Friday, September 27, 2013

Preschool update

Preschool is going good!

I gotta say I never thought I would actually be able to pull this off and actually do it but we have a pretty good schedule for the most part.

We are really enjoying taking out books from the library and reading them. Bentley will now ask me to read him books and we are up to about 4 books a day which is so nice. I want my boy to love reading books as much as Jon and I do.

Whether or not Bentley is learning is another story, hahaha. I'm sure he is learning some things but this whole letter recognition thing is pretty hard. He is better with numbers and shapes. We are making progress with coloring, he is getting pretty good at it and doesn't complain as much about having to do it. He really loves doing crafts though for the most part which is nice.

I love taking pictures of out preschool days because its so cute seeing the things this boy is able to make and seeing him writing or glueing or doing the work. 

Little by little we are making progress and hopefully he will start being able to memorize the letters.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Surviving

In all honesty I feel like I am on survival mode here.

Having no friends and no adult to really talk to sucks.

My husband doesn't count because if he is home he is always studying and cannot count on him for anything or bother him.

Now I knew this would be hard because I am not young and naive and I have learned that nothing in life worth while is easy but some days it still takes everything in me not to throw myself a self pity party.

Its interesting how much I really miss having someone I can talk to who is going through the same things I am and understands me. Here I do not have that.

Thank goodness on the weekends we head to our families house and then I get some adult time but during the week it's a little bit hard and is taking some getting used to.

I have figured out that in order for me not to feel sorry for myself I just need to go out on a daily basis and it doesn't matter where I go as long as I am out of the house for a few hours it makes the world of difference.

At first I thought depression might be creeping in due to my energy level being so down but after talking to my cousin who is a doctor I just think it has something to do with a vitamin deficiency or something like that.


Bentley has been all on his own taking out his guitar about 3 times a week and trying to play it and he has now learned how to hold it the right way. I have looked into guitar lessons but he is too little they tell me and most people won't give lesson till he is at least 6. On days where I am just really trying to survive due to my all time low energy I make a fort for Bentley and make him some yummy treat and have him watch a movie under there, he loves it and I probably should do it on normal days cause it is fun and I remember doing that as a kid too. 

We have started going to storytime at the library which is fun. Another one of our go-to activities is going to Barnes & Nobles and letting Bentley play with their train set. The boy never gets tired of it and will sometimes even beg me to take him. So what is do is get a book sit down on the ground and read while he plays, its super relaxing. I have also found that the moms that do this with their kids too are normally pretty nice and have given me a lot of tips on things to do for free with Bentley.



Friday, September 20, 2013

Natural History Museum


Every Tuesday this month was free admissions at the Natural History Museum which is at USC. I had been wanting to go but it normally is too expensive after paying for tickets and parking so I was so glad I found out that we could go for free.

Bentley is very much into dinosaurs so it was the perfect way to spend an afternoon there. I was expecting it to be small and boy was I wrong. This place is HUGE! We walked for about 3 hours and didn't get to see everything. 

We loved the dinosaur exhibit's, all of them. I was surprised at how into it Bentley was. He couldn't move fast enough between the dinosaur exhibits because he just wanted to take everything all at once. He had never seen or heard of a woolly mammoth until this trip and was so intrigued by it. The other animal he really liked was the ostrich, couldn't stop talking about it.

I do not like ostriches because they are mean animals. As a young girl in Costa Rica I saw them chase some kids and the fear on the kids faces was enough to scare me for life. Now that I am an adult I realize that they were probably being protective over their babies or something but I still don't like them so it's funny that Bentley is so into them.


We really had a good day here.

I so badly wanted to go and walk around the gardens at USC cause they looked beautiful from what I could see but when I said something to Bentley about it he wanted nothing to do with it unless he could pick flowers. I guess I will have to do that another day.


Friday, September 13, 2013

Our dates


In trying to keep things fun and exciting Bentley and I met Jon for lunch one day at our favorite restaurant near us. They were having a lunch special and we couldn't pass it up. We do love our time with Jon because it is rare that we get his full undivided attention since most of the time he is studying or reading something for school. 

Law school is no joke and now we totally understand why they say DO NOT work your first year of law school. After school Jon studies for about 4-6 hours every single day and that is including Saturday. His only day off is Sunday and that's mainly cause that's when we are driving back from the desert and do our shopping for the week and he likes to watch his football. 


Since we don't get to hang out with Jon too often Bentley and I are joined at the hip. Thank goodness we have trained the boy well cause he just rolls with the punches for the most part. We often go get treats and have our own little dates and they are the best. Probably the one thing I look forward the most towards. Bentley found our favorite bakery owned by Armenians and let me tell those people know how to bake, holy cow. Everything we get there is a piece of art work and tastes just as good as it looks. Will for sure be taking anyone that comes visit us there. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Zimmer's Museum


Being in a new city and a huge city at that, with no family or friends around can be hard.

Quite honestly I am struggling most days.

With a boy as energetic as Bentley and not having someone for him to play with can be overwhelming at times. 

Since getting here I have done my fair share of internet research into finding things to do with Bentley that will be safe, fun and cheap.

Good thing about LA is that they have a lot of free things to do with children. We still have a list of things to try but with a city this size you have to drive a lot and with out budget being so minimal we try to keep out outings close to home most days. 

My uncle has been worried about us not having anything to do out here so he found a kids museum and told me about it so I googled it and read the reviews and after a week or so finally got to courage to head to it. Its not too far from us but traffic here is ridiculous so it takes us about 15 minutes to get there but they have free parking which is super nice for LA, parking here is the big problem and a big expense. 

It was a little bit pricey for a one time visit but we had plans on possibly getting a year membership which was pretty cheap in comparison to other museums. 

I wasn't too impress specially coming from Utah where we have some pretty amazing kid museums but Bentley was in kid heaven. He played so hard. they even have an hour where they do crafts with the kids which was actually really nice and Bentley enjoyed it so much. 

At the end of our day he met a little boy his age and they played really well so the mom asked for my number so we could try and get together with the kids which was so nice to see that someone was willing to do this cause up to this point mom's have barely spoken to me.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Family day at the beach


Jon had a day off from school due to a Jewish holiday which I was so grateful for.

Thank you Jewish holiday! I hope there are more to come.

Jon woke up early and headed to the library and studied all morning long so he could get his work done before heading to the beach with us after lunch.

It was such a beautiful weathered day at the beach. 

We got to play in the sand, jump in the water and walk the Santa Monica Pier.

Jon loves the ocean and goes out far swimming which gives me a mini heart attack because God knows I cannot do that without drowning. I can swim but not that good. Even Bentley was a little nervous about his papa going out so far.

We really had a good day and ended things by sharing a banana split at the ice cream place on the pier.