Family Picture

So, now that the grandparents have their gift copies, I will officially unveil this year's family photo.

There are seasons in California

It turns out that there are at least two seasons here, summer and fall. I vaguely recall some season from when we arrived in March, but it could have just been still fall and, coming from Illinois, we thought it was spring. Today we went to park day and Joshua loved playing in the leaves with the girls (I brought the only boys, mine). Since our trees just drop spiky balls, there hasn't been much jumping into leaf piles around here. Joshua loved it and the girls didn't mind him throwing leaves on them. Nathan, on the other hand, just wanted to go home and take his nap. And a few weeks later, Daniel.

Boy Scout Trip to Yosemite

So way back in September the Boys of troop 501 initiated their new scout master with a 12 hour, 20 mile hike to the top of half dome in Yosemite. After a night of tin foil dinners and sleeping on the ground because "tents take too long to take down", we were up at 5:30 AM to start the hike (I love that extra 30 minutes of sleep I get on Saturdays). Aside from being quite pleased that I actually survived and surprised that I didn't even have to show any weakness I am happy to report that I enjoyed the hike as well. Absolutely beautiful trail but treacherous enough that you spend most of the time looking at your feet. Falls from the bottomFalls from the top
We didn't actually make it all the way to the very top because the boy I was buddied with started having severe stomach cramps once we got about 30 feet up the cables (shown behind me in the picture). I am still not sure if it was something he ate, the change in altitude or climbing the cables but he was in pretty bad shape for about half an hour and a couple of trips to the latrine. We managed to get down about 2 minutes before the sun set. Lots of fun, and I could even walk the next day (although it was about 2 days before I could climb stairs two at a time).

Happy Anniversary

Dewain and I were able to celebrate our 10th anniversary in Monterey. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa George (Joshua can't say Jorgensen) for providing 3 days of childcare, allowing us to go off unsupervised. We wandered the town and went on a whale watching trip, which was lots of fun. I think we should try it again, but not wait quite so long next time.

Out and About

We have been busy having a lot of fun. Soccer ended, Nathan is a full fledged walker, but mostly it's just been a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Click on the collage to enlarge.