MDO and Friends

We spent this morning hiking with friends at Montano De Oro or MDO if you want to speak like a local. We were almost a little preschool with all our kids in toe, 9 kids in total. The picture above is not an accurate view of our hike. The kids where out of their strollers running around after about 10 minutes. But they had fun!
This place is gorgeous with the ocean cliffs, huge waves, and beautiful wildflowers. I never get tired of coming here.
It was a little wet after the rains this past month. But the kids loved playing in the mud. They kept calling it the icky sticky mud. You can see my adventurous messy little girl jumping in the mud while her cleanly best friend Emma is knelt down, crying out in horror. I love how different their personalities are!!
Messy best friends!!

Check out the Video of the Beautiful Day CLICK HERE!!

Seeing the Fatties

Pre kids Kevin and I would take drives up the coast at least once a month. I loved stopping at the cute little town of Cambria and browsing through the antique shops. Sometimes Kevin would lovingly suffer through a lunch at the Tea Cozy with their flowery china, pictures of the Queen of England everywhere, mini tea sandwiches, and a waiter who pronounced scones in snooty way. Now Kevin's favorite stop is this beach where the sea elephants or what we like to call them "the fatties" always are. And what we both love is the breathe taking views of the ocean crashing on the ragged coast line and the rolled hills (Irish green in the spring and golden wheat brown the rest of the year) sprinkled with crows grazing and vintage windmills.

So we decided to take a trip with the kids.
First stop: the fattiesNext: Cambria for some pie. No antiques and tea for us this trip. But the pie and hot chocolate was amazing and clearly Abbey loved her present pastry.
And on the way home there was a surprise...zebras!!! Yes I said it, zebras. There are zebras that live on the Hearst Castle property so very once and awhile you can see them from the road. But this day we could almost touch them. So fun!!See, Davey was excited! He is ecstatic over the zebras.
And in Abbey fashion she showed her excited too!!
Just another fun day on the central coast.

Homemade Laundry Soap

I have been trying out different laundry soaps in order to eliminate more chemicals from our house while helping the environment and our wallets. I tried the environmentally friendly soap at Costco which still have chemicals in it. Then I tried the all natural soap nuts. I LOVED that these nuts are from trees and so they are literally all natural but I wasn't thrilled about the stain removal. So, for the last couple months we have been using a homemade soap from soule mama.
Here is the recipe:

Homemade Laundry Powder
(Makes approximately 5 cups)

2 cups (finely) grated castile soap*
1 cup borax
1 cup baking soda
1 cup soda ash (washing soda)

*(we used Dr. Bronners. Half peppermint half plain. Next we will try lavender.)

2TBS per load.

It isn't the same as the regular detergent but so far it is working the best out of everything I have tried. Especially if I spray the stain with a little oxy clean before a wash. It is super easy to make and Abbey loved helping so give it a try and let me know what you think.