Joshua Tree - March Addition

We stopped by the local climbing store outside of Joshua Tree and found that they were doing a free trial product day with vendors from various climbing supply companies. We could try any of their climbing shoes for free all day...well, almost all day, they would wrap up by 5:pm.

It took some time for us to all find shoes that would fit so we started our climbing later than usual. Spring is upon us so, there were a LOT more tourists in our midst.

Mount Grossvogel - Roboranger

We climbed a short 2 pitch route called Roboranger. It took quite a while to get three of us up the rock pile. There is one part near the beginning that is pretty hard. It was a fairly nice day but windy...especially up on top. You really had to hunker down so that it didn't blow you off balance up there. It was not so nice. Because of the late start and the somewhat long approach to Mount Grossvogel, we had to cut out early and head back in order to make it back in time to return all our borrowed climbing shoes. Emily actually got two pairs but didn't even have time to try out the second pair which was identical to the one I tried.

After we returned the gear, we ran back into the park to try to take advantage of the last rays of daylight to make one more climb.

The Bong

We had enough daylight to head up and set up and anchor and everything. Caitlyn only got to do a couple of partial routes because they were all a bit much for her. By the time the last person went up the route, it was dusk and Emily had to use her headlamp to finish. Luckily, there was a full moon out as well.
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We didn't quite get enough that day and ended up going a second time the weekend after. There were even more tourists around this day and it was kind of a nuisance getting around. And all they did was whoop and holler everywhere they went. It was not pleasant.

On the bright side, even more spring flowers were out. I couldn't believe how many different wild flowers were blooming every where we went. It was beautiful!

Our first route was on an especially crowded area of Joshua Tree.

 Our first route was already being used so we headed to the next route on our list in the same area on what they call "The Thin Wall." That was pretty fun but as there were a bunch of people climbing along side of us and didn't want to wait in line for another route on the wall, we decided to create our own. Since Caitlyn hadn't been able to do a lot of the ones we have been working on, Christian picked out and set up a route just for her.

Apparently the chuckwallas were about all over enjoying the mild spring weather and the tasty new shoots on the flowers as well, so the girls named the route after our friend "Chuck." The route is called "Up-Chuck" for various reasons!

When we were done, we decided to flee the screaming and gawking tourists and try our hand at some Go Pro videos on the big rappel.

We had two rappel lines going at the same time. It was fun but the videos didn't turn out that great. We had a little more time to do a little exploring but that was about it. 

2nd Trimester Award Assembly

The second trimester ended last week for the school year. The 6th graders had their award assembly on Monday. Emily got honor roll and perfect attendance again.

I still can't stand the way the new principal has changed the awards so that they can hand out more awards to kids that don't normally get awards because quite frankly, they haven't really excelled in anything. I know that it is supposed to encourage them or something...but the way they explain it, it is just so that each kid can get an award at some point so that they can feel special (whether they are or not) as long as they are putting a little bit of effort into it and not causing any problems outright.

Breakdown of awards:

Principal's Honor Roll = advanced marks in every subject

Honor Roll = 75% advanced with nothing else below the proficient level

Academic Achievement = You are mostly proficient (i.e. at least you are mostly staying at grade level)

Perfect Attendance = On time, all day, every day.

Perseverance, Growth & Effort = You are not achieving grade level but you are trying really hard and making improvement.

Character, Cooperation and Teamwork = You are following their "high four rules: listen, follow directions, use kind words, hands off" inside and outside of the classroom.

The last one is really arbitrary as only a couple of kids get it every time but I know more kids should be able to get it because it it so very basic and replaces the Citizenship award for the most part (of which the kids are still really upset about). 

They explain that only about a third of the class will get awards every single time. So the ones that maintain their academic achievements get the awards every time, but the other awards are rotated around to the remaining kids so that they can each get a chance to get an award. And just because they are still working hard and following the same rules they set up for them to get an award this time, doesn't necessarily mean that they will get an award next time. It's very arbitrary and just confuses the kids and is just plain wrong on so many levels.

But I digress, Caitlyn's award assembly was on Wednesday morning.

She made the Principal's Honor Roll again and got perfect attendance as well.

Christian managed to take some time to go to the awards assemblies with me. I neglected to explain to him the details of some of the award changes last time. When the principal was explaining it at the beginning of the assembly, he almost walked out! We go to support our kids and their efforts but in reality, it has become such a farce. I don't know how much I can continue to do this if it gets much worse. I know that my kids earned their awards. Despite what some people might think, the grades don't come naturally for them. They work for it and we make them work for it. Emily has been trying all year to get straight A's again but has been unable to get there. 6th grade offers a bit more of a challenge for her...which was the point...not to just get straight A's all the time because it comes without too much extra effort but to push herself and grow to her full potential. But in her efforts, she has improved in the areas that she is weaker in.

We struggle every day with getting the kids to do their homework, read and work on their projects. They are sometimes lazy, stubborn and easily distracted just like everyone else but we set a standard for them to follow and work towards and we expect them to do it. If we lowered our standards, they would simply not achieve as much.

That's why are standard to follow in life is Jesus Christ, anything less would be short of the mark. Although we can't be perfect, if we aim high, we can achieve much. If we aim lower, we simply would not grow to our fullest potential.

Emily's 11th Birthday

Emily's 1st Birthday

Emily turned 11 this week. She's almost as tall as I am already and will be starting middle school next year...a frightening thought. In fact, the day before her birthday, she had a field trip to the Junior High School for orientation.

It seemed like only a few years ago that we were celebrating her 1st birthday.

Children have an uncanny way of really marking the passage of time for you...in a way that you really cannot ignore.

We celebrated her birthday with a quiet evening at home. She got a care package from Hawaii with goodies for her and her sister from Grandma Cheri.

We got her a Kindle with the help of a gift card she got from Christmas from Grandpa Caldwell. We got her a cover to protect it, as well as, some e-books to start her off.

She requested one of her favorite dinners: chicken curry. And I made us a small batch of angel food cupcakes for dessert.

We didn't have much time for anything else as it was a school night, she had homework and Christian had to go help with appointments for the Bishop.

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We celebrated her birthday again on Saturday. Auntie Marian and Grandpa Caldwell came to celebrate her birthday with us this time. 

We decided to bbq some carne asada for tacos for lunch. That was one of the other things Emily requested. She wanted some kind of barbecued meat as we have not had any in a while. Christian also made some fresh bread to toast over the fire. Also a great favorite of Emily's.

The kids got to monkey around in the tree house and played with dad's ascender.

And then we had more cake and presents. She got another gift card and some new clothes and accessories.

Climbing Getaway

This past weekend was supposed to be the weekend that the annual UCR Heat Concert was scheduled for. We thought that maybe they would cancel due to the imminent rain threat but they declared that the concert would go on whether there was rain or shine.

Normally, the music starts blasting from the afternoon until the wee hours of the morning when it would finally end at the University only to have after parties sprout up at various location throughout the neighborhood. We've tried calling the police but they say that their hands are tied because UCR has a permit to abuse their neighbors. We've tried talking to the city, but they just talk in circles and not taking responsibility with what goes on in their city. In truth, they let UCR do mostly whatever they are one of the biggest tax payers in the city. Where do you think their priorities lie? Not with us.

This year, we decided to just throw our hands up in the air because nobody cares and we are unable to do anything about it. So, we decided to leave town for the weekend. We didn't want to stick around to be abused by UCR and the city.

Although we desperately need the rain, it was going to also put a damper on some of our plans. In the end, we opted to go to the Alabama Hills to do some climbing. Originally, we were going to leave Friday afternoon as soon as the kids got out of school but due to the rain, we figured that we would leave super early Saturday morning instead and just spend one night out camping.

We arrived in Lone Pine around 7:am. It was pretty chilly out but the whether seemed to be at least keeping the crowds at bay. We decided to climb the "Shark's Fin." Christian had been wanting to climb it for a while now and there were always people on it every time we went. This time, we got the place to ourselves.

Christian, Emily and I climbed the arete and two other routes on the shark fin. It was fun for the most part but the last route was kind of difficult. Because it was a bit much for Caitlyn still, we headed back over to "Lost Eye to the Moon" to find a climb for her.

The last time we were there, Caitlyn was able to climb up the 5.3 route in the dark. This time, we figured that she should be able to at least complete "Rhythm on the Range," a 5.5 route and then attempt the "Riders of the Purple Sage"...a 5.7 route. She shocked us by completing both. She needed a little help on a couple parts of the 5.7 route but she did it. I think next time, she should be able to do it without any help at all. The help isn't us pulling her up or anything. She just used on of the bolts as a hand hold once and another bolt as a foothold. We usually aren't allowed to use them as part of the rock face except as a safety for our rope.

Emily actually led both routes!

In between climbs, the girls got to play with Dad's new toy, an ascender. We only got one so far. 

We climbed until we were out of daylight as usual. We had dinner and went into town to get warmed up and get the girls a treat from McDonalds. It never got above 48 degrees F. all day. It was almost just as cold in the restaurant as it was outside. The girls enjoyed their fries and ice cream anyway.

We camped out in Alabama Hills that night. Although the weather never warmed up, the weather didn't drop very much either so it wasn't too cold. We didn't get more than a few sprinkles now and then so we didn't really get wet either. I think that we were pretty lucky overall.

We slept in Sunday morning, had breakfast and went for a drive up in the mountain passes. We tried several and at some point, all of them were closed because of the snow and rock fall.

The girls got to play with the snow until their hands froze. 

They made a mini snowman and we had some hot cocoa before heading back down for some lunch.

We hung out and read some scriptures before hitting the road.

When we got back, we found out that the UCR Heat concert got canceled after all because they were afraid of the lightning...small favors, huh?

Daddy-Daughter Luau

This past weekend was the Activity Day Girls Daddy-Daughter Luau. Christian took both the girls this time since Caitlyn turned 8 shortly after the last dance. Caitlyn would not stand for a picture with her Dad though. They were taking a picture with a parrot and although she denied it, I'm pretty sure she didn't want to get any where near it as she could not safely view it while it was tucked away in a cage.

Emily took one with her Dad and then came back to take one with the parrot!

I had to represent our Primary so I went with them to go help out. They had a lot of people helping though. I got people checked in and did a few odds and ends but they didn't seem to need me in the end so I went to help the girls after they had lunch for their dance number. 

Since the girls have been taking Polynesian dance lessons with a couple of other girls in our ward, their teacher (who is also in our ward) was called on to help out with the activities. The girls were to perform two numbers and then help teach one of them to the other girls and their fathers.

It was kind of last minute request, so they performed a couple of their old numbers and got to get some more use of their costumes from last year. They did a great job and the girls had a lot of fun.

Valentine's and President's Day Weekend

The girls had a four day weekend recently. Normally, we would try to take the opportunity to head out of town, but we were not prepared for it and had other obligations to keep us in town.

Friday was Valentine's day. I thought it a cruel joke that the school district was playing on the parents by having them stay home all day! But since the girls were home with us, we decided to make a day of it and take off for our monthly Joshua Tree trip.

Amazingly, Joshua Tree was not quite as busy as usual. I haven't seen the park this empty since the heat of summer. Thankfully, not everyone gets Friday off as a holiday. I guess it isn't quite the romantic place most people are looking for on Valentine's either so we lucked out.

We went back to the Atlantis Wall that we were working on on our last trip but ended up leaving from when it got too crowded.

I couldn't even get a picture of it last time because it was so crowded. Actually, I could have gotten it if I took it the minute we arrived, but the first set of people arrived within 5 or 10 minutes after with more to follow.

Emily (aka Wallerina)

Only one other couple came to climb the wall that day. They did a couple of routes and then moved on.  We had not planned to stay here the entire time, but as we had the wall to ourselves, we figured that we would just take advantage of it and do as many of the routes that we could.

Caitlyn

Although, Caitlyn has come a long way in overcoming her seemingly selective fear of heights, she still have her moments and it is a work in progress. She climbed most of "Solar Technology" but stopped within 10 feet of the anchor and would not go on. It's frustrating some times. She did complete one full route though on a rather easy route unfortunately named "unwiped butt." "Solar Technology" is decidedly more difficult and higher to boot so I guess it is reasonable.

Christian spent a lot of his time an energy setting up the top ropes for us, belaying and climbing a 5.8 route called "wet pigeon." I wanted to climb it but was not able to get up the first 12 feet of the route no matter how hard I tried. 

We did find a pretty fun climb called "self abuse" towards the end of the day. Christian, Emily and I went up it although, I got a bit banged up going up and down this one.

I guess I should have made some effort to take a picture with Christian since it was Valentine's Day, but we were too busy climbing and helping the kids so I guess the only shot I have is one Emily took of me climbing. You can see Christian's head peaking up at the top of the climb as he was belaying me from the top!

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On Saturday morning, I made an effort to go to the Stake Women's Conference as I promised a friend that I would drive.

When we returned in the afternoon, I found that Christian got the girls to finish their chores in a timely manner (as opposed to how they normally drag out all day) so we took off to investigate a new wall we found at the Box Springs Mtns. We passed by it several times on our various hikes and had been wanting to investigate further. It appears to be unpublished so we did not have an idea of the difficulty of the climbs. We found at least four anchors set up. Most were pretty difficult but there appeared to be one or two that might be approachable. It is a beautiful area and I expect that we will definitely be back.

Only Christian, Emily and I climbed. Caitlyn wasn't ready to tackle another wall just yet and we left her to her own devices. We did see some deer in the distance running around at the base of the hill. I didn't have a camera that could capture them with me. That is the first time that I've seen them there. You can hear wild burros in the distance sometimes, but I haven't been able to spot one of those either.

In the evening, we joined a Chinese New Year celebration to celebrate the Lantern Festival in Eastvale. They had chinese food, music, dances and a dragon dance. The Lantern Festival marks the last day of the New Year celebration. 

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Sunday was church as usual for us. Christian has meetings all morning. I had to teach sharing time and then Christian ran around teaching with the missionaries and helping one of the new foreign converts learn to drive, so we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day. 

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On Monday, we invited some friends to climb with us and headed back into the Box Springs Mtns. As they have just started, we took them back to the Knob Wall where we used to practice a lot during the summer between trips.

We saw a bunch of hawks flying above. Unfortunately, Emily and her friend also saw a snake out and about. We are not sure what kind it was. Luckily, no one got bitten and we were about done for the day anyway and decided to pack up and head back out.

Chinese New Year

Last weekend, we got together with my family for our annual "reunion dinner" since the new year is almost upon us. Traditionally, we are to meet around the hearth on new year's eve, but as everyone has their own jobs and families and live apart from each other, we tend to get together on the weekend just before the new year. We get together and have a traditional winter solstice soup. It's one of my favorites. I used to wait all year for it. Now that I can make it on my own as well, we tend to have it 2 or 3 times a year because I just can't wait that long to have it again.

Since the new year officially began on Friday, we went back to visit my family again this past weekend. As usual, we made dumplings all day while we ate. The girls love getting to just eat all day for some reason. Probably because they are never allowed to do it normally. You eat your food during meals or you go hungry until the next one! Of course, they get a snack when they get home from school and everything but it's not like keeping your stomach full all day! We loved it when we were young as well but we can't quite appreciate it as much when you get older. Don't get me wrong, we still eat all day too but mostly because we can't help it with all the tasty celebration food all around us and new ones coming out all the time. But for once, I was looking forward to actually fasting a bit the next day.

Plus, it is a lot of work...especially as we take on more and more responsibilities and need to help my mom out more as she is slowing down a bit. But we feel that it is important for us to keep these traditions going with our family and to learn all the aspects of it as one day we will be left to keep this up on our own.

Of course the girls also like getting to dress in their chinese clothes and getting red envelopes! Who doesn't like getting some lucky money? Hopefully, we can instill the love,importance and knowledge of these traditions to our girls so that they can keep it up with their families as well.