Lake Arrowhead

Since we missed out on the big end of summer Lake Tahoe trip, we decided to brave the weather again and attempt to go climbing up in the Lake Arrowhead area. We went back to the Pinnacles area near the Shooting Gallery that Christian and I went to near the beginning of the summer. This time, we would go to the climbs that are actually there instead of just hiking around.

We picked out a climb called Hosey Rosey (5.6).

We had a little pocket of shade in the beginning when we got there but it quickly retreated as the morning moved into afternoon. By the time we all climbed and came back down, there was none left. We had lunch and stopped to contemplate our next move. It was pretty hot. After resting a while and seeing that it was only getting hotter, we decided that it was just too hot to continue. 

Christian went back up to manage the ropes at the anchor, and then Emily decided to go up Fish and Games (5.6) on a top rope to finish up the day. Christian didn't want to do the climb on a top rope and it was too hot to climb it any other way, and frankly, my head hurt too much from the heat to make the attempt.

We left early in search of some kind of slushy, but had to just settle on an ice cold fountain drink. I think we are pretty much done with climbing this summer. It is just too hot to be out anywhere in Southern California. 

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Christian starts his training tomorrow. The district he is working in had offered a lot of the teachers an early retirement package last year so there was a record number of new hires that needed to be trained this year. He got keys to his classroom and they issued them Surface Pros to use in their classrooms.  So far, he likes it there. The district seems to take pretty good care of their teachers and the other teachers he met seem pretty nice. 

July

I think I spent most of the month processing apples. At least, that's what it felt like. The summer started out fairly mild, so the first apples were not ready until the end of June. The weather warmed up considerably throughout July and all of a sudden, we were overflowing with apples. So we canned apples for pie, made apple sauce and dried apples for snacks. I gave up on apple butter. It's a lot of additional work and none of us cared for it that much.

We made apple cake and apple cobbler. We gave away quite a few bags to friends and neighbors but it still seemed like we were overflowing with apples. As the month is coming to an end, the apples remaining is also slowing down. I think we have only a couple of weeks left at the most. The birds and other vermin certainly seemed to take more than their share, but the trees are so prolific now that it doesn't make too much of a dent. The problem comes if the vermin thinks to make a home here. We finally got rid of the skunk family. Now there appears to be a family of possums and other rodents milling around. They will eventually have to be taken care of as well if they insist on sticking around.
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Christian did some more maintenance on my car. Since Emily is home now, he has been teaching her how to maintain her vehicle when she finally gets her drivers license. So he taught her the basics of how to change the oil, check the coolant, clean the air filter, etc.

Luckily, she is fairly mechanically inclined, doesn't care about getting dirty, and likes to learn how things work. He also taught her how to properly wash and wax the car. All of us joined in to help with that as it took us the better part of the day to do it.

While we were all out there working in the garage, we ended up spending another day cleaning out the garage. The kids were curious as to what was in all the boxes. There were quite a few boxes that we never unpacked when we moved in. 

For all the stuff that we obviously no longer needed, we put everything in piles, either for the kids to divide up to take with them off to college, organize and put back on the shelves or get thrown into the pile to donate. We didn't go through the whole garage, but it definitely made a difference.

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We are getting a new organ this year at church. The organ builders took down our old organ already. We will have to just use the piano for 3 weeks or so. They will put in a Hauptwerk for us to use after that until the new organ gets built. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. It was sad to see the old organ get torn down. It meant a lot to a lot of people that have been here a long time. Only a few are left were here when it got put in. 

Christian decided to record a few interviews with some of the old-timers who were here from the beginning (or near to it) to record their memories and stories. It went from a couple of people to a whole handful. It kind of took on a life of its own. There is still more we want to do, but time prohibits it as Christian is very busy right now. He is finishing up his credentials and is about to start teaching at the same time. 

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Marian came by to take the girls out for the day as she usually does in the summer. This time, she took them out for all you can eat Korean BBQ. They were pretty excited as they have never tried it before. 

They were so stuffed. I would have wanted to go with them but I couldn't even think about eating all that meat in this weather. It has been so very hot out. They did really like it though. I think they went out to do a bit of shopping afterwards.

In addition to the extreme hot weather, we've had several big earthquakes in the Ridgecrest area. The first time, we were at the Blaine park and didn't feel anything. We were there for the 4th of July ward breakfast and to meet with the organ builders. The second time, we were coming back from the mountains and had dropped by Redlands for a late dinner. We didn't feel either one, although, they were quite strong.

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We went down to San Diego to visit with Christian's family. Austin is back from his mission in Paraguay and was giving a talk at church. His little brother, Brandon, got his mission call to the Dominican Republic and will be giving his farewell talk. Plus Austin was playing a piano accompaniment for a couple of singers for musical number during the service. They were having a big luncheon at their house afterwards for family and friends.

It was way too crowded for our taste...and hot to boot. We were supposed to leave with them the next day for a few days at Lake Tahoe, but as I had mentioned, Christian had to start work earlier than we had anticipated. We knew that he would have to report to work at the end of the week but we found out that, as a new teacher, he had a couple of days of additional meetings and training that he needed to attend. Basically, he would have to start work on Tuesday instead of Thursday. We were all very disappointed that we could not go on this last vacation with them as Christian and I haven't gotten to do very much all summer and Christian sorely needed the break. The kids just wanted to visit with their cousins a bit more and go out to have fun as Austin will be leaving for college at the University of Utah soon and Brandon will be starting his mission shortly and they would not see him for the next two years.

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Christian did manage to finish the second part of his TPAs before having to start teaching, so that is really good. One less chore hanging over his head.

Joshua Tree

For the second week of July, we were supposed to have a brief break in the heat. We decided to go to Joshua Tree on Monday, which is supposed to be the coolest day. Or at least it would possibly be cool enough to go to Joshua Tree. Unfortunately, we were not ready to go when Monday came around and we decided to put it off one more day and go on Tuesday. Of course, it was supposed to be a few degrees hotter still.

We drove out Tuesday morning to the Echo Cove area. We climbed Chute Up (5.2) to warm up. The actual climb was pretty fun and not very difficult. Unfortunately, the anchor for the climb was not at the top of the so called climb. There was no way to anchor and get back down from the climb without going up to the anchor for the climb next to it. It was not trivial by any means. It was actually pretty scary. Christian left some runners for us to help us get up to the actual anchor but that didn't help us traverse over to the rock next to us where the anchor was.

Unfortunately, when Caitlyn came down, she did not fix the runners so that the next person could reach them, so when Christian went back up to clean the anchor and rappel back down, he could not reach them to secure himself and had to climb the top of the 5.8 slab without protection. It was a bit stressful to say the least.

By the time we were done, we stopped for lunch and were seriously hot and tired. There was no shade at the bottom of the climb but the kids found some across the way for us to rest at.

I think we decided at this point that it would be stupid to continue until it cooled down. We decided to go for a drive to some of the other areas of the park that we had not been to yet. The girls got to take turns driving a bit on the dirt roads. By the time we were done, we were dismayed that the temperature hardly dropped at all.

We went around to investigate where some other climbs were but could not find what we were looking for.

We did find some other climbs but they looked kind of sketchy for one reason or another. We ended up just scrambling around on the rocks for a bit. Christian and Caitlyn went all the way to the top of one rock formation. Emily and I went up about halfway, when Christian started moving off, from one spot, we thought he was heading down but instead he went to find another way to get up higher. Emily and I went down to the restroom to wait for them.

As the sun was going down and still not significantly cooler, we decided to call it a day and go home.

Deep Creek Narrows

Now that Christian only has one class, we've been trying to get out once a week to do something together (as we tried to do when the kids were gone). The "something" is usually climbing. This past week, we took the kids up to the San Bernardino mountains. We wanted something easy as Christian has been sick all week. We didn't even get out on the Fourth of July.

The first climb we were looking for was supposed to be just off the road. Unfortunately, the crag is supposed to be near the snow play area, so there was just a ton of trash everywhere. He headed down the hill to look for the crag but we were a bit wary as there was no defined trail. There was a lot of brush and rocks and we were afraid of running into snakes. Shortly after we started off, Christian found the head of a snake hidden in the shadow between two boulders ready to strike. It blended into the shadow really well and if you noticed it at all, it blended into the dead lichen spots on the rock. It was really disturbing. You can only see it, if you crouched down to its level and then only its head with its tongue flickering out occasionally. We gave the rock a wide birth and continued down a bit, but our heart was no longer into it.

We wandered down to the river with still no luck in finding what we were looking for. We put our packs down and Christian went to scout it out on his own. He did eventually find the crag, but there was too much overgrown brush to deal with, including plants that started growing on the actual climb that would be in the way. We were still too shaken with our snake encounter to want to bushwhack through that to get to the lousy climb. By now, it was nearly lunch time and we decided to just head to an area that we were already familiar with.

We decided on the Deep Creek Narrows area. The kids really liked the area when we came several years ago. We had lunch at the trail head and then humped our gear over to the climb. We climbed Crack One (5.6). It is a relatively short climb up a fairly straightforward crack.

Emily led and everyone did at least a couple of laps on it except for Caitlyn, who only went up once and took off to take pictures and play.

Emily spent most of her time relaxing and playing by the water when she wasn't actively climbing. Caitlyn spent most of her time taking pictures and wandering around. She's been borrowing Christian's camera and having fun playing with it. Her own camera is mostly all automatic so she is unable to manually adjust for exposure and stuff. That was fine when she was younger but we've been trying to get her to learn how to do more since she is sometimes dissatisfied with her results. I taught her the basics when she was in yearbook in middle school, but it didn't really take. She has finally caught on and is enjoying learning photography instead of just taking a picture. 

Emily has been claiming to want to learn to do more, but has yet to put the effort into it. Mostly, she doesn't want to stop what she is doing to stop to bother taking pictures. 

We just need to get Caitlyn to learn to be more efficient in cataloguing her pictures. Other than that, she seems to have an eye for interesting things and angles. It's fun to review her pictures to see what she got. And it's nice to have another source of pictures to use for my journal.

There was another moderate climb we had planned to do right next to Crack One, but we decided to just save it for another time since the kids love coming here and Christian spent most of his energy looking for the other climb. We spent a bit of time just playing around before cleaning up to leave.

Oregon - Part 3

The girls got to do a bit of sight seeing. Grams took them to the Oregon Vortex House of Mystery.

They also got a tour into the Oregon Caves.

They went to a glass shop. They didn't get to see glass being blown though...bad timing I guess but Grams got each of them a souvenir from there.

When Aunt Erin came back with Brandon to pick up the girls towards the end, she took them to see Crater Lake.

They thought that they would get to go swimming there. Apparently, Erin went last year and was able to do that. This year they found the roads going down closed and lots of snow remaining on the ground.

They still had a good time playing in the snow and thought the place was beautiful.

That was basically the end of their trip. They went back to the river on their very last day and then had to say their goodbyes and head back down home.

The kids had such a good time. We are very appreciative of Erin taking them with her and for Christian's mom for inviting them all. It will be a summer to remember.

Oregon - Part 2

On one of the days, Grams took the three girls to the Rogue Valley Family Fun Center. They got to play miniature golf.

They also had bumper boats they got to ride around in and shoot water at each other and race around in go-karts.

But it wasn't completely fun and games on their trip. They helped Grams with a few things around the property. Grams recently got a horse from one of her neighbors. They girls liked to go out and feed her and brush her down. They got to put a saddle on her once, but she has not really been ridden much so it is still in training.

They also helped mow the grass on the property. Grams had a riding mower that the girls took turns going over the property.

Emily even made a spaghetti dinner for them once. The other girls helped a little in chopping up some of the vegetables. Grams had her made a ton of sauce so they had plenty of leftovers for another meal. Grams overdid it on one of the days. She was tired and dehydrated so she turned in early and the girls took it upon themselves to have the leftovers for dinner, feed the horse, get the mail and clean up. Emily also made breakfast one morning for the girls when Grams took Uncle Mark to the dentist. If they wanted to help out with anything else, they almost had to sneak around behind Grams' back to help do the dishes and stuff. Grams wanted to do everything for them and didn't let them help too much and the stories of the girls sneaking around was super funny.

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On one of the days, they went to the local farmer's market. Cheri bought a small intricate statue of a lighthouse for her cousin Debbie. They got to try a few things. Supposedly they got us some really tasty honey, but they girls did't remember to bring it back with them.

Oregon - Part 1

The girls are back from their whirl-wind trip to Oregon on their own. They had such a great time with their grandmother and cousin. Grams tried to get them to keep a journal of their adventures but, as usual, it didn't really stick. We've been trying to get them to do that since they were in elementary school and it has always been a chore to get them to do anything. I was excited when I first heard about it, but as usual, it has come to nothing.

Since I did not go on the trip, I don't have a whole lot of details to record here. But I do have a bunch of pictures from Caitlyn and Grams sent pictures back with them on an SD card from her camera. Of course, Caitlyn took a large portion of those as well. Emily took a few pictures here and there, but as usual, she was too busy having fun to bother.

They spent quite a few days on and off going to the river. Grams had a bunch of kayaks and tubes and stuff for them to play with.

Luckily, Grams also had a water-proof camera, although, Caitlyn did also take her normal camera out there to take some pictures. She just had to choose the most stable kayak and make sure no one splashed her. It was a bit risky but she got a lot of nice pictures. 

A lot of the time, they were joined by Aunt Erin and their cousin Brandon when they were in town. Grams' cousin Debbie joined them most of the time as well. Uncle Mark even came out with them by the end of their trip. 

They got a bit sunburned hanging out at the river all day. They had to learn to be more careful...or we are at least hoping they did. They didn't bring hats so Caitlyn even got sunburned once on her scalp. 

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They spent most of their nights camping out in this big teepee tent in the yard. A few nights here and there, they slept inside...probably when they stayed up too late and were too tired to go out. They are fairly far up north, so the sun sets pretty late and they thought it was weird to go to bed until it was dark out (plus they were just having too much fun).

They also got to enjoy Grams' hot tub at the end of the day. They had water balloon fights and played hide and seek through her big property.

They also got to do some archery.

Grams set them up with arts and crafts. They made hemp bracelets with beads on her looms. They painted river rocks.