Save Horizon Hills

I think you all know by now how important our school is to us.  It is our second home and the place we have found our village.  I would be lost without the friends we have made here, including the teachers who have guided us through the last 4 plus years!

About a month ago the school board announced a plan that would potentially move our school off of its current site, relocating and downsizing the program significantly.  This program has been around for 30 plus years, the current campus has grown and our families have put their blood, sweat and tears into its gardens, playgrounds, murals and classrooms.  Its not simply about a building, they cannot trade us 10 rooms for 10 rooms and think they've made a sound choice.  We are a certified outdoor classroom school.  Our campus is our curriculum.

Needless to say the moment this was announced our parents sprang into action.  We've created committees, made t-shirts, fundraised and attended meetings on meetings on meetings.

The first school board meeting, on May 17th, we showed up in numbers to picket out front.  Then we packed the room and hallways until 11pm listening to speakers and board members discuss.  They put us last on the agenda, probably hoping to starve us out, assuming we would have to leave to go make dinner and put our kids to bed.  Clearly they had never met our parents.  We had moms in the all breastfeeding and holding their sleeping babies.  We had a team of the most amazing teachers watching the bigger kids on our campus until all hours of the night.  No one left!

A few weeks after the first meeting a bunch of us created a Save Horizon Hills team to run the Agoura Love Run.

It was a super fun way to start our Sunday!

Our last planning meeting we packed the house with not only our parents but about 20 our so neighbors surrounding the school.  We are gaining momentum and people are speaking out!

After this past weeks meeting we clearly have our work cut out for us.  This is going to be a long, uphill fight, but fortunately we have great people committed to this cause.  And what an eye opener into local politics - ugly stuff people!

So if you follow me on social media you've been warned, #savehorizonhills isn't going anywhere!!!

Phone dump and face swap

Just wanted to save these pictures for the future.  

Also face swap is equal parts addicting and horrifying.

Love their little posse

Typical Sunday:

Getting down with his pizza at the end of the year baseball party

Scott's little league trophy

Holding the baby chicks that we hatched in kindergarten

Lunch date with this crew

So naturally we did some face swapping

Sometimes I catch him meditating over breakfast.  Food is really his love language.

Last game of the season

While I was away at my seminar Scott played his last baseball game of the season.  I was bummed to miss it, but I knew the boys would have fun with dad celebrating.  And Brian was awesome and made sure to send me a few pictures.  

I hope this video works,  it should be one of Scott crushing a ball

I have to say I was a bit of naysayer about baseball at the beginning of the season.  Two to three days a week of practice and games and he's only 6, plus I've found the sport to be a big of a yawn.  But Scott really took to the game and enjoyed being on the team.  He's skills improved throughout the season and he even got 2 game balls.  To be fair everyone got a game ball, but not everyone got two, and he felt pretty special.  He is really loving all things sports right now and is eager to learn new ones.  Its a pretty fun stage to watch and be involved in.  Here's hoping he'll be just as eager to play little league again next year!

San Francisco weekend

At the end of May there was a seminar in San Francisco that I really wanted to take.  A one day about the neuroendocrine-immunology of environmental triggers.  If you know Owen you know this had his name written all over it.  They weren't going to offer it in my area for at least the rest of this year and fortunately I was able to convince Mimi we should make a girls weekend out of it.  

We headed up early Thursday and made it to Burlingame by mid afternoon.  Friday we headed into the city to walk and see the sights.  I know I've mentioned before, but I grew up having days in the city where we would just walk all over and explore.  This day did not disappoint, we started in the morning at a coffee shop and then found a chocolate shop that was just opening up, so lattes and homemade truffles for breakfast it was! 

We walked by all the usual places

And explored a few new neighborhoods.

And FINALLY got to go to the ferry building.  This wasn't around when I was growing up and I had yet to visit it, although I have been watching it on the food network for years.  I already knew the vendors I wanted to visit inside.  

Bocalone was fascinating, but I'm not much of a meat girl (especially the processed kind) so we didn't eat there, just admired.  We settled on splitting an empanada at Mariposa bakery.  Everything they make is gluten free and PHENOMENAL!  I wish I could have bought one of each, especially so I bring some home to the boys.

We also found this amazing mushroom and truffle shop:

I could have probably spent the whole day in this building!

We spent most of the afternoon in art galleries.  My favorite was the one dedicated to the art of Dr. Seuss - I fell in love with a piece depicting McElligot's Pool...I even know exactly where I would hang it in our house.  Maybe next time.

That night we found the most amazing Thai restaurant for dinner.  So amazing that we went again Saturday night after the seminar.

The seminar on Saturday was so beneficial.  Mimi even got to sit in for some.  I'm still digesting all the material almost a month later.

It was a great weekend and we should probably make it an annual thing. ; )

New House: Before

So then there was this one time we decided to buy a new house....

We were not looking.  But then our neighbors decided to buy the house 7 houses down from their current house because it had a pool.  We were excited, now we had a pool to use! Yay!  Then we (brian) got the bug and I know he is always looking at real estate and somewhere around the end of february he really started looking.

One night he told me he wanted me to look at this listing he had found online.  Yeah yeah, fine.  So I looked.  And it looked great.  But I thought, there is no way we would seriously do this.  The next day he had made arrangements to go see it in person with our real estate agent.  Still I'm thinking, sure, whatever babe, its never gonna happen.  

We went to see this house and before we walked in I made it clear that if the house was a POS or needed really any major remodeling inside I was OUT!  We've remodeled houses, I'm done with that. So we walked in....and what do you know it looked pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprised to say the least.  We had to bring the boys with us to see the house that night and they loved it too.  Scott even offered to give us his $10 birthday monday if we could buy the house with the pool. 

We left excited but still knowing there was probably no way.  We would have to sell our house first and could we do that? for what we needed to? in the time frame we had?  Probably not.  We made an offer anyways, contingent on the sale of our Westlake house.  We had 21 days to sell the house.  So then that craziness began.  We cleaned, took pictures, listed and waited....about 2 days.  We had an offer for full asking price.  The stars had aligned and we were moving.  Of course we had to go through all the negotiation headaches, but I'll spare you the details.  It all worked out and about 6 weeks after seeing the house we were moving in.  With the help of some of the most incredible friends in all the land we got everything moved out in about 24 hours - it was a whirlwind made all the more exciting by a bridal shower we were hosting that weekend and the school book fair (that I run) happening the same week!  But now looking back it all worked out great and we love our house more everyday!

Since these pictures were taken we have painted every room in the house, excluding the half bath off the kitchen. Everything was beautifully painted, just not remotely in our color palette.  So I give you the before with the after coming soon (hopefully)

Kitchen

Dining

Family room

Playroom, boys room looks about the same but my picture came out too dark

Master (if you think it looks bright that's because it was the color of the SUN)

Backyard 

Since moving in I think the boys have gone for a swim nearly everyday (until this week when we started construction on our back yard to replace the concrete, more on that later).  We love everything about the house and look forward to the memories we will make here for years to come!

And that's where we've been!!!

Way back in April

Our most recent trip to Rincon was way back in April for my birthday weekend.  I can officially say that now it has been too long since we've been back, but moving between then and now is a pretty good excuse.

The boys and I headed up early on friday and started the weekend right with popsicles and waves!

A little beach zen for my baby dudes...

This also happened to be the friday of spring break.  We had been planning a big camping trip, but with the move on the horizon we decided to postpone and I can't complain about our Plan B destination one bit. 

My view from the camper (That's Brian, don't worry, we don't let the kids down in the waves without us)

Birthday sunset....

Grandpa happened to be in town visiting that weekend so we got to show him what Rincon is all about.  We started saturday morning with breakfast in Carpinteria, first stop: Lucky Llama for lattes and acai bowls.

The previous Rincon trip I lost my favorite hat during a paddle board wipeout.  So for my birthday the boys took me to a little surf shop in town to pick out a new one! Love what they picked!

Saturday night we decided on Beach House Tacos on the pier for dinner.

And we taught the boys "bear, hunter, princess" to pass the time while we waited for our tacos.

Love beach nights

Scott cuddles up on a rock watching the sunset.  I love this kid.

Grandpa brought the boys snorkel sets, naturally Owen had to try it all on! LOL!

It was the perfect birthday weekend and the perfect getaway before the craziness of moving was upon us!