Valley Uprising

Emily's first quarter of middle school has ended. Three weeks ago, she brought home her progress report and she was doing really good. Since then, she has obviously learned that she can communicate with her friends via e-mail or something because she started seriously slacking off. It would take her forever to do her homework and she started getting bad marks in her quizzes and assignments, along with work turned in late. She lost a lot of points and was barely passing some classes that she was acing just a few weeks prior.

She got some serious talking to and she made a last ditch effort to pull up her grades. She pulled off getting B's in those classes at least but we are not thrilled about her behavior. She has never gotten below a B in her life (or whatever the current equivalent they keep changing it to). Hopefully the experience has shocked her into a bit of reality. I guess time will only tell when we see what she does in this next quarter.

Emily had the day off at the last day of her quarter though for grading or some such nonsense. I swear those teachers take any opportunity to take more time off. I spent most of the day with her and working on a picnic for our dinner. After we picked up Caitlyn from school, we picked up Christian as well. We came back to get dressed and head out to Orange County.

It was the premier of the new Reel Rock 9 movie: Valley Uprising. Christian thought that it would be fun to take the kids and since Emily is doing a History Day project on one of the original "stone masters," that it would be educational as well.

There was a costume contest, so we collected some garb from second hand shops and dressed up for the occasion. We were supposed to dress up as seventies dirt bag climbers to pay homage to the stone masters of the time. We got there early to get good seats and hardly anyone was dressed. We got lots of compliments on our outfits though so it was a lot of fun. The event was sponsored by North Face and their rep actually came over to compliment us on our family costumes and hand out some freebies.

One of the famous climbers of the time, Jim Bridwell, came and signed autographed posters. They had some other contests and events going on throughout the evening. Before the movies started, more people came dressed up. The movie itself was fairly disappointing and somewhat inappropriate for the kids. It focused very little on the climbing and very much on the bad habits of the climbers of the times. The person Emily is doing her report on was mentioned a couple of times and they had him making a few comments throughout the movie, but very little was told about him.

During the intermission, they had the costume contest and did drawings for some of the raffle tickets they sold. We had to go up in front of everybody in our costumes. There were only about 15 of us. They announced the prizes for dressing up and we were somewhat astonished. We made the first cut of the eliminations pretty easily but we ended up winning the competition which was a complete shock to us as some of the other contestants were more popular. In the end, I think that they just wanted the little family to win (or at least the sponsor did). I have no complaints about that as we won a $200 gift certificate from Gear CoOp for North Face gear.

The kids were pretty excited. We finished the movie and left while they finished off the raffles for the remaining prizes. We did not purchase any raffle tickets and didn't know a whole lot about it to tell the truth, although, they did have some pretty nice prizes. But it was late, the movie was disappointing and the kids were tired so we headed home.

The next evening, we had a Halloween party to attend to. We slept in. The kids had to do their chores and I baked some goodies for the party in the afternoon. We dressed up again in our Valley Uprising costumes and headed to the party after Christian took a nap.

We ended up leaving the party a little earlier than usual because one of the overzealous, overindulged and over-sugared children there rammed into Christian with their cycle...on purpose. He was in a great deal of pain and pretty upset about the whole thing, so we headed home for some distance and rest.

We had our primary program this past weekend. It was Emily's last primary program as she will be graduating from primary in a few more months. She and another boy from her class did most of the narration and she had to sing part of a song with a few other girls. She was not too thrilled to have to go up in front of everybody to do anything extra but she ended up doing a really great job.

Our Weekend

In an effort to tighten our budget and keep costs down, we have not been traveling around on weekends to go rock climbing. It's been difficult, to say the least. We've spent more time locally, hiking back up to Sugarloaf Mtn., we hiked up to the northern crest of the Box Springs Mtn. another time to do some climbing and when we were done, we hiked along the crest line to the ranger station. The weather still hasn't cooled down that much so it was still pretty warm out.

We went back up again this past weekend to do some jumar practice.

It's definitely not as easy as it looks. We all went up several times. While Emily was taking one of her turns up, Christian was practicing on another anchor and Caitlyn decided to free solo up to her sister.

She was not on any rope and there was quite a bit of exposure there so when Christian turned around and saw her climbing up, he got a little freaked out. Caitlyn is not normally one to take any chances though and since she was climbing next to her sister's rope at the crux, we let her continue. We figured that she could grab onto the rope if she had any problems. It's weird since she had been so reluctant to climb before. I guess she has mostly gotten over her fear of heights, that's for sure.

After we finished, we all climbed back up a steep face with really thin holds. Caitlyn was always too timid to try anything like this before, but I think I was more scared going up than she was this time!

Afterwards, we had a sealing reception to go to, so we had to get back to get cleaned up so that we could get dressed and go. It was for an old friend that used to be in our ward, so we went to support them. They did a really great job decorating the park in back of the church. I've never seen the place look so nice. It was so nice to see everyone so happy. For the dinner, they had the Tommy's truck out there to serve dinner, so we were pretty stoked to get a good 'ole burger and fries after all the climbing we did!

Marian sent the girls a halloween surprise that she wanted them to open early. Apparently she sent them new costumes to use so the girls are pretty stoked that they have new costumes to choose from. We stopped buying them costumes some time ago and they just normally pick out something out of their dress up box (which Marian also has mostly filled as they are starting to get a bit old for dress up these days). I don't know how much longer we are going to let Emily trick or treat. She still really enjoys it though and since she has lost the egg hunts for Easter, I suppose she can trick or treat for a little while longer.

Break

After about two years, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have decided to take a break from the girls' Polynesian dance lessons. We had one last performance that came up unexpectedly last week. They performed at a Fitness Fair at the Riverside Plaza this past weekend.

Unfortunately, it was a sad little event. Not a whole lot of people there. The people that were there, barely paid attention. Some could not pull their attention away from their phones for more than a second or two. It is not just me who noticed. The girls noticed while they were dancing. Not a lot of the girls made it out to dance either. 

Christian's mom did make it out to see our girls dance for the first time though, so that was pretty exciting. It is really one of the biggest reasons we agreed to do the performance. That and the fact that there would have been only one other little girl dancing for the keiki's otherwise.

After the performance, we carved pumpkins. Christian's mom brought a bunch for everyone to do. The girls had fun...although there was a bit more whining than we would have liked. In the end, they all turned out great. Unfortunately, it is still quite warm out and the pumpkins didn't last a week. So there will be no jack-o-lanterns left by Halloween.

Christian and I went to try out the other climbing gym in Riverside (since we now have membership, albeit temporarily). It is a lot farther, but it is also a lot bigger. So there are a lot more routes that everyone can try. We decided to take a break today and took the girls after school since it is a minimum day. We were there for many hours but the girls had a lot of fun and we got a lot of practice and exercise in.

San Diego

Last weekend, we took some time to go visit Christian's family in San Diego. We went down Friday night. In the morning, we took off with Christian's sister and niece to Mt. Woodson again. This time, we wanted to try climbing on some of the many boulders there. We had some trouble identifying some of the published routes. What routes we found seemed like they were sand bagged.

They were a lot harder than they indicated and it was pretty frustrating and disappointing for everyone. As the weather is still quite hot, we called it quits by lunchtime and returned to get something to eat. 

We gathered up some of the other people and headed out to Cabrillo National Monument after lunch.

They were having some rededication ceremony that day. So although it was free to get into the park, it also made it extremely crowded.

We took the kids to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse next.

And then we were off to see the tide pools...or what's left of them anyway.

We saw one sea anemone and two little crabs. Several of us slipped on some of the algae on the rocks though and our older nephews got to get wet so they had a good time.

Despite the destruction of the tide pools and the crowds, it was beautiful there. Unfortunately, the tide comes in pretty early so that part of the park closes at 4:30.

We returned to Christian's sister's house and more of the family gathered for dinner. We spent another night and got up in the morning to attend church with their family. Our brother in law is now one of the counselors in the bishopric there and they were having their Primary Program that day. We stayed to watch our niece play the violin. She will be graduating out of Primary shortly as she turns 12 in November. 

Catching Up

The last couple of weeks seemed to have been filled with busy nothings. We are trying to settle in to our new school schedules but things keep coming up.

For instance, we seemed to have something going on almost every day last week. On Monday, the girls have their hula practice in the afternoon. Tuesday is the Activity Girls day. On Wednesday, we had Emily's back to school night. It was two hours long. We went through all her classes in her schedule one by one and met all her teachers. It went pretty well, all things considered.

On Thursday, the girls had a performance at an extended care facility. They were having a luau night or something and had our dance group come out to perform for them. It was very hectic. They did their home work while I got their costumes together. We drove out to the Magnolia area where the extended care facility is. When we arrived, we discovered that the girls did not bring any of their dance implements. Luckily, a friend was running late and we had her go pick it up from Christian at home.

There were a lot of girls performing and we only had a little office for everyone to change in, so we had to throw on their outfits and move out so that the next group could change. The Keiki's did three numbers. We did not have a lot of time to prepare, so luckily, they just did some old numbers that the girls already had outfits for. They newer girls were not able to perform with them since they did not have outfits and did not no all the numbers very well.

They performed a Hawaiian number called Little Brown Gal.

They performed a Māori poi ball routine from the people of New Zealand called A-E-I-O-U.

And they performed their Tahitian Keiki eight count Otea.

The girls did well and had a lot of fun. The patients and workers at the facility were very gracious and kind.

Meanwhile, I have been busy with my new church calling as a compassionate service committee member. The leader is also new and we were called this past Sunday but due to unfortunate circumstances, we had to hit the ground running. Plus the only other existing committee member had just left town to visit with family.

I spent all week calling and returning phone calls to try to coordinate some help. On Saturday, we spent 6 hours working on a funeral. We had a somewhat leisurely morning and had to leave after feeding the kids some breakfast. By the time I returned, I was only home with Christian for about an hour before he had to clean up and take off to help the youth at the Temple.

While I was gone, he cleaned up and detailed my car for me, plus he had some other household chores to do. I fed the kids and put them to bed before Christian made it back home. We were both exhausted.

On Sunday, we went to church as usual. When we got back, Christian worked on my birthday dinner. He made a super tasty italian chicken casserole. It is one of my favorites but I had quite forgotten it for the longest time since the kids were too picky to eat it. They loved it now though. We all got seconds and ate more than we should have. 

Christian got me my first smart phone for my birthday. I had resisted for the longest time, but as no one will give you manuals any more and you have to get it on some device, it is probably about time that I upgraded. Even the old women in our ward have smart phones already! Plus, it is a painful process to text on a regular cell phone. It is hardly worth it but everyone communicates that way now. It is just easier...as long as you have a phone that will support it. Now I just need to learn how to use it! 

Emily wanted to make me a treat for my birthday. She wanted to make cream puffs as she knows that I really like them. She has made it with her dad before on a previous birthday, but she forgot an ingredient and she ended up with something more akin to a cookie than a cream puff. This time, she did it all by herself (more or less) and they came out great!

Last year, for Valentine's day, we got a couple of punch cards that allowed us to go to the climbing gym 10 times. We hardly used it. Occasionally we would go, but they would have these specials and although we got the punch cards while they were on sale, this other offer was even better, so we used that instead. A few months ago, they sold out to the only other climbing gym company in Riverside. However, we were able to trade in our punch cards for regular membership. For every two punch cards we have, we got a month of membership to the new gym. We ended up with four months of gym membership. We've been going two or three times a week. With our membership, we each get one guest pass a month, so we get to take the girls once a month as well. We even made it out to one of the yoga classes they have there. We are trying to take advantage of it all while we can.

Besides all that, Caitlyn's regular teacher finished her maternity leave and got back to teaching her class. Caitlyn liked her substitute but she was a little exasperated that she couldn't spell very well and sometimes the students would have to help her or correct her!

Emily joined yearbook so that should be a new experience for her. We'll see how that goes. Plus after a month of school, they decided to create a new advanced math class for the 7th graders so Emily got pulled into the new class. That is the good news. The bad news is that her math teacher from her original class was our favorite teacher that we met on the back to school night. Oh well, you can't win them all. We will see what happens. So far it is a small class and the base of the class is based on the kids with the best math scores from 6th grade. Now that they have pulled them into it, they decided to test them to see if they truly belong in the class and who else might be joining the class. Don't you think they should have done that before yanking them out of their original classes and disrupting their schedules? I guess that takes too much planning and makes too much sense for those administrators.

San Diego

Christian's mom returned once again from Hawaii so we headed down to San Diego last weekend for a visit. We are hoping she will be staying this time.

We headed down on Friday and spent the night. In the morning we went hiking with Christian's sister and niece to Mt. Woodson.

Again, the heat was pretty unbearable. When we got to the top, we couldn't believe how crowded it was. 

In the afternoon, we met up with Christian's mom and she took the kids swimming.

Luckily, Michaela had extra swim suits that fit the girls since we did not bring any. Christian and I sat out to watch.

Christian's brother and his wife met up with us at the pool. Afterwards, we went back to their place since Grandma got crafts for the kids to do.

At dinner time, we all converged back over to Christian's sister's house for dinner. The girls had such a good time.

Aid Climbing Break

Since the weather is still extremely hot, we did not plan any trips to go climbing. Instead, we figured that we would just get up early and head into the hills in back of our house to do a little climbing before it got too hot.

Unfortunately, we did not get up as early as we wanted to. And then the hike to our destination was quite far. There are no easy and clear paths that far up the hill. We did discover another wall that looks very promising that Christian wants to develop at a later date.

Our goal for today was a traverse across a horizontal crack using ladders and hooks. Of course, Christian went first to set up protection.

Emily went next. We had to climb up and clip our rope into the protection as we made the traverse. 

We move across by hooking ladders on to the small ledge and moving them an arms length at a time to traverse across. It is a lot harder than it looks and takes a lot of strength to hold yourself up on the ladder.

I went next. One of my hooks actually popped and I got one foot caught in the ladder. I was in a real awkward position and it was pretty frustrating and a little scary to get out of. Caitlyn went next. She was pretty scared but ended up doing the best of all of us in the end as she is very careful and meticulous in her every movement.

Christian had to go back up to clean our gear and so by the time we made the arduous hike back down again, it was pretty late in the afternoon. We were pretty fried from the sun so we ended up just vegetating the rest of the night to recuperate.