Mother's Day Weekend

The kids gave me my Mother's Day gifts friday night, as we would be pretty busy over the weekend. I didnt manage to get anyone to get any pictures, since we also had some friends over for dinner that evening.

On Saturday, we went to visit my mother. We all brought food for lunch. The kids get to visit and play with their cousins while the rest of us visit and chat. We took some family pictures.

The grandkids were pretty young still when we took our last one, so we thought that it was a good time to get an updated picture.

Christian made videos of the kids for the grandmothers on both sides of the family for Mother's Day. We originally started them to show on the kids' birthdays but he keeps putting more work into them and they are getting pretty fancy with music tracks and audio commentaries and everything!

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The next day, we headed down to San Diego to visit with Christian's mom. Since they were out of town for Caitlyn's birthday, they had gifts for her as well.

Christian's mom has been spoiling the girls like crazy because she is probably going to be living in Oregon this time next year. She asked for a couple of ideas for things to get her. Christian suggested art supplies or a push scooter (since Caitlyn has broken hers). She got all of them for her and then some. But instead of a simple push scooter, she got her an electric one. And instead of just one, she bought a second one for Emily as well!

She also made the girls' a beading loom and got them both a mess of beads and tools. They are so excited, it is like Christmas and their birthdays all in one.

She even had a little mother's day gift for her daughter and myself!

Christian's dad's birthday generally a week before Caitlyn's and we normally just celebrate them together (except that they were out of town as well this year). We got him a funny Idiocracy gift package that consisted of the movie, a Camacho for Prezident t-shirt and a bottle of Brawndo, all in a Carl's Jr gift bag. The girls were very excited to give it to him.

I baked a cake for all the occasions.

The girls got to get their new fancy scooters out for the first time yesterday. We had to assemble them and charge the batteries. Unfortunately, we found out that Caitlyn's was previously used and broken. She was so upset. Luckily, Christian's mom gave us the receipt (just in case) so Caitlyn and I had to make a quick dash to the local Target to demand an exchange. Luckily, they had one in stock and we were able to exchange it.

The kids got to take it out for the first time today and they had a blast.

Island Ohana Show

Saturday evening, the girls had a small show at a fundraising dinner the boy scout troop was doing at the church.

They were supposed to do four numbers but ended up only doing three because the bake auctions were taking too long. The other girls did another two numbers without them because our girls didn't learn them.

The first two numbers they did was the poi routine (from New Zealand) and then the Otea (Tahitian).

They were supposed to have a break while the auction went on but then they kept going and going. When the girls got back out to begin the second half of their dances, a lot of people were not even paying attention anymore because they were also doing a silent auction down the middle of the cultural hall. So, people were just kind of milling about.

The girls performed Pate Pate as their last number and cut their Samoan routine.

The girls had some friends in the audience, so they were pretty excited to see them. We did not stay to chat though as the whole thing ran long and we were tired and hungry. The girls did pretty well over all. Most of the girls were not too happy with their performance during the poi ball routine except for Caitlyn. Everything went swimmingly for her.

Caitlyn's Birthday

Caitlyn had a birthday this past Friday. She turned 11 this year. Only one year of Primary left...so sad.

We were originally going to have Caitlyn's party the next day (on Saturday), but Christian's family was out of town. My mom stopped coming for the grandkids birthday parties a few years ago. She has cataracts and they won't operate on her until it worsens. Anyway, she is not that familiar with the area in which we live, so she doesn't like to drive out here on her own.

When the kids' birthday lands on a weekday, we usually will have a small special dinner for them and then a bigger party with Marian and the grandparents on the weekend closest to their birthday or the one most convenient for everyone. Since none of the grandparents were going to make it, Marian decided to just save us the trouble and get off early on Friday to make it down for her actual birthday dinner on Friday instead. Thanks Marian, you are always so thoughtful!

Caitlyn loves to choose shrimp tempura for her special dinner. Usually, I just cheat and get the ready made stuff from Costco. You just pop it in the oven and you are done. This year Marian brought us some bags of jumbo shrimp, so we decided to make it from scratch. We also cut up some vegetables to make into tempura as well. Deep frying is not something I do very often, as it is a messy affair. I decided to just make it outside on the porch to try not to get my kitchen covered in oil.

Caitlyn also requested BLTs the previous night since Emily was out with the youth group doing baptisms at the temple. She is not as big of a fan of BLTs so we don't do it that often. When her sister is away, Caitlyn usually requests it. Anyway, the bacon already made a pretty big mess in the kitchen and I didn't want to deep fry on top of that!

We had some miso soup to start and made some steamed rice. We made tempura in small batches as we ate. We still made too much and everyone was stuffed before we finished it all.

We went in for presents after that. Marian brought a ton as usual.

It is torture for Emily to watch Caitlyn open gifts. She is so slow and methodical. Plus, it is worse since none of the presents are for her. It isn't so bad when she gets gifts in between like on Christmas.

By the time Caitlyn finished all her gifts, everyone was ready for cake again.

This year, I made her a pink grapefruit and wheat ombre cake. It turned out pretty good! Caitlyn has been enamored with scented soaps and lotions this past year, especially grapefruit scented ones. I finally got her some pink grapefruit bath gel and body butter for her birthday and I made the cake to match!

It was pretty late when we were all done but we let the kids stay up a bit longer to watch Caitlyn's First Year video that Christian made. He made a video of her 10th year as well but we had to save it for the next day since it was pretty late. Unfortunately, the rest of us stayed up talking until 2:am still after the kids went to bed! Marian had planned to spend the night and spend some more time with the kids in the morning and afternoon but we didn't get much sleep.

We had leftover birthday cake for breakfast. Hey, don't judge! It's made with whole wheat and eggs! Then we got to watch Caitlyn's video and worked on some projects. Marian went out with the kids and brought back some supplies for lunch. We grilled some tasty prime rib steaks for a late lunch before Marian would have to go home.

It would have been a pleasant day, but the stupid Frat house down the street were having some raging party all afternoon and evening. It is hard to enjoy yourself in your own home when they have loud speakers blaring music and people screaming. It is like living next to a night club except that they are open day and night. 

After Marian took off, I had to work on getting the girls' costumes together and have them practice a bit. Marian actually watched some of it. The girls were supposed to perform at church for some fund raiser for the boy scout troupe that evening.

Joshua Tree

We headed back to Joshua Tree to continue our training this past weekend. It was a bit colder than we had anticipated. And it was a lot more windy than they said it was going to be. The two combined made it pretty miserable in the beginning as we tried to huddle out of the wind and hopefully catch some sun to warm us.

We arrived early to try to beat the crowds as our route is near the Hidden Valley Campground. Anytime the climbs are near the campgrounds, it is usually a zoo. Our first climb was on Intersection Rock, called Upper Right Ski Track (5.3). The pitch is 100 feet long and involved just some 4th class scrambling until it traverses up a ramp and then follows an obvious crack to the top. We roped up before the crack.

Christian went up first to set up the anchor. I followed and stayed up on top to take pictures of the girls. Emily went first but was having trouble because she was cold or something. So Christian got her off and had Caitlyn go up instead. Meanwhile, I sat up on the top waiting for someone to come up while being blown about in the cold wind. It was pretty miserable.

She took a while but she is always very meticulous about all her gear placements which is really great. Christian lowered her off but she pretty much had to down climb most of it.

Emily finally came up next. Apparently she took a nap in a sunny bowl and felt all the better for it.

Christian came back up after and checked Emily's pieces. They were all really good so she is getting really good and placing protection and leading without panicking. We rappelled down some nearby anchors above all our stuff to join Caitlyn. 

We found a sunny spot to have some lunch and we saw a guy free soloing the Lower Right Ski Track which was pretty incredible. When he got back down, Christian thinks that he recognized him as the author of one of our guide books!

After lunch, we headed to the other side of Intersection Rock to work on a climb called "Beginner's Three." It is another 5.3 climb up a 50' crack. Unfortunately, the start of the climb was not so easy and definitely not 5.3. Christian went up and I was going to follow as before but couldn't quite get up the start of the climb. I took a break and Caitlyn went up instead. She was originally supposed to lead it as she did the previous climb but opted to just follow and clean because of the difficult start.

The rest of the climb is straight forward and fun but it is definitely a challenge to get off the ground.

Emily went next and opted to lead the climb still. Christian came back down to spot and help her up.

She did really great. I got back on to follow on her gear and finally managed to get up off the ground. The rest of the climb was really good though.

When we were done, we headed over to The Blob. Christian had a climb picked out called Bussionier (5.7+). The climb was awkward, strenuous and most agree that the rating is a bit sandbagged. Christian almost wanted to quit part way up but powered up anyway. He was pretty worked by the time he got up the hardest parts. Neither Caitlyn nor I wanted to try the route so Christian had Emily clean and follow. 

Luckily, Emily is pretty thin and was able to balance and walk up most of the crack traverse and only lie back the very last part that went up to the chimney. With all Christian's gear and being much bigger than Emily, he had to lie-back a good part of the climb and since the rest of it is super slick and had nothing for your feet, it was beyond strenuous.

Unfortunately, Emily was not able to clean one of the nuts that Christian had slotted into the crack so we ended up having to leave that piece behind.

Afterwards, we went into town to do a bit of shopping and splurged for dinner at Carl's Jr. on our way out.

Spring Break - Red Rock Part 2

We were able to sleep in a little on day 3 of our trip. We were to meet up with Christian's dad at the visitor center at 8:am. We broke down camp and had our breakfast at the visitor center. Terry pulled up to the parking lot shortly after we arrived. Everyone had breakfast and used the facilities before we headed out to start our day.

We tried to do a bit of hiking in the Calico Hills but we did not get very far as the terrain was a bit rocky and required scrambling over boulders to get around.

We only went a little way before deciding that it was going to be too much for Terry and turned around. We spent most of our time chatting and visiting with each other. The girls played with rocks and things when we dawdled too much. 

It was pretty warm out. We found some shade to have some lunch and headed back out to see if we could find a tamer trail for Terry.

We ended up on the Lost Creek -Children's Discovery Trail. It was a relatively short hike with a little waterfall at the end. It is a bit late in the year, but there was still a trickle of water coming down off of it.

It was a pretty slow day for us, but Terry was pretty tired by the end of the day. He had a lot of trouble finding a place to stay so we called it a day early so that he could find another place to stay away from the Vegas strip. However, we probably spent another couple of hours talking in the parking lot before we finally parted ways!

We were feeling a bit sluggish after sitting and standing around most of the day, so after we set up camp and got dinner started, we went for a walk while Emily watched the stove. Looking back, she wasn't being that vigilant, so we decided to just go back and check on dinner ourselves!

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We met up again with Terry the next morning and went back to the First Pull-Out to do some climbing. Terry wanted to watch the kids climb.

We picked out a relatively easy climb on the Scrambler's Wall for the kids to do their lead practices. It was an 80' climb following a prominent crack called Dinosaur Omelet (5.3).

Christian went first to check out the route and set the anchor as usual. Then Emily and Caitlyn each took their turn while Grandpa watched. I went last then Christian came back up to clean my route and the anchor and we were able to walk off the climb.

When we were done, we headed over to The Slab to do a 5.8 sport lead that Christian wanted to try called Smear Campaign.

Christian sport led the route and then Emily and I top roped the route. The crux is just about 10 or 12 feet up the start of the climb and it took a little while for me to figure it out since I could not reach the slightly more obvious holds (all of which are pretty small and thin). 

It was still pretty early and there were lots of easier sport climbs on this wall, so we had lunch and proceeded to see how much we could get done. Apparently, we got quite a bit done as we were able to go up another 5 routes before calling it quits for the day. 

Slab and Tickle (5.5)

Slabotomy (5.5)

Slab-A-Dab-A-Do (5.6)

Slabulous (5.7)

Slab Stick (5.7)

It was a pretty productive day, to say the least. The kids were totally in the zone! Those were Caitlyn's first 5.6 and 5.7 sport leads and she didn't even hesitate. She did great. Terry took off after about 3 of these routes to use the facilities and had not come back so we thought that we had better send a search party out to find him. By the time we had finished the 5th route, I had to go use the facilities myself. If it was not for nature calling and our need to find Grandpa Caldwell, we probably would have stayed to do another route or two. 

Apparently, he drove down two parking lots over to find a restroom because there was no parking at the Second Pull-Out and since the road through the park is one way, there is no way for him to make his way back to us. We packed up and met up with him at the Sandstone Quarry. Since we had never stopped there before, we took a quick look around.

Since we basically achieved most of our goals on our trip, and a new weather system was moving in, we decided to cut our trip short again. Terry was planning to leave the next morning anyway, but we were originally going to stay another day or so depending on the weather. It was supposed to rain the next morning and we would not be able to do anymore climbing on this trip, so we decided to go home as well to work on all the pictures and videos that we took.

On our way out of town, Terry took us out to eat at McDonald's. It was a nice treat after eating canned soup and meals from pouches and stuff for the past four days! Terry stopped near the border of Nevada for the night but we continued on the rest of the way home. 

Spring Break - Red Rock Part 1

For Spring Break this year, we headed back to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

We arrived in the early afternoon and headed over to the First Pull-out. Our destination was in the Oasis area. We climbed the route "Approaching the Oasis" (5.3). 

The beginning of which, was an easy chimney that we all just free soloed up with our packs. For some reason, Emily had a bit of trouble with it and Christian had to go down a bit to help her. She hates to climb with her pack on so that might be part of it. We roped up for the next part. While we worked on getting all our gear on, Emily went back to work the chimney several times. She was fine after that and was able to lead the rest of the route up.

At the top of this route was our next climb. It is called Diamond Dance (5.7). It is supposed to be a short (25') finger crack and then, it traverses up and over to the right to the anchor. The climb was not too bad, but the crack was not very useable being too small, flaring and shallow. Caitlyn opted to not climb this route. When I was lowering off of the route, there was a small white tricam, placed as a directional, that got pulled. Apparently, the rock broke and I dropped over a little. Luckily, there was one other directional piece put in, so I did not swing out too far but it was a bit startling.

We cleaned up to head out to find our camping spot after that. Luckily, our usual camping spot was available so Christian set up our tents while I heat up our dinner for the evening. We never spend too much time or energy on our food. It is usually just something that we heat up like soup or other MRE type foods that we just need to warm and eat. Almost no dishes to even clean up after.

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We woke up early for day 2 of climbing. We planned to get up a 5 pitch route (540') up the Solar Slab Gully (5.3). We got up pretty early, but then we went to the visitor center to sort our gear, use the facilities and have breakfast, so that took a while. From the parking lot of our climb, it took us over an hour to hike to the base of our climb so it was well after 9:am by the time we actually got our gear on and started climbing.

We ran into some difficulty at the very start. The rock is unlike anything we have climbed so far and Christian found that it was really difficult to protect. 

In addition, we found that the first pitch was significantly harder than the claimed 5.3. There were overhanging bulges that we had to muscle over. Christian lead as usual. Emily went next, sport leading on a second rope while Caitlyn belayed her. We ended up making an anchor only part way up the pitch to reduce rope drag. After belaying Christian, I cleaned the gear as I moved up. My gear kept getting caught on the rocks. I was not having a very good time of it to say the least. At the bulge,  a cam that was hanging off my harness got caught on the lip of the bulge below just as I was trying to hang on for dear life while pulling myself up over the hump. I tried to free myself to continue up but it was very difficult. By the time I got the gear loose, I could not hang on anymore and slipped and scrapped up my arm somewhat. As I proceeded up, more gear kept getting caught and I got a bit bruised up along the way. I barely remember the rest as I was so frustrated and exhausted. It took us two hours in the end for all of us to make it up one and a half pitches.

Christian decided that we had better just stop for a breather and have some lunch in the shade and see how we felt after that. We did feel much better after our break but it didn't look too good for us as we were not even up to the top of the second pitch.

Luckily, the climbing got much easier after that and we did not have any more trouble.

We were moving much faster but it was still taking us quite a while to manage both ropes for the four of us.

Since we had fairly large ledges at our belay anchors, we should probably have just dumped the rope down instead of trying to coil them up nicely. Emily and Caitlyn needed to get ready to move once Christian was on his way so that Emily was only a little behind her dad. As it was, we would wait for him to get some distance, then Emily would get ready but Caitlyn and Emily would have some trouble untangling themselves from each other and the rope and by the time Emily would actually start, Christian was already up and making the anchor.

They got the hang of it much better near the end and Caitlyn even took a turn sport leading up on dad's pieces while Emily belayed from below. We ended up breaking the 5 pitch route into 6 pitches to cut down on rope drag. That added some time to our climb as well and by the time we got up to the top of our 5th pitch, we were running out of time. We had a long way to get back down and a long hike back out to the car. The park closes at 8:pm and the tickets are expensive if you don't follow the rules.

We had a small snack to decide what we were going to do. In the end, only Christian went up the last pitch to check it out as we planned to come back to complete it. At the top of this route is the beginning of the next climb that we eventually want to do. It is another 5 pitch route (somewhat harder) for a total of 10 pitches in all that we would want to complete. 

Once Christian got up and made it back down to us, we had to hurry up and start the long process of rappelling back down all those pitches! The first rappel was a bit scary but the rest were easier and we got into a rhythm and all made it back down. Then we threw our gear in our bags and hustled back down the trail to our car. The sun had already set but twilight and then the moon provided enough light for us to mostly make it back to our car. The girls had to use the facilities and then we made it out of the park with only 1 minute to spare!

Easter Weekend

We had a really busy Saturday. After Caitlyn and Christian returned from sleeping out on the portaledge, we had breakfast and then headed over to our friends house for their annual Easter Egg Hunt.

There were over 50 kids and over 2000 eggs. It was crazy. It seems to get bigger every year. The kids (except for Caitlyn), are pretty much too old for the egg hunts now, so they have Caitlyn grab a few egg and they split the booty between the four girls. Mostly, they went out in search of the "special" eggs which contain gift certificates to Dairy Queen. Abby found one but ended up giving it to Emily.

The girls got to play and visit with their friends for a while but then we had to drag them away around noon to get back to the house to meet up with Marian, who was coming by to do another egg hunt for them.

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Marian arrived in time for a late lunch. Christian started working on our car which needs some work before our next big outting during Spring Break. I worked on lunch while Marian worked on her Easter Egg Hunt. She put together some rather elaborate plan to make it a bit more difficult for the girls but then we found out that she included us in on part of the hunt.

Some of the eggs contained treats and some contained clues for part two of the elaborate hunt.

While we searched for our clues, she proceeded with stage two.

The whole thing took quite a while and there seemed to be endless surprises. Marian figured that it should be their last egg hunt and wanted to go out with a bang I guess. The girls are trying to convince her that they are not too old yet for egg hunts though.

While Caitlyn and Christian was out on their overnight trip on the portaledge, Emily and I put together a few things for a minor egg hunt for Marian. It was only a few treats.

We visited for a bit longer before Marian had to depart and Christian had to desperately get back to work on our vehicle. Unfortunately, we found out that it needs more work than we anticipated so there will be many more weekends of work on the vehicle in our future.