Christmas

Marian joined us for our annual Christmas Eve feast. She provided the roast beast. We started pretty late though so dinner was pretty late. Christian wasn't feeling very well so we were not even sure that he would be able to eat.

Marian usually brings crafts for the girls and plays games with them while we cook, which is nice so that we aren't tripping over the kids in their excitement. After dinner, we sent the kids to bed and finished wrapping a few presents.

Everyone was up bright and early Christmas morning. The kids were pretty excited considering we didn't get them very many gifts this year but Marian probably more than made up for that. She got them a bunch of cute clothes, trinkets and treats.

There was some more climbing stuff thrown in there somewhere ; )

We had our annual Belgian waffle breakfast and went our separate ways. Marian went home and we started to cook and prepare for the Christmas dinner and my brother's house. It was just our family, my brother's family and my sister's family this year. Our parents didn't make it over. It was kind of weird without them.

My mom did end up showing up some time after dinner though. We had not done the presents yet or dessert so she joined us for that. She crocheted a bunch of stuff for all the little kids. They were really cute. The girls will be able to use them on our trip to Death Valley this year.

Caldwell Christmas

With Christian's side of the family, we decided to do away with a lot of the stress and costs of getting everyone gifts. We decided that instead of gifts, we would go and do something together as a family...something that the kids would enjoy and have memories of. Last year, we took them all ice skating.

This year, we took them to the climbing gym. Although, our family has been climbing every chance we got, we have never actually tried a climbing gym. We thought about it briefly, but the thought of those crowded, stinky make believe plastic nobs in ugly warehouses made us think twice. I mean, afterall, what real rock is like that? It's just not realistic.

But as our nephews and niece was interested and there is not any way to take them otherwise because of equipment issues and stuff, it seemed a good place as any.

It was actually pretty fun. The place we went to was really big and clean and we had the place practically to ourselves half the day! The kids enjoyed themselves a lot and even a few of us adults. It's still not a place I would want to spend all my time, but we finally get an idea of what it is good for...namely, for a gym (I know, duh)! It is really great exercise. It works all those muscles that you need for climbing but don't normally use. So many people these days use it for the end in itself and you forget what it was probably created for. That's okay, they can stay in the gym. The outdoors is crowded enough already.

Everybody took to climbing pretty well...except for Caitlyn, of course. She is still hesitant to embrace it.  She only climbed around a little and left it to everyone else. We tried not to bother her too much as she seemed to find her own fun in it. We only required her to try one or two of the climbs just so that she has tried it.

We usually only have enough time to hang out and have dinner with their cousins, so they love to be able to do other things with their cousins. They all get along pretty well for the most part...at least with the cousins that are around their age. 

When we were pretty tuckered out, we called it a day and returned to their house to spend more time together. Aunt Erin always prepares stuff for the kids to put together gingerbread houses.

I think that as all the kids get older, the patience to make nice gingerbread houses seem to diminish. Only half of the kids managed to actually complete their projects this year.

At some point, dinner is put together and a few gifts are passed out as Grandpa doesn't usually join in the activities in the day. Then the kids are loaded back into the car and we head out as the kids pass out from their full day of activities. The kids didn't actually get that much sleep the night before either as we came out early so that the girls can sleepover with their cousins....they were all really excited so not a lot of sleep was to be had.

Joshua Tree in December

I haven't really gotten into the spirit of the holidays this year. We have not put up the tree (which we usually do the weekend right after Thanksgiving). Consequently, we did not take the girls' annual Christmas picture in front of the tree. As a result, we did not have a picture for our Christmas cards. I just barely started Christmas shopping this past week. I'm usually done before Thanksgiving. One year, I finished before Halloween!

We did manage to put up our Christmas lights outside of our house. That's about all we managed to do.

We've been going to Joshua Tree at least once every month since we got our passes and I think Christian wants to keep it that way! It is getting super cold though. If you are climbing in the shadow, even in the middle of the day, it feels like you are standing in a walk in freezer.

Emily got a chance to finish climbing  "The Eye." Caitlyn even climbed almost halfway up. It is a really fun climb. The only problem was that while we were climbing the eye, a group of people came and took the rappelling station we wanted to go on next and monopolized it for the rest of the day. We tried a few other things and ended up smearing up "The Wall" to catch the sunset. It was really beautiful.

The day after we got back, we figured that we really need to do something. We got the tree up as the kids were sorting and organizing all our climbing equipment. We strung the lights and let the kids decide on how they wanted to decorate the tree this year. They chose to make a climbing tree. The tree is decorated with runners, quick draws, stoppers, tricams, camalots, and carabiners. Caitlyn decided to top the tree with her Bakewell climbing glove.

As a last ditch effort, I sent in our Joshua Tree picture in to Costco to have the pictures printed. They came back super dark and unusable. So much for that. I don't think I am getting a Christmas card out this year. 

A Birthday Party

This past weekend, Christian and I attended our friend Brett's 50th birthday party. It was a 1920's murder-mystery surprise dinner party at a victorian home.

We've never did anything like this before. It was an interesting experience. All I know is that I am not good at these impromptu acting situations! I didn't do too well. In the end, I didn't even remember to have a picture taken with Christian in my costume!

We were all supposed to bring a small token of something that reminds us of Brett. That was worth all the pains of the night.

The party was the same night of our Ward Christmas party. A couple of friends from church watched the girls and took them to the Christmas dinner. Because we were not there, Caitlyn didn't even go see Santa. I guess Emily still went which surprises me since her sister wouldn't go. I guess Caitlyn won't be getting presents from Santa this year...

1st School Trimester Awards

The girls' school had their first trimester awards ceremony this past week. The kids are still doing really good in school.

Caitlyn got the principal's honor roll and perfect attendance.

Emily got honor roll and perfect attendance as well.

The new principal changed all the awards around this year so some awards like "citizenship" was cut out while they added and tweaked some of the other awards. I was not too thrilled about some of them and the kids don't like things getting changed on them. They work towards something, only to find out that the rules have been changed on them.

The only kids that were probably happy about the changes are the ones that got awards for "effort" towards their grade level standards...not that they meet the grade level standards yet, but that they are working really hard to get there.

Honor roll used to be if you got all advanced or proficient marks but now it is harder and you have to have at least 75 percent advanced marks in order to get it. If you don't have enough advanced marks, you get a general generic "academic achievement award." The principal's honor roll is just the same as the high honors with a different name. There were a couple of other new misc. awards to try to encourage struggling kids...which is nice for them but seems to diminish the efforts of those who have worked hard to meet and exceed grade level standards.

Should kids be recognized for their achievements and hard work regardless of where they stand, sure. But if my kids were struggling, would I want them to be awarded like the honor roll students when they do not even meet grade level standards? I don't think so. I think parents and teachers should be the ones to encourage their kids for making progress...not make it a school wide event. Will awarding them for mediocrity encourage them to keep working or will they think they are doing fine and not try so hard? If I was a kid who was struggling but working hard to keep up, would I think getting an award next to the honor roll students was a mockery? I might think it was kind of cool to get an award initially, but if I was honestly working hard at studying, I think I would be slightly embarrassed if I thought about it.

I just don't think these "well meaning" things does what they necessarily intend them to do and that they may do more harm than good.

More on our Thanksgiving Break

We spent a few days during the break trying to work up some ideas for the kids' science fair projects. As the school made it mandatory for grades 3-6 this year, we have no choice on whether we want to participate or not. We were not thrilled about it. On top of that, the project is due before the Christmas break this year instead of after, so we have a lot less time to work on it.

We spent Thanksgiving at my brother's house this year. Christian made a ton of his wild rice and onion bread. I made pies and the girls helped me make mashed potatoes. We usually celebrate Thanksgiving with a potluck style meal. All the siblings take part of the meal and my mom makes her traditional sticky rice. We call it our  chinese stuffing as no one in my family cares much for traditional stuffing except for my brother in law.

We actually had Thanksgiving lunch since my sister had big plans with her in-laws for dinner at her house. We went to visit with Christian's friends who had their baby the week before so that we can meet the new baby and play with his feet.

We basically skipped dinner since we were still full from lunch!

We went to the Quarry again Friday morning for a short time. It rained lightly on and off so we couldn't do much but the kids love just walking around in the rain. The rock is pretty slippery when it gets wet but we managed to do a little climbing still.

On Saturday, we met up with Marian and her sister for a service project of hers. They have been volunteering each year to provide and serve a meal at the local shelters. The one we went to was called the Door of Hope. It is a faith based family shelter where they house and help struggling families get back on their feet.

Since Thanksgiving just passed and we are coming upon Christmas, we thought that it might be a great idea to take the girls so that they can see how much they have and should be thankful for while learning to give service to others.

I don't know how much of that they got from the experience. It was a little frustrating because it was chaotic. The kitchen was being remodeled so we had no where to work (and they did not inform Marian of this situation). The girls got to actually help cook and serve some of the food.

After serving the families, we sat down and ate with them. Even though the families are supposed to be struggling, we still saw them wasting about half of the food. Well, that's not exactly right, they ate most of the desserts (of which there was plenty). Meanwhile, we made our kids sit quietly and eat what they took and didn't really have room for dessert. The other kids were so noisy that Caitlyn was complaining that her head hurt as the screams echoed through the house.

There were a couple of genuinely grateful families there that enjoyed the food we provided and said that it was the best meal they had all week. We made spiral sliced ham sandwiches and tri-tip sandwiches with coleslaw and mashed potatoes. Plus we had all sorts of cookies, cake and pie for dessert. I guess considering the fact that Thanksgiving was two days ago, that is pretty good.

But all things considered, it's difficult to feel that we made much of a difference for those people or for our children.

More Joshua Tree

The kids are off for the week for their Thanksgiving break. We drove out to Joshua Tree to go climbing  first thing Monday morning. We were hoping that it would be less crowded since it is a weekday and not quite a holiday yet. It was nice when we got there but as the morning wore on, it was just as crowded as the Veteran's Day weekend!

We went back to "Trashcan Rock" first since it has a really easy climb for Caitlyn. It was pretty cold. The rock just sucks all the warmth from your hands!

When it got too unbearably crowded there, we moved on to "Cyclops Rock."

We set out to climb a 150 foot route called "The Eye." It looked really neat but seemed really scary. I wasn't too sure about it but it wasn't too bad in the end. Christian always leads and sets up an anchor at the top for us.

Emily got to climb about halfway up after Christian came back down to get more equipment.

I made it all the way up to the top (but just barely...as there were other climbers impatiently waiting for our route by the time Christian set up our anchor).

We ended up just letting them have it after I made it to the top. Emily didn't get a chance to finish the route. We'll have to go again next time. I think we all agreed that it was by far the most fun route we have ever been on. It was not overly difficult but just challenging enough to keep it interesting and it was beautiful.

There is an easier way up from the backside and the girls played on that half the time. When we finished with the Eye, we decided to rappel off an overhang next to where we were climbing. It looked super scary from the top. It took some time for Christian to set up an anchor for us. He was trying to teach Emily how to set up an anchor at the same time. By the time it was ready, the sun was getting pretty low in the sky and it was getting really cold. The girls decided that they were not going to do it afterall at this point. Christian had it all set up so he decided to give it a try. I went next. It is crazy scary if you look down but it was super fun and the view was spectacular. It is a 100 foot drop. Christian convinced Emily to just give it a try when I got down.

It was almost entirely dark by the time Emily started down but I managed to get a couple of shots with my flash. She had a blast. I think Caitlyn would really like it as well, if she can get up the courage to go over the edge.

We will be doing that again next time as well, but hopefully during the day, with the sun out and while it is warm!