The rest of the tour...

The second part of our little "beach house" tour starts with the kitchen…

yes that is the whole thing

no there is no dishwasher

or garbage disposal

or silverware drawer

our spices are on the wall there on the left side (ikea)

yes we do all our food prep in that tiny space in the corner between the stove and sink

yes we have a gas stove and it rocks!!!

only 9 more months doing this, but who's counting

The other side of our great room with a space for the kids in the middle and a long shelf we found to put under our window to keep toys under control. We had to sell our 2 leather chairs too. No room in the inn!

Canaan's little nook of the third bedroom.

It also has a queen size bed in there for guests but it was too messy to show. 

The big kids room.

They love bunk beds. 

They also have 2 dressers and a book shelf on the wall you cannot see and their play kitchen in the corner near the little table and chairs. 

 Our $3 "coat closet" find painted Tennessee orange to remind us of our dear friends the Penleys.

Master bedroom we are grateful fits our king size bed. Yes that's my whole little closet over there next to the dresser on that weird raised concrete step thing. 

Other side with my dresser and jewelry hook on the wall. 

And for my girl friends that know me… my shoes! Almost all of them. I have had to down size quite a bit.

So that's basically our space. Very temporary and really just a functional space to house us until we can hopefully buy a long term home!

Exploring places...

About an hour up the coast we explored an area known as San Simeon.

Made famous for the enormous Hearst Castle high on the hill...

we found some really fun things.

Tide pools and elephant seals!

Crabs!!!

 Seals out playing in the water.

Such a fun day. Excited to do more exploring soon!

Can you see all the butterflies?

My parents came out for a quick visit over Halloween.

That's why we moved to this beach state... family time.

So we took a five minute drive to this Monarch Butterfly grove.

They come here every year starting in November and leave in the spring.

What looks like a bunch of leaves, are actually clusters of butterflies!

 Can you see them better now??!!

It's pretty awesome!

If you visit us... we will take you to see them... in the "winter time" it's 72 and sunny here!

What we've been up to lately...

I still plan to take photos of the whole house but those last few boxes are still lingering...

This is my $30 craigslist linen closet which is the bathroom the kids use. 

Our "pantry" and storage room with our laundry which is between our master bedroom and the bathroom we use. 

 The armoire we had before and was toy storage in our last house. This time, its used for everyday dry goods and our appliances, bakeware and misc. I have almost sold this cabinet 2 times... never again. It's got way too many uses to every get rid of.

My solution for a "junk" drawer are these Dollar store colored bis ad some baskets. So everything you might find in a junk drawer is here. along with the kids art supplies and paper.

Beach. Not much else to say... we try to go at least weekly... but I make a point to look at it from our house everyday! 

She's ready for school and so smart. She likes doing "homework" while her brother does his Kindergarten homework. She learned this in about 15 minutes. 

The coffee bar project. Cabinet donated by my sister. Old oak bar cart type thing. It had glass panels in the doors.

About finished in a lovely yellow. Bright and cheery. Took 2 full coats plus some touch up. 

The knobs were on a wood plank like hooks made by a sweet and dear friend. We didn't have any space for the adorable hooks so I thought the knobs would really make this special.

The panels are an extra piece of thin plywood with spray chalk board paint! 

 About 15 minutes dup the highway is a wonderful organic apple farm.

We picked and ate... the kids had some fun!

More beach...

Boyd's work is known for its agriculture. They host an annual pumpkin patch. I think we got some of the first ones... for FREE! I chose 2 white ones, Ohana got a wonderful perfect round one... and Rigel 

chose one that weighs more than Canaan...

So there you have it... 

that's what we've been doing lately...

Boyd's schedule is changing every 2 weeks while he is in training for 10 weeks. Not a fun thing to coordinate with kids and activities. 

The kids are in Awana this year and thriving.

I'm in a mom group a lot like MOPS at a local church and starting to run again! 

We miss our Colorado friends very much but we really do like it here and are excited for what's to come! 

Eleven on eleven and it's been a while...

Trying to get back into the swing of things as we are in the last few boxes of unpacking...

not my favorite thing to do.

Not sure if I will do ten on ten each month, but this mostly beach edition is overdue.

This is the nearest beach to our house... a fabulous 2.83 miles down the street... we hope to make this a very good habit... the kids LOVE it!

This riding of a two wheel bike happened 2 days ago... if you ever wondered if those strider balance bikes work, here's the proof after less than a hour of help from his dad, he was off!

Now Ohana is the proud rider of that strider bike...