Hermosa, Manhattan, Big Bear, San Clemente & RV trips.

Quite the summer adventure and it continues.. We packed up our apartment in Boulder end of May, we had a great winter and spring there, loved our place on Mapleton Ave (even with the 2 month roof construction project), we loved being in our own space, we loved our roomates Daniel and Scott, we had lots of kids over and stayed home and played games a ton.. the highlights of Boulder were Magic Tournaments ( 2 nights a week and Luc got to play legos with Tris and mommy got time alone, of course i went to yoga... ), Kids Night Out at the Longmont Rec Center (and of course time with our best buds Ryan, Connor, Kaia and Noah), Sleep Overs with Tim, Joey and Miranda.. oh how I miss them, 3 of the most beautiful and amazing kids I know, rock climbing and hiking at Mt Senitas, Clay Class with Mira at her awesome house up Boulder Canyon, Improv Class at Rocky Mntn Theater for kids, hanging with our friends Eya, Oliver, Levi, Jaylin, Tony & Hattie, Will and Nickie, our unschoolers park day, visiting the Planetarium, dancing at Rhythm Sanctuary on Thurs nights and the kids who showed up to play legos!!

But Daddy was in California and had only seen kids for a few days at a time on visits so we had to come out and have more daddy time and visit all the relatives in LA. We started with a week in Hermosa Beach, took a 12 day RV trip with my sis Melinda and her kids Hope and Austin up to Santa Rosa, camped in Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay on the beach, went to SF (melinda had not been there before), visited the Exploratorium (the most fun Science Museum in SF), saw the Redwoods, swam in the Russian River and went to the Harmony Festival (great music, shopping, eco green village, lectures, dancing, frolic, hooping). Reese was Mr Independent, he had his own phone and was off and exploring on his own most of the weekend.

We spent a very relaxing week in San Clemente at our timeshare, did very little, played at the beach, shuffleboard, ping pong, swam, chilled and played lots of games with my mom & Bryan, Mindy and kids.. my boys had a blast with Daddy playing games, they love beating him ...

We rented a studio apt in Manhattan Beach for a month and really enjoyed the beach, homeschooler park day, beach day, speech club (yes Reese made quite a showing one week when he won all 3 awards in one day, best speech, best impromptu and best evaluator!), my girlfriend Colleen who moved her brood up to Canada was in town for a month visiting and we loved seeing them!

Highlight of the summer were the 2 productions the kids got to do: Sleeping Beauty (Reese played the Prince Philip who delivers true loves kiss to awaken the princess and Luc played a goon working for the evil Malificient, he was a scream! Also got to do Annie and Reese played Rooster Hannigan the down on his luck brother of Ms Hannigan who pretends to be Annie's parent to collect the reward, Luc played a dog catcher (his big line.. seen any strange mutts around here? ), a policeman, a laundry boy and a servant of Oliver Warbucks.. he was a busy little guy. The boys were both amazing, they spent 40-50 hours in rehearsal time on each show in just 10 days each! They made great friends, showed great maturity dealing with all the down time as they rehearsed multiple casts and of course memorized every song and everyone's lines in both shows! Mommy got a few hours to herself and enjoyed lots of Bikrim Yoga, runs on the beach and time with friends! Nothing quite like the joy of watching my kids work really hard, be really passionate about something and perform so beautifully on stage!

singing the songs..

One of the best parts of spending the summer in Hermosa Beach is the family theater group we've participated in the last 3 summers. Thanks to Alexis the boys got to do High School Musical 2 summers ago and fell in love with musical theater! Reese will be playing Rooster in Annie next Saturday and he is thrilled to always be cast in lead roles. We listen to the songs non stop, they practice for 5 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and then the performance. Luc will be playing multiple roles as a cop, laundry man, dog catcher and radio station worker.

Last night Luc and I lay in bed and he was singing one of the songs in Annie that has a line "I'm richer than Midas", Daddy Worbucks sings the song after his heart has opened finally as Annie enters into his life and he realizes how lonely and unhappy he was (despite his wealth and success) when he had no one to truly love.
"Who's Midas?' Luc asks and we have a whole discussion about King Midas and how love makes you rich not possessions. But money is useful for getting stuff you want, luc commented.. but we are rich in love, that's for sure.. then he started asking about President Roosevelt (who is in the Annie play). "We're white right mom? yes, "was President Roosevelt white?" yes, but Obama is not right? right, "who is the second black president mom?" well there is no second, Obama is still in office and he is the first.. "there is a lot of brown people in the world huh?', yeah.. then he sings 3 lines from "Tomorrow, tomorrow I love ya tomorrow, you're always a day away".. and sings himself to sleep..