Halloween 2015

The Friday before Halloween was the end of the 1st quarter for middle school so Emily had the day off. In the morning, she went out with Christian to do some more bolting practice. They had better results than our first time.

Caitlyn still had school in the morning but of course, they had their Halloween parade and party in the afternoon. She dressed up as Cleopatra.

 On the morning of Halloween, we took off to the quarry to do a bit of climbing. Christian did some aid climbing and did another practice bolt on the granite.

The quarry was packed with climbers this day, so we spent some time just watching some of the other climbers. We did manage to do a few climbs on School House Rock that we have already done previously and then it got too hot to do anything but retreat.

We were still out a lot longer than we had anticipated. We missed lunch so we had a snack when we got home, got cleaned up and headed to the chili cook off and trunk-or-treat at church.

Christian opted to stay home in case any trick or treaters came by again. He worked on chopping wood for our wood pile while he waited.

Emily dressed up as some kind of sorceress and Caitlyn changed into a witch. After dinner and after the girls made their rounds at the trunk or treat, they played in the bounce house a while and then we headed back to meet some friends and other kids in the neighborhood that was going trick or treating.

The girls had not really done any real trick or treating at people's houses except for a couple of token houses each year. Sometimes we try to get them to go to a house or two more and they usually will decline. For some reason, they seemed very eager to go this year. I'm not sure if it is just their age or the fact that they would be doing it with friends that gave them the courage to go this year.

Their favorite house was at the end of the neighborhood. There is this large property at the main street that collects old stuff (trains, automobiles, memorabilia, etc.). We had heard that they occasionally opened up their house for neighbors but have never actually been on their property. I must say that it was pretty neat...kind of like going to Knotts Berry Farm back in the old days.

They had little buildings scattered through the property. Replicas of old school houses, mercantile, dentist, jail, bank, etc. And in each building, there were treats to be had. I wish I could have spent more time looking around but I was too busy chasing the kids who were so excited and running all over the place. It was all I could do to catch up with them and snap a few pictures.

At the end of the evening, the kids had their buckets filled to the top with candy and the handle was cutting into their hands because they were so heavy. Plus we did not expect to be out so long and our feet hurt from all the walking. The houses giving out candy these days are pretty scattered throughout the neighborhood. It isn't like when we were kids and almost all but a couple of house in our block were handing out candy.

Emily ended up with over 4 and a half pounds of candy. Caitlyn had a little less at a little over 4 pounds. 

No one but the kids that the girls went out with stopped by our house so Christian ended up getting a lot of wood done!

Joshua Tree - Cap Rock

We had not been out climbing for a bit because of the heat and other matters so we took the first opportunity available to head out to do a bit of training.

We found ourselves on some easy climbs on Cap Rock.

Christian had us do some leading practices. Christian went up first to put up the anchor and then we each took turns leading the route. Christian would then come up after us to check the protection we placed. Unfortunately, not all our placements were that good.

The route is called Circus (5.2). It is a 50' pitch up an easy crack.

It would have been a fairly nice day out in Joshua Tree since it was warm in the sun and almost chilly in the shade but our timing was not so good since there was some big biker jamboree out in Joshua Tree somewhere. Big groups of bikers went by all around us all day. We could not even hear ourselves talk half the time. It was pretty annoying. 

Our leading exercises took all morning and then some. We had a late lunch and walked around to the other side to do a 60' pitch called Nutcracker. It is supposed to be another 5.2 but Christian found the crux to be harder. Christian had me go next to see what I thought of the rating. I sport led it and I agreed that the crux, which is supposed to be a chimney but at best appeared to be something that bordered between a squeeze chimney and an off-width, was not quite so easy.

The kids ended up mostly doing a sport lead. Christian went up to help them clip in right above the crux so that they were essentially on top rope. 

Caitlyn froze a little at the crux but Christian finally got her moving up and through the the crux. 

Emily had a little trouble as well but Christian go her through it but then made her go back down and do the crux twice so that she could practice what she used to get up and remember it but she seemed to have a even harder time the second time up!

By the time we finally finished the route, the sun was starting to set and we packed up to go. Christian had wanted to do a more challenging climb himself, but we ran out of time. It was starting to get chilly and the kids did not pack even a light sweater. We had some warm soup back at the truck for dinner and then we stopped by the mountain shop on the way out to check on a few things but did not end up getting anything...a rare event!

Island Ohana Dance Recital 2015

Saturday was the girls dance recital. Marian, Christian's dad and Jackie came to watch them perform. Unfortunately, they had to wait a long time to watch the girls dance. They only had one number that they performed a little before intermission. Our girls did not perform any of the dances from Hawaii this year. We took a break from dancing most of the year and had just started back up at the beginning of the school year so it was hard to play catch up when most of the dancers have been learning and dancing all year.

Also, since returning to dance class, the girls are moving up from the Keiki group to the Junior Wahines and the dances are decidedly more difficult. So we chose the easiest dances that required the least to learn. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian implements needed for the Hawaiian dances are quite expensive so it was easy to opt out of those dances.

The first dance the girls performed was a poi ball routine, a Maori dance, from the people of New Zealand.

This is one of the girls' favorites but there were many tears shed before they were able to get it down because swinging those poi balls around your head and shoulders hurt when you mess up! They were also excited because they had already learned some of the harder movements and some of the newer Junior Wahines had not learned them yet and were not able to do some of the moves for the performance. The instructor ended up having to put them in the back row with alternate movements that were easier.

After a couple more dances from the Wahines, we had intermission. There were refreshments and the girls were able to come out to greet their guests.

When we returned from intermission, they did a Samoan number called the Sa Sa. The group that did this number were from all the older groups combined so there were a total of something like 31 people on stage. It looked pretty neat but it was hard to take pictures with so many people spread across the stage. Caitlyn was in the back row too so that didn't help since she is so small.

Then they moved on to the island of Tahiti. Caitlyn and Emily did the Otea with the Keiki's as a favor for their teacher. When we took a break from dancing, there were so many girls, there was hardly room to dance on some days. It was frustrating because they were going way to slow for our girls. Some of the girls were much younger and some of them were brand new, so they did not progress very quickly and the girls were sometimes frustrated or bored. When we returned, there were only two little Keikis left. A couple of girls had moved away and some of the other dropped out. They need a bit of help to lead them still so she had Emily and Caitlyn dance this number with them. The teacher ended up dancing the other two numbers with the Keikis since Emily and Caitlyn didn't really want to dance with the Keikis again. I didn't want to have to make and buy outfits that they would never use again so this was the compromise.

The last dance they did was the ending number that all the older groups participated in as well. It is another Tahitian number called Pate Pate.

Again, it was a really crowded number so it was hard to get pictures. Plus the lighting was terrible at the facility. They also had helped out in the audience participation part of the recital. 

There were so many other dances and dancers. It is quite a show really. We didn't finish until after 9:pm so the kids were tired and hungry. They aren't allowed to eat just before or during intermission because it will cause them to get a stitch in their side while dancing. A lot of the dancers will snack still during intermission because it is just too long to have to wait since we all arrived at 6:pm to get ready.

 We are very grateful to those who supported the girls by coming out to the recital and/or just buying tickets. After all the craziness of getting ready for the recital, we get one week off. Tonight we are getting together to have pizza and to watch the video from the recital. Aloha!

Endless Summer (weather)

It's been a hot couple of weeks. There seems to be no end to this summer weather. We get a bit of relief in the form of some rain showers and flash flooding here and there but then in a couple of days, we have near or over 100 degree temperatures again...especially on the weekends. So the weather systems have not brought the cooler weather of Autumn, instead we have gotten hot & humid weather.

In our restlessness, and in between dramatic weather systems, Christian and I have been investigating the local areas for places to possibly put up bolt ladders to practice aid climbing. For some reason, the new "modern" sport climber thinks that aid climbing is something left over from some bygone era so they have chopped or vandalized most of the old routes so we have had quite a time finding some place to practice. We were investigating an area in back of Sugarloaf Mtn when we parked Christian's truck in a warehouse parking lot. We did not find anything that met our requirements and decided to head back to the truck to look elsewhere when we found that his car had been vandalized. We were gone maybe 20 minutes. Someone broke the lock on the driver's side door and was about to steal the truck when they probably saw us returning. This isn't some dark seedy area exactly. It is an open parking area next to the mountain side with trucks parked all around us costing 3 times as much as ours and yet, our car was the one they tried to steal. Needless to say, we were pretty upset. The lock is totally destroyed, some of the other parts are a bit mangled but probably salvageable.

On another week, we hiked up the hills in back of our house find a place to practice bolting. The rock we picked was not of very good quality and so our bolting exercise was not exactly successful but we did learn some things after our exercise. We will have to try again.

We had a thunderstorm one evening this past week that shook the house most of the night. We got woken up by loud thunder and blinding lighting strikes lighting up the night sky. It was exciting but we didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night for many reasons. Christian got some really neat pictures of the storm outside of the house. It was pretty spectacular.

We spent one weekend watching General Conference and working on History Day and Science Fair projects.

After school, the thing that has consumed the rest of our time has been dance practice. We have been going to practice twice a week. This last week had been non-stop. We had practice on Monday as usual (although the time allotted for practice has been getting longer and longer). We had to take group pictures Tuesday night. We had our first dress rehearsal Wednesday night and again Friday night. We only had one day off all week and the rest of the time was spent sewing last minute costumes, ironing, labeling and packing to get ready for the show. I think we were at dress rehearsal for nearly 3 hours that last evening. I can't wait until it is over. It has taken over our lives!

San Bernardino Mtns.

After last week's heat, we decided the thing to do was to go to a higher elevation to take advantage of the cooler weather up there. We headed out to the San Bernardino Mountains. The girls and I brought light sweaters or jackets for the morning since we headed out fairly early and I'll tell you, we were actually chilly still.

We went to find an area called Deep Creek Narrows. It was a little difficult to find as there is a lot of private property we were trying to skirt around to get to our destination. We took a pretty round about way to get there.

The girls enjoyed the hike since we were following and criss crossing a river along the way. It's been a while since we have found a river that isn't mostly all dried up. I'm sure that there is normally a lot more than what we found but still...there was water! Unfortunately, we also found a lot of trash along the way. This place could be really beautiful if it wasn't for all the trash that has gotten carried along the river and left where the river left it when the flow of water decreased. It's pretty sad that so many people come out here that don't really enjoy nature and ruin it for those that do.

We had some problems finding our climb but we finally found our destination by late morning. We had picked out an easy climb on the Southeast Face for us to practice leading a route. The route was called Crack Zero (5.2).

The girls took turns building part of a little fort when they were not climbing. 

We definitely want to come back here some time. The girls want to come when it is warmer to play in the water. It apparently is a place a lot of people come to do cliff diving from the sides of the little canyon that the Narrows is nestled between. That would explain all the new trash lying around the immediate area. We packed out two garbage bags of their trash and it barely made a dent. The kids were trying to figure out how deep the river was but even though the river was low, they could not find a stick long enough to reach the bottom.

We left just in time as some people were coming up the canyon as we were heading out.

We hopped back in our car and headed out towards Keller Peak. Our next climb was in the Children's Forest area at Kindergarten Rock.

We did a couple of climbs that we couldn't quite determine what the route was. One of them we figures was a 5.6 because of the difficulty of the climb. The other we think was a 5.8. We think that the route is Kid Rock (5.8) but we are not positive. Only Christian did that route. He thought that it was a 5.7 route but he said it was a lot harder. After we came home and reviewed our notes, we are certain that it was not the 5.7 route that we thought it was. So he inadvertently did his first 5.8 lead. He actually wasn't very happy about that. He was saving his first 5.8 lead to be in Yosemite Valley. Up until now, he was just doing top rope and sport leads in that grade to work his way up.

We did a few other routes as well. One Less Mouth to Feed was a 5.5.

Emily did the crazy 5.9 route called Kindergarten Cop. It is a very steep friction climb most of the way.

It was pretty difficult and she slipped off a few times but she was on top rope so she didn't fall or anything but she was pretty tired and frazzled before she finished and wanted to quit but as she was nearly there, Christian had her get back on and finish the route. She was pretty psyched about climbing it but she was definitely done for the day.

The kids did play around a little on the rocks in between climbs. They practiced doing some full body bridges between the rock walls!

By the time we were done, a storm was moving in pretty quick and the girls started getting chilly as they left their sweaters in the truck. The sun was going down as we packed up our gear to head out.

El Cajon Mountain

Another weekend, another heatwave. However, it did not deter us from our goal of going to El Cajon Mountain to climb. Big mistake.

Technically, it was supposed to be cooler this weekend, but definitely not enough. And it was definitely hotter than they claimed it would be.

We got up at 5:30 in the morning and packed up to head to San Diego. We got to our destination around 7:am or so.

We had a quick breakfast and started on our hike. It was supposed to take about two hours to get to the base of our climb but it took us significantly longer. There was next to no shade and it quickly got unpleasantly hot. 

Luckily, Christian grabbed our Zion hiking sticks as we jumped into the truck. We really needed them on this hike. Not just to make hiking easier but to help us to ferret out objective hazards like snakes along the trail that might be hiding under the tall grass growing everywhere along the trail.

We took a few breaks here and there where we could find a boulder to hide behind. The heat was getting to Caitlyn. She started whimpering up the trail although she didn't really tell us what was wrong. The heat and difficult hike made us all want to whimper so we did not really ask either. Close to reaching the base of the climb, Caitlyn actually threw up. Christian took her pack and we went in search of some shade for her to recover in.

We found a sliver of shade for the kids to hide in and rest at the base of the mountain while Christian went up around the mountain to find the climb. I followed up gradually and Emily came shortly after. We found the climb and decided to get something done for our troubles and climb a little regardless of the heat. We still had a good amount of water left. We eventually got Caitlyn up to where we were as well since there was a nice breeze going at the edge of the ledge we were on. Understandably, Caitlyn opted not to climb today.

The climb is called Bright Eyes (5.6). It is a two pitch climb up 220'. I wanted to come here to do a multi pitch climb. This climb has a neat chimney partway up the first pitch and Christian wanted to get a neat picture of Caitlyn doing a full body stem up the chimney. Since Caitlyn was not feeling well, Emily volunteered to do it for her sister. 

Christian climbed up to the top of the first pitch to get in position to take pictures. I followed so that I could belay Emily from above.

The climb was pretty easy overall. And we did get some neat pictures, but in the end, we decided not to continue climbing the second pitch because the heat was starting to get to the rest of us. We skipped lunch as no one had much of an appetite anyway.

Christian wanted to come here to do a sport 5.8 route called Buffalo Brothers. He decided that he was going to go up the first pitch really quick before we left. Christian and I climbed up the first pitch of the Ramp (5.5) to get to the start of Buffalo Brothers. Christian did manage to get up it pretty quick but we had a terrible time with rope drag. The girls headed back down to where they had a little bit of shade while we came down and cleaned up.

Caitlyn was feeling better but I was feeling quite a bit worse for the wear. We still had quite a way back down the mountain in order to get back to our car.

It took us nearly three hours to get back down. Christian dubbed it the "death march." We had just let ourselves run out of water before getting back to the car. We had some more stashed in the vehicle but we mostly used it to clean up a bit. We cranked up the a/c and headed over to a McDonalds to suck down some cold fountain drinks. We got some salty fries to jump start our appetites as well. By the time we rested up and cooled down, we felt good enough and did manage to get our appetite back. We had the sandwiches we packed for lunch for dinner in the parking lot before leaving.

We finally made it home around 9:pm. I was sunburnt and would be sore for the next three days. We had to take it easy for the next two days to recover from the heat exhaustion. Hopefully we learned our lesson not to push our luck in this terrible weather. It is Fall but there is no end in sight for this unrelenting infernal heat.

Birthday

My birthday was last week. We were going to go on a climb to El Cajon Mtn. the weekend just before my birthday but between the heat and Emily's injured foot, it made doing anything all but impossible.

Christian ended up ditching us to help his boss on Saturday, so that left me with the kids on our own. We didn't do much. Just took it easy and got a few things done around the house. On Sunday, the kids wanted to make dinner for me. Actually, Caitlyn made dinner and Emily made dessert.

Caitlyn made a soup of her own creation. Emily made my favorite cream puffs! We ate too many. We were all about to burst but it was tasty while they lasted!

Monday was technically my birthday. I didn't do much. The kids went to school. Christian went to work. After school, I had to take the kids to dance practice as their recital is quickly approaching. Christian came home early to make me dinner.

He made us some smoked tuna with garlic mashed potatoes. Dinner was ready when we got back from practice...very convenient!

The girls got me a new climbing harness and Christian got me a new electric skillet as I trashed our old one. It was kind of due for a change soon anyway, as we had inherited the old own from Christian's grandmother. It fell from the drying rack one day and broke one side of the legs and handle off. I tried gluing it back together but it didn't last. I never used one before but once you get used to using something, it's hard to go back to not having it!

Christian's dad came up on Tuesday to take me out to lunch. We went to the Market Broiler. He was able to visit and catch up with his grandkids after. Christian even made it home before he left to chat awhile but then Christian's dad had to take off and Christian had to scarf down some dinner really quick and head back out for a church meeting.