The Soash Adventures: September 2012

On the 11th, the kids and I headed to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. We had several samples of beans before the tour. We all learned that the Rotten Egg Jelly Belly is not a joke. It tasted horrible! Good thing there was plenty of other flavors to rid our palates of it. The tour was fun, and we learned how they make their jelly beans. You get a small bag at the end of the tour. We also bought a 2# bag of Belly Flops. It's their rejects, too big or too small. Although they were not good enough to be printed with the Jelly Belly logo, they still tasted just as yummy! I also learned never to assume that because two Jelly Belly appear to be the same color, they are the same flavor. As I was explaining this great life risk to Cora she said, "You had a Cherry and a Cinnamon didn't you."

That Saturday we went to Santa Cruz. We found it to be far less windy at this particular beach, and therefore quite a bit warmer. The kids had fun making sand castles in between the waves washing them out.

We have one car out here for the family to use. The great thing is Phil's place of work is only about 10 minutes from our house. It's a very fast paced 10 minute drive. The kind where you keep both hands on the wheel at all times, but it is close and that's nice. There have been a couple of days that Phil would come home at lunch and we'd take him back to use the car. In the attempt to keep some sort of schedule we will take Phil to work on Wednesdays and Fridays and then we get use of the car until he's done at work. We used our Wednesday to visit the Sacramento Zoo. It's about 45 minutes to the North. It's very similar to the Blank Park Zoo. It was a nice 2 hour walk through. The zoo has an on site vet clinic with a window viewing area. We watched as they sedated a Kookaburra and trimmed it's beak.

By Thursday the boys had finished their box houses. They are figuring out how to use the 'back yard'. That night Gavin and Athan slept in their boxes in the living room. Obi said it was just too small for him. :)

Thursday night the boys and I went to the farmer's market in Lodi, just miles to the North. I, and everyone else, may form an addiction to the fresh fruit available out here. I don't know how long it will last, but I will take advantage of it as long as I can. The bottle is a local olive oil, quite pricey, but very good. That night Phil and I enjoyed the locally made Gouda cheese in the brown sack, sourdough bread, some Olive Oil, and wine from Lodi as well.

Thursday night the kids were told to set their alarms to 6:15 Friday morning. By chance I found out about the Shuttle Endeavor's final flight on Friday. We got into Sacramento about 7:30, parked on top of a parking garage, and waited anxiously for the shuttle to arrive at 8:30. We soon found out that the fly by was delayed an hour. The kids enjoyed a smoothie at a nearby coffee shop, and Phil and I breakfast and coffee. We returned to our car and tried to stay out of trouble. There was a bit of confusion about our location by the local government, because it's illegal to loiter in a parking garage. They officials did their best to work well with everybody. They would have needed one heck of an army to get all the the people off that roof for sure. We meet a gal in the garage's elevator that asked the kids about getting out of school for the day. I said we home-schooled and this was our school for the day. She said she was a teacher and had gotten a substitute for the day. :) Another funny story happened while we were in the coffee shop: Phil began chatting with a guy wearing a USA Wrestling coat. He said he had recently met the wrestling coach from Waverly-Shell Rock. It's quite a small world. As they chatted the gentleman said the word "wrestling", Gavin immediately became interested in the conversation.

After much waiting the shuttle came. It was quite the site!!!

Phil's video

After the shuttle made it's loop, we took Phil to work and the kids and I went to a fun kids museum in Lodi. It wasn't very big, but it was free with our SCI pass and it had at lot of fun hands-on activities.

Saturday we took the kids to Bodega Bay. Funny that when Gavin was a baby, Phil and I made a visit to this same area. We've been here less than a month, and it's amazing the opportunities. Phil and I were chatting a bit this morning about missing Iowa. Yes, there are many things that we certainly miss; fall is a big one! No combine rides this year, and the other fall activities including soccer. It's also a bit odd to have every day be almost a carbon copy of the day before. A high of 90 and a low of 58. Not complaining, but Iowa's weather had created a sort of short weather attention disorder in all of us.