Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節)

Thursday was the Harvest Moon. Time for the Mid-Autumn Festival. But instead of going to the crowded festival at the Heritage House this year, we decided to climb up Box Spring Mtn. and watch the moon rise.

We packed a portable dinner and headed up when Christian got back from work. We hiked up a little past the ranger station and found a place to settle down to have our dinner.

During dinner, we read them the Chinese folk tale of Chang'e, the moon goddess. We couldn't get a hold of any moon cake out here. I think that we might have to try to make our own next year.

It was a very smoggy and hazy evening, so the sky was not very clear and didn't make for any fabulous pictures. It was a little chilly up there though. The temperature is definitely changing and it was a little windy up there so we left shortly after the moon came up. We didn't pack sweaters thinking that it doesn't even get that cool in the evenings. Luckily, Christian did pack our headlights and we used them to get back down the mountain. Of course, when we got down, we got to watch the moon rise up over the mountain all over again!

The Nobulator and other matters

The kids are back in school and we are starting to get back into the rhythm of things. Last week, they had back to school night (even though they have been back for 3 weeks). And although it is never very useful per se or productive, we always go so that we can be present in the minds of their teachers. It is important for them to know who we are when trying to communicate with them if something comes up.

They also had picture day. I normally do order pictures because that's what my parents did for us when I was young. It's nice to have that chronological order of pictures through the years. But I have thousands of pictures of my kids. Both Christian and I have fairly nice cameras. We have great software to work on pictures with so I don't know why I force myself to go through the drama that is "picture day" at school. It's expensive and I am almost always disappointed with how the pictures come out. The girls are usually in an awkward pose and have a smirk or grimace on their face that doesn't look pleasant and is certainly not natural. After the pictures that came back to me last year, I finally called it quits and stopped purchasing those darn Lifetouch pictures.

We grew up before the time of digital pictures and it was still a special thing to have these nice portraits of the kids as they go to school but I already have what seems to be a lifetime of pictures of my kids at 8 and 10 years old. My hard drive is full of pictures. I just had to let old habits die and let go of the tradition of school pictures. It just isn't worth it for us.

On the bright side, the autumn weather is finally starting to show and we are starting to get a break from the heat in the evenings so we've been taking advantage of that fact after dinner and started to go back out in the hills behind our neighborhood for walks and to go climbing again. Two weeks without climbing and Christian was starting to go stir crazy.

We found a new climbing rock out there called the "Nobulator." It's pretty awesome. It is not very high (maybe about 40 feet) but it has lots of neat nobs and things to climb on, plus a nice straight face to practice rappelling from. We just had fun the first couple of times we went up and didn't work on anything too technical just to get comfortable with the rock. But just as we were about to start working on really learning something on the rock, we found out that at the base of the rock where the girls and I have been climbing back up on, is the home of a 3 or 4 year old rattler. We have run into it twice now as it comes out to warm itsel in the last rays of the sun before it goes down. I almost ran into it the first time as we started to head back home one evening. Emily almost ran into it the second time while we were still climbing around. Christian went down and found it's home at the base of the rock down there. We were lucky and paid enough attention that we didn't actually get bitten.

The downside of the weather turning is that we have a lot less daylight in which to play out there in the evenings and still have enough light to be able to watch where we are going so that we do not inadvertently step on a snake while we are returning home for the evening.

The upside is that it isn't too hot to go out and we have seen some spectacular sunsets on our walks and climbs. As it gets darker earlier every evening, we will obviously have to make a new plan for our outtings. Meanwhile, we should probably find a new rock to climb until it is too cold for us to worry about the snake being out at the same time that we are!

Labor Day in the Devil's Punchbowl

On Labor Day, we decided to go check out the Devil's Punchbowl...which was kind of nuts since it has been so hot lately! But we wanted to go somewhere and get out of the house for a bit.

It's a beautiful spot. It was fairly pleasant when we first arrived since it was still relatively early. It wasn't too crowded but there were still more people than we would have expected (or wanted). I guess the heat was not enough to deter a lot of people. 

We hiked around a bit then decided to see what the rock was like and see if we could find a shady spot to climb around on but it is all sandstone...not really great to climb on. We stopped to have lunch before returning to the trails to continue our hike.

But by the time we were back on the trails, water was becoming short and the temperature had risen quite a bit and we still had to make it back to the parking lot. Of course, all the drinking fountains were broken so we went into the visitor center to rehydrate ourselves and spoke with the woman working there for a while. They had a bunch of displays for the kids. Most of the crowds left shortly before so it was pleasantly quiet in there as well. 

In the end, we figured we only explored a tiny part of the park and decided it was worth while to try to go back some time when the weather was a bit more comfortable.

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.