Between the game play (Minecraft), the crafting (Rainbow Looming) and all the preschool arts and crafts (baking ginger-bread men, sand play, painting, imaginary story telling and so on…) there’s been a lot of action in the house in California this week. My New Zealand born children have been energised with slightly cooler temperatures and rain…
Category: Lifestyle
Let’s get physical! Keeping fit, & keeping up, with the children…
I’m on my feet most of the day, with three active children unschooling this year and a house to keep in order. It would be easy to flop at any given moment, instead of pushing on and seeking out more physical activity – but it’s true what ‘they’ say, ‘Exercise gives you energy’. Besides, I…
LA to UK for 4 days, sans children. A once in a decade trip! Part 1
It was my first trip away in ten years, without wearing my mother and wife ‘hats’. An old University friend in the UK was the carrot and after ten years of at home parenting (mostly as an expat in New Zealand), with only one night away (ever; and that was when I had two daughters,…
It’s the little moments of parenting that make it worthwhile
When you get out of the habit of writing about the little slices of life, that make it worth living, it’s hard to know where to start. Everything I write, which means so much to me, will be trivial to others; but I share it all the same, as I’ve learned that there’s a wonderful…
New | The Photo Gallery
New is the hummingbird sun-catcher, hanging from the tree. New is the hummingbird feeder, dangling near by. New is this scene, just for a year, in a house in Santa Barbara, where all the nature is new to my eyes. Time in this house, with my three children, is ample, Sometimes it feels a prison,…
A place with no real weather | Prose for Thought
Dare I say, ‘I’m getting used to this place’? Where the weather barely changes – apart from the length of light in a day. Where clouds are cause for exclamation – and rain is a rare, yet welcome, distraction. I’ve come from a place that knows big weather, where a person learns to dress in…
Burning some rubber with the kids on the Santa Barbara waterfront!
With three children constantly at home it’s not easy to fit in exercise (well, not in the way I’d like – though I do get plenty of movement cleaning up after them and running around playing crazy games… and moving the wine glass to my mouth…). This week, with friends visiting from New Zealand, we…
Loving: A bunch of Kiwis doing Thanks Giving USA
With our NZ neighbours visiting us in our temporary home in the USA we had the perfect reason to celebrate and feast. So we spent a relaxed day at home, preparing the table, for a Thanks Giving feast. Young Miss 3 delighted in sticking cloves into oranges, Miss 10 made up some name-places for the…
Happiness is RAIN for Kiwi Kids in Santa Barbara, California!
We arrived here in early August. It’s nearly Halloween, end of October, and today, for a couple of hours, we had PROPER rain! We’ve had a couple of hours of attempted rain only once in the past three months. This was real rain, that created hundreds of circles on the surface of the swimming pool,…
Miss 3 takes her Chumash Indian book and puts it into practice
I’ve been reading a lovely book with Miss 3 about the way the Chumash Indian people used to live in Santa Barbara ‘The Chumash Through a Child’s Eyes‘. The book compares their life to our modern day life in a lovely way that young children can comprehend. On one page is a Chumash Indian child…
Going with the flow of natural learning
There’s been some lovely moments in the home learning house here this week. We are meeting some lovely fellow home-schoolers in Santa Barbara, getting out and about, filling up pages of the diary and discovering lots of new learning opportunities. To be honest, I don’t always know how any day will pan out. We are…
Country Kids in California
Driving up the West Coast of California, north from Santa Barbara, we made a pit stop at a place in the country called Avila Valley Barn for a ‘Fall’ experience Californian style. The youngest of our family was the most enthralled. She tore into her roasted sweetcorn with the appetite of a cowgirl that had…
Gems of family life in Santa Barbara
Two weeks into staying in the house we have leased for a year we are beginning to feel a little more settled. We are finding our way, had friends round for drinks (all be it friends from New Zealand that are also setting out on this new journey with children in tow), been out for…
A little bit of loving and an action plan
It’s a strange feeling living in a place without commitment, with three children in tow. It’s all very well saying, ‘Live in the moment,’ but to really immerse in a place one has to put out a lot of energy. Whilst nurturing friendships in our country of origin, we also have to open up –…