Back to School

For once, the girls were actually a little excited about going back to school...not that they would have complained about staying home for another week...or two. Emily is starting in the 6th grade this year and Caitlyn is in 3rd grade. We didn't bother to check into what classes the girls would be enrolled in this year as we were out of town and we were reasonably sure who their teachers would be anyway.

Emily had the same teacher as we had expected but Caitlyn actually got a totally different teacher. I took both the girls in that first morning to make sure that they knew where they were going and that they had a math teacher set up for Caitlyn.

Caitlyn's new teacher seemed very approachable and seemed to be on the ball. She was aware of Caitlyn's situation and had already arranged a 4th grade math teacher for her...they just had to work out the kinks for their schedule.

It ended up that the third graders and 4th graders don't have math at the same time but Caitlyn's teacher was really flexible about working around their schedule even though they might have to go against the rest of the third grade schedules. I was quite impressed that she would make that extra effort and was totally willing to rearrange her schedule.

As it turned out, that wasn't really necessary or even possible. It turned out that the fourth graders started their math before lunch and the third graders don't do math until after lunch. We could not rearrange that kind of schedule. What we ended up agreeing on is for Caitlyn to go to math while her class is finishing up their writing exercises (which is okay since they are doing group exercises while the teacher is working with the kids who are struggling more) and then she would go to lunch with the fourth graders and come back while the third graders are finishing up with their math. In which case, she would either finish her writing assignment or play math games on the i-pod or read...which she is used to.

Also, since Caitlyn has been telescoping in math for the past 3 years already, she is familiar with a lot of the kids in that grade already and would not feel quite as intimidated about going to lunch with them. Ideally, we would probably like her to test out of the fourth grade completely by the end of this year and just join those kids anyway in the 5th grade so that we don't have to juggle her schedule any more and she can settle in to be a normal student. So, this will make the transition a little easier for her. But whether that actually happens will be up to her and how hard she wants to work at it.

The transition was very smooth for the most part for Emily and she seems to fit right in. She seems to like school more and is actually being challenged so we are all happy that we made the right decision for her. I hope it works out as well for Caitlyn...I guess we will see.

They get to have lunch at school again this year so I am very relieved to not have to make lunch for them in the morning and worry about whether they are going to just chuck it. They also get to ride the bus to school for one last year and it's a good thing because they made some "improvements" in the parking and drop off situation with the new principal this year and it has made a huge mess of everything. It is a complete nightmare.

We had not quite set things up about how they were going to get home because I wanted to see how many kids was on Caitlyn's bus so that I could make special arrangements for Emily to ride with her again this year. I did not see the bus in the morning because they had moved the bus drop off to the side of the school. I went to pick up the girls at the end of the day and could not get parking anywhere. I tried to turn around and I got stuck in the street and ended up just parked there for the longest time. I could not move and the kids' school had already let out. I was afraid of them wondering where I was. In the end, I had to follow the slow train into the school parking lot so that I could at least let the kids know I was there and we would eventually get out. I did not see them and found my way back out of the parking lot and parked. I ran into the school looking for them. The campus was mostly empty now and I still could not find them. I figured that they might have actually gone on the bus so I hurried home to find them there. They were not there. I found Christian had come home early though. It's a good thing because now I was not just annoyed about the zoo the parking and pick up situation was becoming, I was really starting to get worried.

Back at the school, we still could not find the kids still but we ran into Caitlyn's teacher who confirmed that she did indeed put both the girls on the bus but that it was running very late. We spoke to her for a few minutes and then headed back home. We finally found the girls in front of the house waiting for us. Since they agreed to take Emily on the bus even though she is older, we figured that we would leave it at that unless they said something. Their bus is more than half empty and I certainly don't want to add to the circus around the school at pick up time. I just hope that a few more kids end up riding the bus so that they don't just cancel the route altogether!

One Last Camping Trip

We couldn't stay away. On the last Friday of summer vacation, we woke up early and headed back to the mountains. We've been up there a lot this summer. I don't know if we are trying to make up for lost time for when the kids were too young to go or we just want to escape all the pressures of reality and our responsibilities...I suspect it must be a little of both.

For the most part, we retraced the route Christian and Emily took on their campout. We arrived in the afternoon to camp 1 which is halfway up to Horseshoe Meadow in the Golden Trout Wilderness. We had lunch and took to the nearby rocks to do a little climbing.

I suspect that we will be doing an awful lot of climbing in the coming years as we have invested quite a lot in the equipment lately. We actually started collecting equipment back before the girls came along but never got quite enough to do anything and then had to set it aside to focus on our family. Now that the girls are older and also because they love crawling around on rocks, Christian decided that we were going to do this for real this time. 

This time around we all got the chance to try some rappelling. The girls were terrified at first but once they tried it, they kept climbing up so that they can go down again. It is now one of their favorite parts of climbing!

Caitlyn

Emily

The verdict is still out for me as I had a bit of a tangle with a creosote bush while rappelling! It was not so fun.

The next morning, we woke up early and continued on our journey. Unfortunately the air quality still was not good. We go out to get some fresh mountain air but all we get is smoke as there are new fires to contend with this dry summer. I think most of the smoke is coming from a big fire near Yosemite which is quite a ways away but I am not positive.

Panarama from above the Barcroft Research Station

Our destination was back up to the White Mountain Range. I made some cookies for the researchers at the Barcroft Research Station while Emily made some gourmet dog treats for Tug (the puppy that came out and found us during that freak thunder, lightning and hail storm that we got stuck in on our last trip up to the top of White Mtn.

White Mountain

After delivering our goodies, we headed up to Barcroft Peak which was cake compared to White Mtn. It still stands above 13,000 feet but since we have been up here recently, it didn't take as much to get acclimatized and well, it's just a lot closer. But we had to scramble over lots of rock debris to get there.

The girls signed the summit registry and Christian took a brief nap and then we headed back down to find a campsite. In the end, we did not find a satisfactory campsite, but we stumbled on to a secret valley off some 4x4 trail. We were pretty excited and will be back there next year after the snow. As we did not bring safety equipment to go off-roading, we decided that we had better head back out. We had a late dinner at McDonald's in town as we tried to plan out what our next move was going to be. We considered just heading home but it was late and there was a terrible head wind. We finally headed west and found a campsite off one of the side roads in the Coso Range. 

In the morning, we explored a little and found a treasure of neat mines all over.  The girls had a lot of fun exploring.

We then continued on our journey home on a circuitous route through Panamint Valley on the Death Valley Scenic Byway.

We decided to stop by and show the girls the Trona Pinnacles since we were out there.

It was super hot though and the place kind of gave off a bit of a creepy vibe, so we walked around a little and called it a day. We did not stay long.

We headed out again and only stopped to have some lunch along the road before continuing on our way. We returned home in the late afternoon, in time to wash off the grime from our adventures and settle down to relax and prepare for school to begin again the next morning.

End of Summer

Well, summer is just about at an end. The girls just finished their 2nd session of swim lessons. Caitlyn has finished level 4 and will be able to finally move on to level 5. But unless they get some more ambitious instructors, we will probably just do that once next summer and that will be the end of swim lessons. Emily has taken the level 5+ class 3 times now and although she has fun, they really haven't taught her anything more. We only keep enrolling her because Caitlyn is still working on her lessons.

She doesn't just want to stand there in the sun, watching her sister swim! She has a lot of fun in her class anyway and would probably want to continue as long as we would let her but it frustrates me that they don't attempt to actually teach them much.

Caitlyn is doing pretty well though. She is finally starting to get the hang of side breathing and getting stronger in the water so I'm pretty happy with where she is at for the most part.

Since Emily hasn't been learning anything new, she wanted to try some fancier dives. She's been working on a front flip.

We got to go swimming at a friend's house last week and she took the opportunity of getting to go over the diving board more than once or twice in a day at the lessons and attempted her front flip over and over until she got it mostly worked out! She was pretty determined to do it even though she landed on her back quite a few times!

She got so confident that she even did a back flip into the pool from the side! She just loves it in the water and even though all the other kids got tired of the pool and went in for cookies or to play video games, our girls stayed in the pool until I finally had to force them out to come home to make dinner!

Torrey Pines

After we got back from Joshua Tree, Christian took off to get a few hours of work in. After dinner, we went down to San Diego and spent the night at Christian's brother's house. Christian's dad met up with us after breakfast and we headed down to Torrey Pines State Beach.

Christian took the girls out on his dad's surfboard.

The waves were not great. The girls had a blast but Caitlyn was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Christian took me out a few times too and it was pretty scary. And I don't know if it has just been a long time since I've been to the beach but I swear that the water is a heck of a lot saltier than it used to be!

Christian's sister met us there with the girls' cousins.

The kids spent the entire afternoon playing on boogie boards. Caitlyn was still pretty cautious after the surfing thing and stayed fairly close to shore, but the other cousins threw caution to the wind and went out pretty far. Emily and Brandon spent most of the time boogie boarding together. Michaela sometimes went out with them and sometimes stayed along the beach with Caitlyn.

They also took breaks to warm up, get something to eat and play in the sand but it wasn't very often for Emily. She has always loved the beach but we don't get out there very often because it is so crowded...and pretty expensive to park at by the way.

In between swimming and surfing, Christian and I took walks up the beach. We climbed up a route up the cliffs overlooking the beach too and a big rattle snake crossed our path. Unfortunately, I was having camera difficulties and did not get too many more pictures at this point.

We finally called it a day around 5:pm. The kids were still not ready to leave. The girls ended up going with their cousins. They went out to dinner with them and stayed the night at their house while Christian and I went back to Mark's house for dinner to spend a peaceful night on our own. Unfortunately, Danielle, Mark's wife hurt her foot pretty badly towards the end of the evening and ended up going in to urgent care to have it taken care of. So it ended up to be a pretty tiring and stressful night.

We got up really early to pick up the girls and headed home Sunday morning. We just made it home in time to change our clothes and head to church. We were all pretty exhausted.

Joshua Tree - Part deux

Since we did not get to do much in Joshua Tree this past weekend, we decided to head back out there and get our monies worth. When you pay for the day to get in, the pass is good for a whole week. So, we headed back to Joshua Tree early on Friday morning. The weather has really warmed up this past week so if we wanted to do anything, we would have to do it early before it got super hot. We basically got up before the sun and headed out. It was already in the mid-80s by the time we got to Joshua Tree. It did not bode well for us.

We searched out the surround area and decided upon some rocks to climb. The pile of rocks we decided upon was either the West face of the Left Hand of Darkness or the Mindless Mound. I don't think we were paying enough attention to which one we actually settled on.

We did a little climbing/bouldering and played with some of Christian's rock climbing tools so that we could learn how to use them. Christian was the only one brave enough to do a little rappelling.

Before we knew it, it was 11:am and warming up. The temperature wasn't too bad actually when you are up on the rocks because there was at least a slight breeze, but the whole trip was a bit of an ordeal as we spent more time driving back and forth than at our destination. Add to that the nuisance of Caitlyn getting car sick on the way there and Emily getting car sick on the way back...not to mention other bodily function drama that we will not get into here. The girls had not gotten car sick for months now and we had hoped that they had finally grown out of it, but no such luck. Luckily, we still travel with barf bags and they are old enough to just grab for it so that at least we don't have the horrid mess any more but it still is not pleasant.

There are many other rocks there that we want to work on so we will probably be back in the winter when the weather is more bearable.

Joshua Tree

On Sunday after church, we got invited by some friends to join them out in Joshua Tree for the Perseid Meteor shower. It was short notice but we thought that it might be fun and came home to throw our things together.

We left a little late so most of the afternoon had already passed by the time we finally arrived. Of course it cost $15 dollars per car to get in. We were not too thrilled about that but this is not the kind of trip that we would normally take except with friends. Christian and I have been to Joshua Tree before. As a matter of fact, we even camped there once but I don't think we had to pay to get in then. It's typically too crowded for our taste.

We had a tough time finding 3 campsites next to each other. It took some time but we finally found a spot and set up our tents and things. The campsite cost $10 each as well. By the time all that was settled, we just had enough time to take a short hike around Hidden Valley.

The sun was already starting to go down so most of my pictures came out a little blurry...especially if someone moved! We found a nice rock to climb while everyone was resting and taking pictures of the sunset.

Christian and the girls made it all the way to the top but I was just short of it because I didn't stop to put on my harness or sticky shoes. Apparently there was a nice view of Joshua Tree from the top!

I got a nice sunset on the short hike back to the car. We just had enough light to make it back.

A couple of people in our party was still out on the trail so we stayed there for a bit and then Christian and a couple others finally went back to get them.

We got back to our campsite to have a late dinner then settled back to watch the meteor shower.  Christian climbed up to find a spot to do a time lapse of the stars.

It was beautiful out there but the meteor shower was not quite as grand as I thought it would be. I think Christian and I have seen a more active meteor shower before but it was the girls' first time. It was nice to sit out and relax with friends though.

We finally turned in some time near midnight. But the people around us had other ideas. In fact, many more people came after we turned in, parking illegally all around us. Needless to say, we didn't get very much rest. Luckily the girls fell asleep right away and was able to sleep through it all but the same could not be said for Christian and I. Not a minute went by without some car driving by, car doors slamming, drunk college students giggling and cackling throughout the night. It was awful. Christian had a roll and planned to sleep next to the camera up on the rock but could not sleep even with earplugs  in. He finally came down at 4:am to see if we were awake or not so that we could just go home. I was the only one awake. If it was just the girls, I think I would have woken them up to leave. After all, they could just sleep in the car, but we had another friend with us and didn't want to wake her as this was her first campout and didn't get a lot of sleep the night before either since they were partying in her apartment complex until 4 in the morning the night before. The park rangers never came around to check on anything. After they collect their money, we were left on our own. And you know all the hordes of people than came in after dark didn't even pay their fee to get in.

Basically, the people didn't start to settle down until the sun was nearly up. We were just exhausted and pissed off by then. We had to get up and start out early as well since the girls' had swim lessons again in the morning and Christian had to go to work still. The girls slept some more in the car on our way back. We got back in time for me to jump in the shower and get cleaned up before taking the girls to go swimming. Christian took a shower and tried to take a nap while we were gone so that he could be coherent at work.

Our friends have been to Joshua Tree a few times to watch the meteor shower and they have never experienced anything like this before. They said that everyone usually settled down after midnight or so and the only thing you heard anyway was a few oohs and aahs when an especially spectacular meteor streaked through the sky. Just our luck.

The Past Two Weeks in Review

We signed the girls up for a couple of swim sessions for the end of summer. Caitlyn is in level 4 now. Emily is signed up for 5+. There isn't really a level past 5 that they do here. In fact, all her class seems to do is to warm up, practice swimming back and for with each of the different swim strokes that they know and then they play games the rest of the lesson. I'm not really thrilled with the way they are running that class. There are a ton of kids and very little actual instruction.

Caitlyn was working on the butterfly stroke. She can pretty much swim everything that the level 5's can and has better form than some except she is not a very strong swimmer and is not very fast. She mostly needs to learn how to breathe properly and be a little more confident. For once, I was happy with Caitlyn staying in level 4 at the end of the two week period, because, she apparently wouldn't be getting hardly any more actual instruction if she moved on to level 5.
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Last week, Caitlyn finally finished and graduated out of her Alfred's Basic Piano Prep Course Level A and gets to move on to Level B!

As part of her reward for finishing a level, she got a little recorder with some sheet music so that she can give a different instrument a try. She was pretty excited. The girls put on a little duet show for us as part of her graduation. They even made a little program for their show. It was cute.

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We've been trying to stay in shape and keep active by taking lots of after dinner walks. Once we had enough time to make it all the way up to the "C" again.

Sometimes we find a rock to practice climbing on. We are getting use of our climbing equipment and learning new techniques. It's a little scary but it is pretty fun. The girls have been really enjoying themselves for the most part. They like having new experiences and learning new things.

We see a lot of sunsets. There are also a lot of fires already this summer all around us.  It's been a dry year and the worst of the summer heat is still around the corner.

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Auntie Marian surprised the girls (and us) by stopping by this past weekend to take the girls out for the day. They went to Chuck E. Cheese again and out to dinner to McDonald's. 

Unfortunately, Christian had started a project working on my truck before we found out Marian was coming, so we had to finish working on the truck before we could do anything. Christian also had to go in for work for a little while since his boss is out of town. So we walked to his greenhouse to water and then took a walk in the Botanic gardens. 

The girls were still not back when we finished so we decided to go out for dinner. Christian and I decided to go out for sushi. We had to try to come up with something worth going out for that we would normally not be able to do with the kids. Well, we could go there, but it wouldn't be worth it as the kids would not enjoy much there.

Thanks Marian. We really needed the break! It's been a long summer.