there now and will probably cost more than $0 to take out. 

Bye bye green, hello plain white!

Here's our new "double" towel bar.  Yay!!!

I found the boys' old animal metal fixture in the garage, so I decided to hang them up too.  Ha ha!

Ta da!!! Really quite plain actually, although if you look back at the previous photo, I did paint that side of the wall a different/darker color. It's the same color as our back living room:

Again, I'm experimenting with stenciling.  Figured this would be a good spot to start :-)

The boys (including Bobby) asked if I painted the bottom part of that square and the answer is "no".  So don't bother climbing up the tub area to peek! :-P

Having to stencil the top part of it was almost back breaking.  And I was thinking about stenciling the kitchen ceiling??!  I think I'm having second (and 3rd!) thoughts about that one now!!!

It was quite the pain to clean the stencil... this is as good as it's going to get:

I'm so glad the boys' bathroom is taken care of now - just before school starting so I won't have to worry about it anymore.  Although, there is still some space above that mirror to put some sort of saying or mural.  I guess I'm never quite done until I'm super EXTRA happy about everything! :-P

Beach time

We love beach time!  But oh, look at how busy the outdoor seating area is my our favorite crepe place!!! Gosh, I would be so nervous.  It still seems like the people are seated too closely to be "social distancing":

The beach was crowded too on a Monday afternoon and I was a bit nervous as well.  I kept telling the boys to move to an area that was less crowded.  But hey, check out their cool surf bucket hats!  I LOVE them! It's funny how no one else is wearing a hat considering how sunburnt the boys' faces were the last couple of times we've been out on the beach:

Bodysurfing is so much fun!  Although Graham is already asking for an actual surf board??!

There were so many pelicans diving for fish today.  You can see the big splash as the bird enters the water.  Although with this one pelican in the video, it was almost a half-hearted one.  Some splashes were a lot bigger:

While Graham wants a surf board, Charlie wants a skimboard.  You basically throw the board along the shore and then jump on it and skim on top of the water.  It doesn't look easy!

I hope this bird doesn't poop on our board!

For whatever reason, Graham loves to dive under the water.  It's so funny seeing his feet sticking out of the water.  Ha ha!

Daddy/Bobby brought poke (prounonced "poh-kay").  Yummy tuna with rice and avocados :-)

Early dinner time for the boys too:

Pass the chicken nuggets, please!

I've probably said this so many times already, but these boys are SO LUCKY!

Family we-fie!  So glad Bobby could join us today after his work:

Some digging time before we pack up:

Another fun and successful day at the beach!  Just glad it started to clear out towards the end of the day. School started today but it's only minimum day (ends at 12pm).  Graham and Charlie are already wanting to go to the beach after school!

Mirlo Gate Lodge Tower

I saw a newspaper article a while ago on this structure in Palos Verdes called the Mirlo Gate Lodge Tower.  It was built in 1926 and was intended to be a guard gate for the easterly entrance into Palos Verdes Estates.  

What a cute structure!  Based on some online reading, the walls are made with a local limestone called Palos Verdes Stone.  It is supported with timber and set in lime mortar, making it 18" thick! The roof is a wood shake from the Redwoods. The "Tower House" is 2 stories and is 15-ft in diameter and has a total of 508 sq ft living space.  The upstairs has a bedroom and bathroom area and downstairs has a living room with a stone fireplace and a kitchen. 

There used to be a caretaker there but now it sits empty.  The caretaker moved out from this 1-bedroom stone building in 2018 after living there for 48 years!  Maybe the boys can rent this place :-P

These stained glass windows are so neat.  You can see the color of it from the other window on the opposite side:

And check out this front door too:

It's too bad this building is abandoned.  It would be so cool to maybe even have some sort of art gallery in here.  Wouldn't that be so cool? Maybe when Charlie becomes our local artist/pilot :-D

Backyard hardscape/walkway

As usual, always trying to make things look a little bit better in our backyard!  Our friend was coming over for a visit (social distancing, of course) and I couldn't have our yard looking like this!

So the first 3 pavers have been here ever since we moved in.  I bought some new pavers and just dumped them on the grass to get an idea of how many more we need.  Somehow, the grass isn't growing well very in this area.  I'm guessing it's because I've put a couple of potted plants next to the white arbor, thereby blocking the water from the sprinkler.  So, off it all comes out:

This pattern might be better perhaps?

3 bags of pea pebbles was definitely not enough!  Back to the store I go... 2 more bags of pea pebbles and also 3 more bags of river pebbles:

Looking much better, although I wonder if I should have bought different colored pebbles.  I have the smaller pea pebbles along the border and the river pebbles towards the middle by the red pavers.   Hmmm....

Graham and Charlie are complaining about how hot these pavers get but oh well, it definitely looks better than what it was before:

Backyard is almost done!  I'm trying to think what else I need to do. Maybe just enjoy one of these rare sunrises:

For whatever reason, I woke up at 5:30am one morning and couldn't fall back to sleep.  I think it was because I was hungry.  Bobby was almost nervous and kept asking why I was up during that hour.  I haven't seen a sunrise since who knows when!  Well, school is starting back on Wednesday and the boys have to report online by 8:30am.  I guess I better not be late.  Ha ha!