JD bonded with another dirt-loving two-and-a-half-year old at one of Daniel’s games. Don’t you love those moments when you come across another bird with your same feathers?

The vast majority of these photos were taken by our family photographer, Aunt Janet.  Thank you, yet again, Janet!!

Baseball season has been time-consuming but joyous this year. Joshua joined a team late in the season that was short on players because after seeing his brothers enjoy playing so much, he wanted in on this action too! That puts Joshua in the “Mustang” league, which is an exciting game to watch. At this level, the players get to pitch, get out in three strikes, and even steal bases.

Caleb and his buddy, Aiden, are having a ball in their league as well. Alan is their coach, and Caleb and Aiden have some mad serious baseball skills. In fact, we were so confident in these two that we let them also play for Joshua’s team last week, as their team needed a couple of back-ups, and Caleb and Aiden held their own. They may be the youngest players on the team, but you’d never know it. Both boys scored one point for Joshua’s team, and the funny part was that Caleb even struck out and still scored a run. How? Well, when the catcher dropped the ball, Caleb stole first base! I didn’t know you can do that either, but I saw it with my own eyes.

Daniel is in a tee-ball league. I may not fully understand all the baseball rules, but by golly I’ve got tee-ball down pat, and so does Dan. I love to watch him catch the ball and throw it to first base. (See those cleats? Those were Joshua’s when he played tee-ball!)

Nonna and Aunt Janet got to see Caleb and Daniel’s games.

It was super cold!

By the way, my nails have been quite the hit.

I may not play ball, but I do support it. 🙂

Okay. I just realized I had promised 17 Mile Drive and Seal Pups in this post. Next time! Really really!

The post Game Day Photos appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I held my breath (okay not really, but it felt like it) as I asked the question, “So did it show any seizures???”

{An EEG is a test designed to measure brain waves. Caleb wore electrodes all over his head for 24 hours to get a better idea of what is going on in his brain. Caleb has a history of seizures.}

She (the neurologist) said, “It was an abnormal EEG. Are his seizures on his right side, because the activity is happening on the left side of his brain, which controls the right side of the body.”

Sigh. Suspicions confirmed. Drat. Keppra treatment lives on.

I’ve never noticed if seizures were happening more on one side than the other. We had this EEG because he continues to jerk around in his sleep, and we weren’t sure if what we’re seeing is seizure-related or not.

She started to explain it, but the she said it would be easier to explain if she could show it to us, so she took us back to the testing room and pulled up several different photos of brain waves. She pointed to each place where the left, posterior portion of his brain is having spikes.

Dr. La Garda also asked if Caleb is still seizure free, so I was confused.

“We saw him jerking during this EEG, so were those seizures?” I asked her.

“No. Those weren’t seizures, just abnormal activity,” she answered.

“Are they related to seizures? How many people have this? Would this happen in a normal brain?” I asked. I can’t believe I was actually able to think of the right questions to ask. It seems like doctors never explain enough, and yet, I never seem to think of the right questions.

She said that about 6% of the population would show this sort of activity. She said she almost called it a normal EEG result, “but then he did this,” and she showed me another page and pointed to more spikes. She explained it, but I didn’t understand or memorize it well enough to regurgitate that information.

She also said that some jerking in your sleep is perfectly normal. That’s good to know!

http://www.biomedresearches.com/root/pages/researches/epilepsy/eeg.html

I asked her about the portion of his brain where this is happening. She said it’s the visual area. On the map above, she showed me that his activity was between T3 and P3. She asked if Caleb is doing okay in school.

“Yes, except he has had a struggle with reading, from the very beginning.”
“Oh, yes,” the doc said, “That comes from this area. Dyslexia is also associated with this area not functioning properly. It looks like the brain could be healing here. The brain heals in sleep. Perhaps he is getting better. He has been seizure free for two years. I think he has a 50-70% chance of growing out of it. We’ll need to re-test and re-visit all of this when he hits puberty.”

“Oh. Puberty. What happens then?”

“Well, the seizures will either disappear altogether, there will be no change, or it will get worse.”

Great. Basically, no one knows.

Caleb enjoyed kayaking with Alan today. He looked forward to that all week. They saw a jellyfish and lots of seals and sea otters.

She filled out his sports physical, and we left. She said he’s fine for soccer, basketball, and baseball. She said he can even ride rides at amusement parks. (I asked because I’ve always wondered. Caleb loves the rides.) She said no to scuba diving (pressure) and fighting sports like wrestling and boxing. He doesn’t need to deal with head injuries.

He will continue to have follow-ups every 6 months, and his Keppra dose will stay the same.

I’m thankful there were no full-on seizures, and I’m thankful we don’t have to increase the Keppra. I don’t like that he has to continue to take a brain medication, but it is what it is.

Now I’m just hoping to read more on the visual portion of the brain, and I’m going to focus on patience with Caleb when doing reading and writing activities. The difference between he and Joshua is a massive gulf, but when it comes to math, Caleb is soaring high. This explains a lot.

Caleb, Xavier, and Joshua, all reading together

Caleb is just a smidgen behind in reading. He seems to be gradually catching up. He passed his reading exams this year, so on paper it looks like he’s fine, but if you listen to him read, you see that he reads slowly and monotone. If he’s reading to someone who makes him nervous, it gets much worse. If Caleb reads to you, please be very quiet and patient. Pleasing others is important to him. He thrives under encouragement.

I also hope to pray more for Caleb.

I talk about prayer, and I pray off and on all day long, but there are so many things that I just plum FORGET to pray about. Because Caleb always seems fine, and we haven’t seen a seizure in two years, I forget to pray about it very often. This is why it’s important to keep a prayer list out and updated. It’s so rewarding, too, as you see those prayers get answered.

Thanks for taking the time to read and learn about Caleb and his epilepsy. For more of Caleb’s story, you can read my past articles on epilepsy here: Caleb and Epilepsy, Keppra Caleb and Epilepsy, Changing My Expectations.

The post EEG Results: I finally have answers to my questions about Caleb’s epilepsy. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Some days it’s best to wear your pants a different way.

I stepped outside to take out the recycling. Joshua, Caleb, Daniel, and a neighborhood friend were all playing in and around the trees on the hill behind our house.

I heard Caleb ask, “Master Joshua, how much longer do we have to train?”

Gracious.

Two new seven-year-old boys have moved onto our street in the past few weeks. Joshua and Caleb’s world keeps getting happier and happier.

********

Right now it’s recess time at “Yawn City Elementary School.”

Daniel keeps running in my room, holding the Batmobile, giggling, “Save me, Mom! Save me!” with Caleb, half-heartedly chasing him, holding a Skylander statue. These two make such adorable playmates.

Joshua is still downstairs finishing up his seat work. He had a day dreaming problem this morning. He has three new books arriving in the mail in the next few days, and that is all he can think about. Joshua is an obsessor, another fine quality inherited from his mother. (Sorry, kids.)

I warned him this morning, “Joshua, you will not go to recess until you finish that seat work. It’s not my fault that you’re sitting there daydreaming about books.”

“What did you say I’m daydreaming about?”

I figured that meant that he thought I was wrong, so I back-tracked, “Well, whatever you are daydreaming about. You need to do your math paper.”

“But what did you say before?”

“Your books..”

“Oh, yeah, you were right. I’m daydreaming about my books.”

We love books around here. At least I handed down ONE good quality!!  You’re welcome, dear world.

That has been one thing I have loved about our A Beka language arts curriculum. They include such quality novels and stories. Granted, Joshua hated Swiss Family Robinson and Pilgrim Boy,  but all of the reading material has been chock full of great stories, almost all of them with morals that are hard to find just anywhere. Many of the stories in the third grade curriculum are from centuries ago. They have points I had never even thought of.

Our favorite was this one:

This story of Hilda is relatable, funny, and many of the values in this book are things that we often forget about in our modern age. I’m talking about things like removing distractions from our lives because they prevent us from remembering to pray, not because the distractions are harmful in themselves, but simply because they keep us from what’s best. We never want to accept something that’s kind of good, at the cost of experiencing what is best.

Joshua would probably not admit that he enjoyed this book, but he did, and I did too. He also learned a lot about smallpox and obedience!

Now some of you may wonder why Joshua did not enjoy The Swiss Family Robinson. Oh my goodness. I didn’t blame him. That book really was “boring.com.” If you only saw the movie, you can’t understand. The movie was solid family fun! The book……talks about survival. The book tells you that the treehouse was actually not sustainable all year long. They had to build a house out of a cave for monsoon season.  Okay, that still sounds interesting, but see, the book tells you, in agonizing detail, how they MADE things, how they survived.

Yes, some of you will love it. If you are like Joshua and me, and don’t care how they made the things….it’s a boring book. I really just wanted to read about the animal adventures, meeting the girl, and the shipwreck incident.

Our book love doesn’t stop with Joshua. Caleb was my VOW.

Victory Of the Week!!!

I downloaded a lengthy 2nd grade formal reading assessment from the Ohio State Department of Education, and ……Caleb passed it with flying colors!

I was so excited. That was reason #1 I wanted to home school Caleb: to give him a boost in reading skills. The other formal reading assessments I’d used on Caleb were only lists of words to read, but this Ohio one had the whole nine yards: word recognition and multiple stories, of all different types, to read with comprehension questions.

Here’s a link for anyone else that is interested:

http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Testing/Diagnostic-Assessments/New-Diagnostic-Assessments-List#FAQ1413

Caleb is enjoying reading too. He has always loved being read to, but now he finally has the confidence to read on his own.

Henry and Mudge is my absolute favorite series for encouraging youngsters to read. All four boys enjoy those books. They are sweet, relatable stories about a boy and his dog.

But yes, my boys are still terrified of dogs. Someday, when they are much older, we will get them a dog of their own, and I figure that will take care of that. For now, there is no way on earth that I am taking care of a dog.

Every morning, Caleb and Joshua do a math paper and work in their “seat work notebook”, during the first hour of school. The seat work notebook has varying tasks, but it always includes spelling work and a writing assignment. The other assignments vary, which keeps it interesting. Caleb asked me today, “Mom, when are you going to put ‘Read a book,’ in my seat work again?”  That made me smile. I’m so glad he’s finally enjoying reading.

Here’s what I did to help Caleb enjoy reading more:

1. I ordered A Beka 1st grade readers. Last semester, Caleb read the 2nd grade readers, but A Beka is an advanced curriculum, and those readers were too much work for Caleb. I learned a valuable lesson from Joshua’s teacher, Mrs. DeSatnick, last year. She told us, at Open House, “With young readers, you want them to read material that is just right for their level, or easy for their level. Reading books that are above their level actually hinder their learning.”

Best reading advice ever, and Joshua flourished in reading in her class. He still reads several years above grade level, but he didn’t get there by reading books that were too hard for him.

2. I kept taking Caleb to the library and letting him pick out whatever he wants to read. Yes, he reads Garfield and Ninjago more than Frog and Toad. I am no book snob. There is only one kind of book that does not enter our house:

Captain Underpants:  ew, ew , ew.  Parents, do yourself a favor, and everyone that has to talk to your children a favor, and avoid those books. “Poopy” and ‘stupid’ are about the only adjectives you will find in those books.

Don’t confuse Capt. Underpants with Capt. Awesome. They are two very different series.

We LOVE Captain Awesome.

3. I started letting Caleb do more ‘silent reading.’ I think reading to me makes him nervous because I correct him a lot.

4. I gave incentives. Read 30 books, get a Lego set. Obviously, that was a hit.

I could talk books all day long, but the natives are getting restless, so I’d better run. This will be a big weekend for us. Friday night I’m hosting the moms from my home school group, so I really should be getting ready for that!

Have a great weekend!

The post My Victory of the Week at Yawn City Elementary appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Sometimes I wondered if my life would become less interesting as my children get older and “more mature.”

BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Nope. When people say that there is never a dull moment in raising four boys, that is a very literal, literal statement.

Case in point: MLKJ Day weekend:

We had zero plans, other than Joshua’s opening basketball game, which they lost.  Not a big deal to us. We are experts at losing. I don’t know what that says about us…..but it was our head coach’s very first loss as a coach!??!  Heh???  Bizarre, considering he’s been coaching youth basketball for years and years. I’m pretty sure he was disappointed. In all fairness, our 3rd/4th graders were up against a team of humongous 5th graders that dwarfed our kids, and yes, I am petty enough to point that out. 😉 hehehe

The rest of the weekend made my basketball attendance fail, mentioned in my last post, I Did Try, sound like a walk in the park.

Sunday afternoon, I went to choir practice. Midway through practice, my cell phone rang. I was so embarrassed because we had just finished joking about that happening in the service this morning. I grabbed my phone and silenced it, but I noticed it was Alan. Might be important. Better go find out. I walked outside and called him back.

“You need to come home right away.”

“Okay. What happened??”

“Caleb fell and broke his front tooth in half.”

(diagonally!!!)

“Oh nooo. I’m on my way.”

That still didn’t prepare me for the sight of my little Ca-bob. His mouth was swollen, actually it still is swollen, to proportions I’ve never seen before. They had gone on a family walk/scooter ride to the mini-mart in our neighborhood, and Caleb took a spill, landing square on his mouth. We never did find the other half of Caleb’s big, beautiful permanent front tooth. 🙁

Poor thing. He’s so sweet and so tough. He’s handling it all really well. I still haven’t actually seen what his front tooth looks like. His lip is so swollen that I can’t even get a glimpse of it.

Alan found a local family dentist that agreed to come in and look at Caleb’s mouth last night. The dentist said that Caleb’s mouth is too swollen to work on until next week. I personally thought surely it would look a little better by today, but it doesn’t. The dentist also said that several other teeth are gashed as well. A lot of work will have to be done.

Lots of dental work…hmmm…All of your birthday presents just got smaller…. hehehe just kidding…

I can’t show you a picture. I feel too bad for the little fella to share that with the world. Just keep him in your prayers. He can barely eat or drink anything. His mouth is cut to pieces.

So on a lighter note……a few more stories, all from this weekend:

1. We put JD in a big boy bed. Last night, at 1am, he suddenly figured out how to open his bedroom door, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Yeah….

2. At 11am this morning, one of the neighborhood boys knocked on our front door.  He handed Joshua a flyer he had made on the computer that said this:

“Help *Amazing Smith* find a new boyfriend. Come to the rally at the park at 12:00, or die.”

The “or die” part was scratched out with marker.

By the way*I changed the names…

*Johnny explained, “Here’s this flyer. This may be a little inappropriate. Amazing’s boyfriend (she’s like 7) broke up with her yesterday, so we’re all gathering at the park today, you know, to show our support.”

Now I call her Amazing because she is this adorable little blonde girl who has played at our house a few times. She earned the nickname (in my head) because when I’m giving, “Stop opening and closing the garage door,” and “The last person through always needs to shut the door,” lectures, she is always our only guest that actually RESPONDS.

“Okay. Yes ma’am. Did you know that we have a baby too?”

It’s so refreshing. Boys don’t do a ton of talking. Do you give people nicknames in your head, or is that just me?

Anyway, the whole rally thing was so ludicrous it was hilarious. As soon as *Johnny left, Joshua just laughed and laughed. He made sure he was there promptly at 12, though. 😉

Caleb and Dan, at the Golden Gate bridge, on New Year’s Day. I know that looks dangerous, but I can assure you that the wall only had grass on the other side. It was not a huge dropoff as it appears in the photo. I promise he was only up there for a second.  Also, blame Alan not me. I was in the car with JD. 😉

3. The dustpan

I swept the kitchen, but when I finished, I noticed the dustpan was not in its place. Wha??? Where’s the dustpan?  I looked everywhere. Then I began to question the children.

I started with Daniel. He didn’t know. I moved on to Caleb. Nope. I went outside to where Joshua lives, the trampoline, and asked him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was using it when I was being a vampire. It’s in my room.”

I didn’t ask for further details. I was just so thankful to find my dust pan.

The post Broken teeth, the Boyfriend Rally, and the Missing Dustpan appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

First, I want to reiterate that epilepsy is simply that, it does not make a person any less intelligent than any other person. It simply means that a person has had two or more seizures of unknown cause. I feel the need to make that very clear, since so many people have had no experience with epilepsy. I didn’t know anything about it either until the summer of 2011.

For a little background information, you can read this post: Keppra Caleb.

We think that Caleb has been seizure free from April 2013 until the present. Once he makes it to the two-year mark, he could have the “epilepsy” label removed, and we could begin to wean him off of Keppra (his seizure medication).

I so badly want that to happen!

Unfortunately, we have recently seen an uptick in odd activity. We aren’t 100% sure that any of it was actually seizures, but hopefully we will get some answers soon.

1. Caleb has had terrible sinus troubles since October. If Caleb get a cold, that’s it. It’s with him for months, and it usually comes early on in the winter and stays until May or so. Poor, poor Caleb.

Caleb, 18 months, 3 years before the seizures began

Some years antibiotics cleared him up in a snap. Other years, nothing worked. I had him allergy tested, and the only thing he tested positive for was dust mites. Is there anyone who is not allergic to dust mites?

2. Caleb has fallen out of bed in the middle of the night at least twice in the past couple of weeks. Why? We are not sure. He could have just rolled out, or this could have been more seizures. See, Caleb’s seizures happen in his sleep, so it’s really hard to track them.

3. On the flight home, Caleb slept in his seat next to Alan. Caleb kept jerking in his sleep. They were all quick, muscle spasms, in all different limbs, as in one arm would twitch for a few seconds. Then a few seconds later, his other arm would. We’ve seen a LOT of this from Caleb since 2011. We don’t know if they are partial seizures or just muscle spasms. His neurologist says that the only way to know is to have him actually do what he does during an EEG. (EEGs measure brain activity. Caleb had one in 2012, but it was only a 20-30 minute one, and it was all normal activity.)

4. He had two nose bleeds yesterday.

5. I firmly believe that Caleb has more seizures when he is having sinus problems.

6. We have made Caleb stop sleeping in those fleece footies he loves so much. The boy gets too hot in his sleep, and fevers are such an obvious trigger. He now sleeps in much cooler clothing.

So what to do……Obviously, something should be done.

1. We called Caleb’s neurologist. She wants him to do a 24 hour EEG. That would show us how many seizures he has in a day. They wanted to do this on Monday, but our insurance has issues, so they have to work that out first.

2. We have put him back on daily Allegra.

3. I am also going to put him back on Flonase. These are both things he has taken in the past, so we still have them. We had just stopped using them when Caleb was doing so much better. I feel so bad for the amount of medicine this poor boy has to take all the time. However, when it works, medicine is better than being miserable.

Caleb keeps us laughing. This boy lives to have fun.

Caleb is just as hilarious as ever. You’d never know he has these problems, except for the constant sound of snot slurping.  We got to go hiking at Pinnacles National Park today, all six of us. We all had a great time. Once we’d hiked probably 2 miles UP, Caleb kissed me on the arm and said, “This is the greatest field trip I’ve ever had!!!” Nothing makes Joshua and Caleb happier than hiking and rock climbing…not simulated rock climbing, but real, dangerous, scaling mountains kind of climbing.

It has been such a pleasure to teach Caleb this year. The improvements in every single subject are amazing, and I’ve actually gotten to watch it happen. Caleb has this eager joy for life that makes him a blast to be around.  When we were preparing for our Christmas trip, I went around the house and asked each individual child, in secret, “Who would you like to sit by on the plane?” Everyone replied, “Caleb.”

By the way, they are all liking school much better now that we’ve moved school from the school room to the dining room table. I’m in the process of rearranging all my bookshelves this week.  More on that in my next post!

The post Caleb’s Epilepsy Battle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This boy has loved this third or fourth hand Nursery Rhymes book until it has completely fallen apart. The adorable-ness level fills my heart with joy.

Everyday. My friend Barbara once remarked that, “We can never truly get depressed because we have these children that keep us going. They make us happy.”

They do. Did I feel gloriously joyful this morning, when right as we were supposed to leave for church, I found JD soaked from head to toe with toilet water??? Um no. And he was drenched. Boy must have been dunking his head into the bowl.

ARgh.  He was wearing the ONE pair of non-jogging-type-pants that was clean too. I had him looking so adorable before the toilet bath, and instead he ended up attending church in an Alabama t-shirt and black wind pants.  : /

No. Elated isn’t quite how I was feeling, but underneath my aggravation, I was busy and happy. This job is fun. There’s no denying it.

Caleb was very disappointed in our tardiness. He likes to get to Sunday school early so he can eat a third breakfast. I think he puts up quite a fuss if he gets there late and they don’t serve him food. How do I know? Because we got a note the third or so week that we went to this church. It said something like this:

“Breakfast is served at 9:45. He has to arrive on time to receive breakfast.”

baaaahahahahaha   We shame-facedly took our note, tucked our tails between our legs, and took our obviously starving child home…ah punctuality, what families of little ones are known for…

AW. Isn’t he cute, playing with his dollhouse fire station? 😉 Actually, he is getting thinner lately. He paused on his dash into breakfast Sunday school this morning to ask me to tighten his pants. Now these weren’t big pants. These were hand-me-downs from Joshua. I tightened them as tight as you can possibly tighten them, and they still had a little room, but he just had to go with that.

Anyone have a great recommendation for pants for skinny but tall boys?

They keep us laughing. I laugh every single day. Yesterday I took Daniel with me to the grocery store, and I let the others stay home with Daddy. This was a mistake because without Joshua and Caleb there to help, I had to haul my two buggies around the store by myself, with Daniel happily making the first buggy (the race car one) heavier as he “drove” it.

People always smile at me when I take multiple helpful little boys to the store with me. People were more like scowling at me, walking all slow with those two buggies and just the one kid. I guess I looked slow and greedy. I needed a sign that read, “Feeding 6 people. Stop judgin’.”

Daniel always goes to the grocery store with me. Daniel will go anywhere you want to go, and he hates being left at home. Joshua and Caleb are the opposite. They seem to think that home is base and everything else is work, which requires them to wear real clothes.

Well, you know we moved this year, so I’m learning my way around a new place, which isn’t easy. I get lost. Also, I’m a day dreamer. Sometimes I miss even the turns that I do know. This is really bad because then I don’t know how to fix it. I only know the one route to most places.

Daniel knows this about me a little too well. He was apparently very proud of me for making it allll the way to the grocery store and back without getting lost.

As we turned onto the highway, Daniel said, “You made the right turn!!!  Good job, Mommy!”

: / “Thank you, Daniel. Let’s listen to the radio.” I turned on the radio.

“No, not this Mommy. Other radio!”

I switched it to our Classical Conversations memory work CD. It features history, learn the presidents in order, and skip counting songs, among other things.

“Yes! This one!” He did his best to sing along. So adorable.

We pulled into the grocery store. He was ecstatic. “You did it, Mommy! You got all the way here and no you get lost. Good job, Mommy!”

hehehe

“Me want race car buggy.”

We shopped, we left, and then Daniel congratulated me on all of my correct turns all the way home. It was a humbling experience.

Hope you all have a great week. I hope you all make all your turns correctly, get all the breakfast you want, and do not find anyone washing their hair in your toilet!

The post These Delightful Children appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My whole life I have heard of these trees and wanted to see them. I was stoked, a couple of weekends ago, when we finally got to go hiking among them!

There’s a state park in Santa Cruz called Henry Cowell State Park that has mega redwoods galore. Did you know that there would be even more of them in this area, but beginning in 1850, an estimated 95% of these sequoias were cut down?  It takes hundreds of years for them to become the size you can drive a car through, though. Those are found on the Avenue of the Giants, further to the north.

The redwoods in Santa Cruz were still enormous, so I feel like I can happily check that off my list.

There was one historical, and seriously gigantic, tree that we all climbed into and stood around inside. Apparently, there was an explorer who spent the night in said tree and wrote about it in a book. Caleb was so excited about getting to go inside a redwood. He kept trying to go into the tree with all the other hiking groups. He also kept asking to “be the one to hold the flashlight.” That boy has zero inhibitions whatsoever.

That was really neat, but it was super dark inside the tree, so I didn’t get any pictures of that one.

We could see the pure glee on Caleb’s face. These trees can be found from Monterey County on up into Oregon.

A sweet park tour guide saw our struggle to take photos and helped us out. After she took our picture, she talked to us for a while. Alan said to her, “Oh,you’ll like our boys’ names: Joshua, Caleb, Daniel, and John David!”

I was thinking, “Huh? Why in the world would she care about that?” Then I noticed that she was, indeed, wearing a menorah necklace. “Oh,” I thought, but I don’t really know if she appreciated that reference to her faith/heritage or not. She didn’t really make much reply to Alan’s comment, but she was extremely helpful. So thank you, tour guide!

Do you see all those bush -like trees growing off the base of the trunk? This is how the redwood trees reproduce.

Because of the strong bark of these trees, they can survive forrest fires and lightning!

This is my kind of man.

John David gets the award for “grumpiest hiker,” but then, does that really surprise anyone? Next time, we’ll take the jogging stroller.

This is a vertical panoramic shot of the candelabra tree, taken by Alan. It was much taller than it appears here.

JD *said (by crying)*, “My mama. My cup. Must reach past Daddy and get to my mama and my cup.”

What hiking with 4 little boys was really like:

It was fun, but it was work. That applies to pretty much everything we do, though. Hopefully, we’ll get to do this again soon. A stroller-friendly hiking trail is a rare find!

The park also has a Thomas the Train ride that goes around the perimeter. We were trying to avoid the hassle and expense of the train and food vendors. We wanted to just make it about hiking. That wasn’t easy.

We fielded quite a few “Aren’t we going to ride the train? Can we ride the train now?” questions. Why didn’t we? 1. We are….um…thrifty.  We didn’t even check to see how much the train costs.  #2. We didn’t have all the time in the world. Alan has enough homework to fill up the entire weekend and then some.

The kids handled the no train thing way better than I thought they would.

So that only left a couple of hitches.

The tour guide told us not to let the boys behind the fence because the poison oak leaves have fallen off and the woods are eaten up in it, so you can be standing in poison oak twigs and not know it. : ( She also told us not to let them sit on the fence because they have splinters that burn.

I guess I’m glad she told us because I would not have thought of splinters or poison oak. I’m not a big worrier. However, with those worries introduced, we were like the Caleb police.

To say Caleb has ants in his pants and a great sense of adventure is putting it lightly.

“Caleb! Don’t go behind the fence!”

“Caleb! Remember! Don’t go behind the fence!”

“Boys, don’t sit on the fence. Remember the splinters.”

The fence. The poison oak. The fence. The splinters. The poison oak. The train tracks.

There are also signs, letting you know that climbing the trees is prohibited.  So many rules.

“Caleb! No! They don’t want you to climb the trees here.”

“Yeah, I know, but he’s a grown up, and he isn’t supposed to either…..” or as the grown- man- that-was- trying- to- climb- the redwood’s friend said, “Yeah, but honey, he’s crazy.”

“Caleb, get down.”

“Don’t go behind the fence.”

“Alan, we’d better keep moving.”  Babies in backpacks cry less if you keep walking. This we know well.

The boys also tend to run way ahead of us, but we are pretty laid back and that doesn’t really bother us anymore. They stop periodically and wait for us to catch up.

At least if they were running ON the trail, that meant we didn’t have to remind Caleb to stay inside the fence.

Poor kid. He’s just not a beaten path kind of guy.

Lesson of the day: If you take a Caleb-type person to Henry Cowell, make sure they wear pants. 🙂 And no, none of us got poison oak.

Did we all love seeing the redwoods at Henry Cowell State Park?

Yes!!!! We loved it so much. When Alan’s parents came to visit us, we took them to Henry Cowell. Then when my parents came to town, we told them about it. They rented a car and went and saw it and took Daniel with them.

For all of our other trips, we did ride the train. It is a good long ride, and you learn a lot too! We also sometimes would walk around and try the food they have. The train stop has other activities going on around there at peak tourist times.

If you are taking a NoCal road trip, squeeze in Henry Cowell, especially if you don’t have time to go up and see the sequoias.

This is only an hour from Monterey, and it is one of my absolute favorite things we did during our time here. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and don’t worry. Caleb was calmer the second time. They were all happy to get to ride the train!

The post See the Redwoods at Henry Cowell State Park appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.