First Day at Ballico School

Ashlee and Mikayla started attending Ballico School today.  And yes, I did it again.  I did not get any pictures of their first day.  We had to get there early so they could get their schedules and get their chrome books.  They use Chrome Books instead of text books at this school.  Everything is done on the computer.

Mikayla loved it, Ashlee isn't so sure about the whole thing.  She is more or less just dealing with it.

Fast Forward a few days/weeks:

-I thought to take a picture many times, but for some reason or another the girls didn't want me to do it.
-Mikayla (who has always had issues with wanting to go to school) says "Mom I actually like school now, but that doesn't mean I don't like being at home either."  Finally, she likes going to school.  Hopefully it will stay that way!
-Ashlee enjoys having some time in the morning to relax before going to school. And is starting to get a bit more use to things.
-I enjoy the fact that our commute has been cut from 80 minutes a day to 20 minutes a day, the girls don't have to get up so early in the morning and they get out of school 25 minutes earlier 4 days a week.
-All the food served at lunch is homemade.  They BBQ meat for Carne Asada, make homemade cookies, waffles, etc. The girls still bring their lunch from home, but are scoping out what they would like to try in the future.
-They have PE 4 days a week and run the mile once a week.
-There is less homework.  The principal feels like after school kids should be with their families and doing extra curricular activities so some class time is give to do homework.  I like his thinking!
-They have a 15min  break in the morning and students are allowed to go have snacks like yogurt, fruit, muffins, etc.  All for like 75cents.  Mikayla loves that!  She will not eat breakfast in the morning, so this allows her to eat without waiting until lunch.
-Mikayla tried out for the volleyball team and made the team.  She has done very well.  The coach says she is an asset to the team.  She has been mentioned a few times on the morning announcements at school for her "Ace serves" and the number of points she has scored.

So far we are starting to get the hang of things.  Trying to get use to all the technology has been a bit of a challenge, but it has also been a life saver as well.  We are still getting use to it all, but things seem to be getting better.  There have been a couple of issues one with a student and some with a teacher, but hopefully we will get through it.

Last week I received a call from a friend at our old school, telling me that the math teacher was being fired.  They had too many parent complaints, all the student's were failing, and either the VP or Principal had to be in the class pretty much at all times to watch him because things were so bad.

Last Day at Whitmore Charter

This school year has not got off to a good start.  Mikayla's home room teacher, who is also the math teacher for the entire middle school, has been horrible to say the least.  I have complained to the administration just about every single day since the first day of school and the only response I get is "we will continue to work with him."  The guy has supposedly taught for 12 years!  If he doesn't know what he is doing by now, he should probably be doing something else.

Friday both girls came home with the exact same homework.  Mikayla is in 6th grade and Ashlee is in the 8th grade, there is no possible way they could both be learning the exact same thing.  When I found out that they had the same homework, which was homework neither one of them could do, I went to the Vice Principal, she was surprised that they both had the same thing and said she would look in to it and get back to me, but she never got back to me.  Then Mikayla proceeded to tell me that he had her and another student, go sit in the front of the class, and mumbled something like "because they have problems" (he was referring to her hearing impairment) not okay at all.  In the days prior to this he couldn't even turn on the computer to take attendance and had to have a student show him how to the attendance (a student shouldn't even know how to do the attendance).

So after lot's of sleepless nights and listening to the girls complaining every single day, I decided to take them to tour Ballico School.  The school I went to.  We were very impressed with the principal and his conservative philosophy.  We liked what we saw and heard.  Mikayla was ready to start school at Ballico, Ashlee was hesitant.  It's her 8th grade year, she wanted to graduate with her friends and she didn't want to leave them.  After weighing the pros and the cons.  We decided to move the girls to Ballico School.

It was a hard decision.  We had made so many friends at Whitmore and knew so many of the families there.  I had been active in the Parent Booster Club there since Mikayla was in Kindergarten and they had made lots of memories there.  But we felt like it was something we should do.

The last day was hard, I had teachers and other staff members coming up to me in the parking lot, the girls had to say good bye to their friends, and leave their home away from home.

I wasn't able to get any pictures of that day, because we were running a bit behind with everything going on, but one of the teachers aids texted me a picture and Ashlee was able to take some pictures on her phone.

Mariah, Lauren, Ashlee and Alyssa

Brooke, Allison and Mikayla

First Day of 6th and 8th Grades

Today was the first day of 6th grade for Mikayla and the first day of 8th grade for Ashlee.  It's going to be one of those unsuspecting years, because almost all of the middle school teachers at our school this year are new, so we don't know what to expect.  We are hoping they will be as good as the teachers Ashlee had last year in middle school.

Ashlee and Lauren

Mikayla, Allison, Serina, Karah, Brooke and Madison

Mikayla, Brooke, Allison, Karah and Jordan

Ashlee and Alyssa

Our 4th Home

In June of 2013 we had to move due to John's change in employment (his previous job included a house).  A few months before our lease was up, we started to look into buying a home.  We got pre-approved and started looking at homes on the market, only to be pretty disappointed in what we saw.  Every time we looked at a home and went back home we realized that the home we were renting was in better condition than those that we looked at.  So we finally got the courage up to ask the landlords if they would be interested in selling the house.  To our surprise, they said they were considering asking us the same thing.  Long story short, a few weeks later it was a done deal and the house was ours.  This is the 4th house we have owned over the last 17 years.

We knew that we wanted to do some remodeling, but we were going to do it little by little.   But when we went to get an estimate on remodeling the kitchen, there was a pretty significant sale coming up that would save us thousands, so we decided to do the remodel sooner rather than later and since the living room, dining room, and kitchen along with the hallway, are kind of all one big attached area, that meant we had to do it all at once; and of course the girls were ready to decorate their rooms too, so we started working on their rooms the weeks prior to the "big" remodel.

Note: During this whole process John took most of the pictures on his phone.  Needless to say, the last day of the remodel, his phone crashed and we lost almost all of the pictures.  Here is what we have.

THE BEFORE PICTURES:

Ashlee's Room

 Fireplace Area before

 Dinning Room

 Living Room

 The Kitchen Before (this was taken on Valentines Day, the only picture we had of the kitchen before).

The process involved scraping the popcorn ceiling off every remodeled room, peeling paint off the walls in two bedrooms for countless hours, peeling off painted over wallpaper, patching drywall, replacing moldy sheet rock, re-texturing, sanding, priming, painting, removing carpet, installing hand scraped laminate flooring, redoing some of the electrical, installing ceiling fans, installing recessed LED lighting, replacing and rerouting some of the plumbing, taring out tile floors and counter tops, removing kitchen cabinets that were nailed instead of screwed to the wall, etc. 

John worked 12 hours or more a day for two weeks straight to get everything done, and it was over a 100 degrees everyday in a house with no air conditioning.  My grandpa, brother and mom all helped us too, and we did hire someone to help John for a few days with the re-texturing process, but overall John worked countless hours non-stop to get the job done and he did a fantastic job.

The Process:

This is the paint peeling off the wall in Ashlee's room.  

Framing in the wall that had three ugly windows in it, in between the living room and dining room.  We wanted to tare the whole wall out, but it was load bearing so we couldn't do that.

Mikayla's ceiling after the popcorn texture was removed.

The mess that peeling paint makes and peeling it off is not fun!

Carpet out of living room area.  We also took out the boards they had along wall and ceiling.  Apparently that use to be a wall too, and instead of re-patching and re-texturing the wall and ceiling, they decided it would be easier to put those boards there.

Installing hand scraped laminate flooring

Installing kitchen cabinets

Installing appliances, counter top, back splash, sink and faucet

The ugly wall with three windows in it that was between the living room and dining room.

The After Pictures

The long awaited after pictures, please note that they are not the completely finished after pictures; but they are pictures of what things look like now.  I still have some decorating that I would like to do, and we eventually want to do something with the ugly brick fireplace, but for now this is what it looks like.

Living Room

Dinning Room 

Living room/kitchen

Hallway

Mikayla's Room

Ashlee's Room

Mikayla's room

The Kitchen

 We still have our bedroom and two bathrooms to do, along with some work on the outside.  But for now the rest of that will wait.  The house feels so much bigger and open.

Stanislaus County Fair

Melted crayon art by Ashlee.  She received Best of Show for it.

 Once again, this summer the girls entered projects into the county fair.  They both did very well.  Both of them got Best of Show or first place on the items they entered.  Here are some pictures of the projects they entered.

Mikayla bought all the supplies for this barn/farm and made and designed the entire thing herself.  The only assistance she received from me was on the roof.

My Mom taught the girls how to sew these table runners.  This is Mikayla's, she received a Best of Show for it.

Ashlee's table runner, she received first place.

Ashlee entered in her Living Museum Project from school on C.S. Lewis.  She received a Best of Show for it. 

Mikayla entered in this tree drawing and another drawing (not pictured).  She received first place for the tree drawing and Best of Show for her city street drawing.

Collection of Rainbow Loom bracelets made by Mikayla.  She got First Place for them.
 

Volleyball Camp

Two years ago during the summer Ashlee and Mikayla attended a volleyball camp, this summer Mikayla has been bored and looking for something to do, so I signed her up for another volleyball camp at a high school here in Turlock.  Ashlee had other events going on throughout the week that would conflict, so just Mikayla did it. Plus her friend Allison, ended up joining her the second day and did it with her throughout the week.  She loved it.  I think she has found something else that she enjoys and is good at.  The camp was taught by the high school volleyball coach and other girls on the high school volleyball team.  The high school girls said that Mikayla can serve the ball harder than they can!

The Cabin Under the Pines, Natural Bridges, Big Trees and White Pine Lake

As soon as the girls got out of school, and all the last day of school activities were cleaned up at school, we headed up to Dan and Teresa's wonderful cabin for a wonderful 3 day trip.  The cabin is so nice, peaceful, and relaxing.  We love going there. The only problem is, no one ever wants to come home!!! On our last night there Mikayla said, "The only thing I don't like about coming here is having to go home; but I do like our house Mom, I like my room and my stuff."
We enjoyed the outdoors most of this trip.  We spent the majority of our time outside.  We ate all our meals outside, relaxed in the spa, laid on the hammock, roasted smores, went hiking, went swimming, etc.
Friday we packed a picnic lunch and went on a 2 mile hike (1 mile there and 1 mile back) to a place called Natural Bridges.  Natural Bridges is a cave that you can swim in.  Pretty neat place, we just did not know what to expect, so we did not come prepared with swimming suits,water shoes, and flotation devices.  Here is what the place looked like, from the outside of the cave.

John, Ashlee and Mikayla-this is where we ate our lunch. 

It was a pretty hot day and the hike was all in the sun, up hill on the way back to the car.  John and the girls were ready to get some inner tubes and go swimming, so we stopped and got some inner tubes and went to White Pine Lake.
John, Ashlee and Mikayla playing in the lake.

John, Mikayla and Ashlee trying to see if they could make it to the other side of the lake.  John decided to turn around, he was afraid his $2 inner tube would go flat and that he would have to swim back!

John and the girls trying to link up and float down the lake. It did not work.

When John and the girls decided to get out of the lake, these three visitors followed behind them.  The girls started feeding them Wheat Thins and either the crackers were too hard or they made the ducks thirsty; because the ducks would grab the Wheat Thins, waddle into the lake, grab some water and come back for more.

Saturday we invited my grandpa to come up to go hiking in Big Trees with us and have a picnic.  Since we had done the usual hike in Big Trees we decided to go on a different hike in the park.  John asked a ranger at the ranger station about the different hikes and she recommended one, so we decided to try that one.  Needless to say, it was not anything great.  We were all ready to go find the ranger and ask her what was so great about that hike.  The hike was longer than the one we went on the day before, but it was cooler and easier in my opinion.  There were times though, were it felt like you were just going in one big circle and were never going to see your car again.  Every time we stopped walking mosquito's attacked us.

Creek at the beginning and end of trail

Mikayla-the leader of our hike.  She likes to just go, you have to keep reminding her to not get too far ahead.

The Hike Critics gave this hike 2 thumbs down.  They did not care for this hike.  The whole point of this hike is suppose to be this grove.  But when you get there, it is basically empty.  Not much to see, and if this sign was not there, you probably would miss it.

We took a selfie.  John and my grandpa decided to take the trail to the "Railroad Tree"  the girls and I decided to keep on going.  Besides, if we stopped we got attacked by mosquito's.

At the end of the hike we had a picnic lunch and then headed to the logging museum.  After the Museum we headed back to White Pine Lake.  The girls wanted to swim one last time, before heading home the next day.

Ashlee and Mikayla at the Logging Museum.

We had a very nice trip.  We love the cabin.  It's so peaceful and relaxing.  Thank you Teresa and Dan.