Halloween

On Friday, the girls had their Halloween celebrations at school. First there was the "pumpkin patch" for the kindergardeners after lunch.

Followed by costume parades around the school. And ending with Halloween class parties back in each classroom.

Man, there was a lot of sugar floating around. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time we got home.

Vacation - part deux

We finally made it to the Imperial Sand Dunes shortly after noon. We made pretty good time actually. We found Dave's camp site with no problem. He was at the hospital with his wife but was due back shortly. We broke out lunch and met some of his friends and then took off to take a look around the dunes. The place is huge. Sand as far as the eyes could see. The girls were so excited to play in the sand. There were a lot of people there but apparently not as crowded as this coming weekend will be.

When we got back to camp, Dave had returned. We got an update about his wife's condition as well as a look at her x-rays and a gruesome picture of her leg after it had happened. He took everyone for a quick ride in his buggy. The girls were so excited. They have been talking of it for weeks since he had been working on tuning up his buggy and working on some of his friend's buggies as well in the weeks prior.

Dave was going on one big run with his friends that day as he had not gotten to do very much since the accident. Christian was lucky enough to go with them. Dave used to race off-road motor bikes for about 5 years in his earlier youth and pretty much grew up driving OHVs so they were not just piddling around out there. They went on some pretty big dunes. They also went to watch some of the people racing. Christian got some neat videos of Dave and his friends racing as well. It doesn't look nearly as fast as they were going in the video though. They said that they were going about 120 miles per hour.

The girls and I played cards, did a little reading and exploring while they were away. I nearly got us lost at some point as it is so difficult to get your bearings out there. Christian got a chance to drive the buggy when they got back so he took the each of us out for a little bit on the flats. One of the groups in our camp made chili for everyone so we had a nice dinner and got to sit around a bonfire for a while. His friends were super nice and hospitable. At some point a few of the older group members went off to bed and the younger ones planned a night run. Christian went out with them again. He had a blast but he said that it was a little scary. They went out in search of a big bowl in the middle of some of the dunes and although the moon was nearly full, they can really only see what is in front of them because of the bright headlights on the vehicles.

I got the girls to bed when they took off. It was pretty late and Caitlyn had been sleeping on my lap for a while already. Even Emily was starting to get pretty tired. After the two outings he went on with them, he said that he was covered head to toe in dust and didn't want to get sand everywhere and decided to sleep out by the fire instead. I don't think he got much sleep that night but he was having so much fun that it didn't get to him. It got pretty cold when the fire died down.

After breakfast and breaking down camp, Dave let Christian drive us around a bit more in his buggy while he packed up his RV. Christian got more confident in driving it around and took us on some of the smaller dunes close by. It was pretty fun.

We left camp before noon. Most of the others had left already and Dave was getting ready to pick up his wife from the hospital to transport her home.

That was the girls first camping experience and we were so glad that it went well. I had not felt so relaxed in quite a while.

Vacation - part 1

Since we missed out on taking the girls somewhere this summer and we needed a vacation really badly (however short), we decided to take a mini-vacation. This past weekend, we were invited by our neighbor to go to the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area with them and we decided to take them up on their offer. They went up the week before and the plan was to join them on their last weekend down there. We made up our mind to go at the last minute and went out to get a permit Friday morning. By Friday afternoon, however, we found out that his wife got into a serious accident on her new quad on their first full day out. She got a pretty bad break in her leg and has had two surgeries already. We almost cancelled our trip at that point as we did not want to add to any of his problems.

But in the end, we figured we would just head down anyway. We told him not to worry about us and if we met up, then great, otherwise we would see him and his wife when they made it back home.

Our first stop on our trip was the Salton Sea. Christian and I have always wanted to go there for some reason but never made it out that far.

The Salton Sea seems to be a strange mixture of beauty and repulsive land fill. I guess it had it's hey day back in the 1930's through 50's when it had some success as a resort area but has been long forgotten and neglected. With the rise in water during the 1960's and 70's, came a steady increase in the salinity level as well as the bacteria level from wastewater runoffs mainly from Mexico. So a lot of the fish in there are all dying off as well. The shore lines are littered with dead fish...so you can imagine the smell. There are the remains of an abandoned marina, rusted up boats, abandoned houses, RV's and whatever junk and trash people have dumped there or was left behind.

Even the kids were delighted and appalled at the same time with the place. After watching the water fowl and dodging dead fish along the shore line, dad showed them how to skip rocks across the water. They still had a fun time and wanted to stop by again on our way out but it didn't quite work out.

Phantom

On Saturday afternoon, we dropped the girls off with my mom for the day and we drove out to LA to watch Phantom of the Opera. I forgot to bring my camera, so I have no pictures to show for it. The show was a lot of fun for the most part but I had two major gripes about it. Although I could not reasonably expect to see Sarah Brightman playing Christine, the lady they did have playing Christine was not very good. At best, she would have been more fittingly cast as Carlotta. She only sings for Saturday matinee shows and Sundays so we were just unlucky about that. I don't know what the normal lady sounds like.

The second major gripe about the show was the venue. They use these big gigantic speakers that are more appropriate for rock concerts. Everything is amplified through these speakers. They seem to have one setting...loud. You could not clearly hear all the different voices and things that were going on because it was all muddled and competing with one another through these speakers. The venue (Pantages) also allows food and drink to be taken into the show...in fact, they are selling it to everyone on your way in. The family in back of us got there late (after the snow began) and proceeded to eat through the entire nearly 3 hours of the show (I am not exaggerating). All you can hear is them reaching into their jumbo sized candy bags every 2 minutes, jiggling their icy drinks in loud plastic cups and smacking their lips...not to mention kicking our seats every now and then as they shifted around and whispering to each other. They would have been annoying at a movie theatre. During intermission, I swear they just went out to get more junk food. And they were not the only ones in the theatre doing it...only the closest ones to us.

Other than that, we had pretty good seats. The best singers from the show was definitely the man playing the Phantom and the two theatre managers. They really made the show worth while.

After the show, we went back to Marian's house for dinner. It was so nice to have a nice quiet dinner with other adults! We really enjoyed the much needed time away from the kids. We picked them up on the way home from Grandma's house. They were supposed to be out doing a bunch of fun things that day with their cousins but apparently, their plans did not quite work out. They still had fun visiting with their cousins though.

Pet

We finally caved and picked up a new little pet for the girls. The girls were so excited. Meet Rhino...

Rhino is awesome! He's so awesome! He's... He's beyond awesome! He's... be-awesome! (Name that movie)

Behavior Charts

At the end of summer, I mentioned that the girls were driving us crazy...fighting, not cleaning up their toys, etc. When school started, things did not improve. I found myself nagging the kids over and over to get the simplest things done. It was miserable.

In each of the girls class rooms, they bribe the kids with trips to the "treasure chest" if they behave, pay attention and are not disruptive. What's in the treasure chest ranges from Halloween candy to party favors. Just cute little stuff. The girls were so excited to get to go to the treasure chest. Basically, I think they get point a day for behaving and you need 5 points to go to win your prize. Caitlyn ends up going almost every week.

Anyway, something had to change here at home so we decided to put together these behavioral charts. We reward them with points for good behaviors (i.e. making their beds, cleaning up their toys, clearing their dishes, etc) and they get negative points for bad behaviors (i.e. whining, leaving messes, lying, etc).

We filled their treasure chest with mostly dollar store type toys and craft items along with a few treats as well. We have been using this system for over a month now and I have to say, I am quite happy with the results. We started off slow and as they got the hang of it, the goal points for the end of the week went up little by little until we found a number we were comfortable with. A number that is not too difficult to attain as long as they were trying but if they reverted back to past behaviors, they would not make it. They have missed a couple of weeks here and there but overall they have been doing awesome and everyone is so much happier!