Kites

Sunday we were at the Annual Japan American Kite Festival in Seal Beach. We flew kites and Jasper swan with a seal.

Urban Adventure

On Saturday we headed into Santa Monica to Wild Fiber yarn shop. In their parking lot was a Wensleydale Longwool sheep and an Angora goat brought to the Westside from Temecula by Namaste Farms. Inside the shop were bags of beautifully dyed yarns from the animals. We even attempted to spin their wool.

Favorite books

Kids received a box of middle grade books from their cousin - her favorite books from childhood. Sydney started Harriet the Spy and is loving it. What are your favorite childhood books?

pizza night

Farmer Boy goes to school

Farmer Boy is finished and it's time to go back to school. We'll miss homeschooling, but homeschooling doesn't end just because the kids go back to school. There is lots more fun ahead. Stay tuned. We'll keep posting every Monday-Friday!

Navaho dawn

Yellow boy creeping in on blue boy. Dawn in Monument Valley. We retold the Navaho tale of sunrise that Sydney and Jasper's grandfather Alexander Eliot learned from the Navaho when he lived with them in the late 1930's.

Jasper researching his Shelter Project, a Navaho hogan. In third grade he builds a model of a traditional home of his choosing.

On the road to Zion National Park

More tales of the sun and moon on the road to dreamland.

Here's Hopi

On to the lands of the Hopi. Luckily stumbled on the Women's Society Corn Dance in the village of Shungopavi on Second Mesa. 80 costumed women dancing, chanting, thanking the harvest, in the town center. Only two other tourist couples watching.

Photos for the blog, hello? No, sorry, the Hopi are abundantly welcoming and all they ask is that you take no photos.

But the sunset, while driving towards what became a tremendous storm, had no photo restrictions.

Later, in pitch dark, the road was closed for a while due to mud and flood and fear of a flash flood. Finally cleared, with big bulldozers pushing mud, we made it to Monument Valley just over the border in Utah, which was dry in more senses than one.