Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Lights Out!

We had a wet and windy storm on Tuesday. And Tuesday evening around 5:30 - "POP" - a line went down in the neighborhood and the lights went out for the rest of the night. So what did we do...

We had dinner by candle light. The gas stove made it easy to make dinner, I just had to light it by hand. It's really not so dark yet but whatever...
Greg left for meetings right after dinner.

Kids did homework. Claire was listening to her IPod music with the IHome. Evan was very bothered that she'd use all those batteries to do that. He talked her into using her headphones instead. It was so dark in her room, I kept suggesting we go to Jensen's but she was game to stick it out in the dark - Evan too. It was an adventure for them.



Evan played with gadgets - my goodness - all of the fancy flashlights we have and the solar/wind up radio that I love to use so much when I'm gardening but haven't been able to find for a couple months - all showed up in his room. It was like magic but a little frustrating as well. I said, "Evan, you have got to clean your room. You have all this stuff..." and he said "I know where it all is. I have a special drawer for special things." UGH! This light - it's on his forehead.
Same light - just with its "red" light on.


More homework but better lighting in the kitchen than in Claire's room. I quizzed her on Spanish.
Evan did Math.
Claire danced while being quizzed.
I was totally amazed at this fabulous radio. It is excellent as a solar radio but it really works as a "wind up" as well. It would go for an hour before we had to wind it again. I'm not exaggerating. I bet it went longer than an hour before we had to wind it again. I tried to get a picture of the name so you could see what it is but I don't think you can read it all that well. It says "freeplay Driven" on the handle. I highly recommend it.


Homework done - time to play. Egyptian War anyone?
How about a little PSP.
The master making hot chocolate for all of us.
Yum
And some shadow puppets! Evan has so many talents!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Guess Who?

OK - so it isn't hard to guess
I scanned this for an RS event we're having tomorrow night. One of those, "find a picture of yourself - we're going to play a game with the pictures" type deal. I think this is a cute one. This is written on the back.
"Eddie in his first jacket and Kathy just keeping him company. Oh - how they are growing.
10 Hiltingbury, Chandlersford England 1968
"

Monday, September 14, 2009

Why Not?

In the spirit of Why Not?

Why would two teenage girls, on a Friday afternoon, dress up like nerds and play ping pong?




Why Not?


They actually were psyching up for an end of summer dance in Santa Cruz Saturday night. Several of their friends went dressed in similar costume. One addition - they all wore suspenders.

Claire reports it was a very fun dance.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

9/9/09 9:09

Claire came home from the Youngmen Youngwomen activity and saw on the microwave that it was 9:09. So of course, we had to grab the camera. What were you doing at 9:09 on 9/9/09?


Claire was having a sip of chocolate milk.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

First Day of School

Evan is a senior! ready to go back to bed. Claire is a sophomore ready to take on the world.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Half Dome Hike

A beautiful day for a hike in Yosemite. The hikers left San Jose at 3am, Mark at the wheel but he and Jeff spent the day fishing. I think, they started hiking around 6:30am

Evan and Andy


The adventurous hikers -
Eric, friend Kyle, Claudia, Joslyn, Andy, Evan

Vernal Falls

See the people? They're tiny, walking the path on the left

"Yikes!"

Half Dome - you can see the line of people going up and down the cables - it looks like a trail of ants

A zoom of the above picture

Some of what you can see while hiking up

The cables...



Evan and Andy ready to go up

Jos and Andy

"See - we're smiling. It's fun..."

Claudia with her big "I love a challenge!" smile

It helps to wear gloves - there is often a pile of them for anyone to use.

Hand over hand...

Evan acting too scared to move - but that really happens to people.

The top!

They made it!

Views of the valley.


Someone yelled "wave" so Eric snapped a picture too.

That's Eric out there.

"Stay away from the edge..."

"Evan! Stay Away..."

"Oh Man..."

Why do people do stuff like this?

We hear it is called "King's Chair" Yeah - for an unpopular king.(don't know him)

Waiting to go back down the cables.

Still waiting. What's that guy doing outside the cables?! (don't know him)

Down, down, down...

Evan strayed from the path and decided he'd slide part of the way down.

He should have stayed on the path.
The hikers got back to San Jose around 11pm. Sounds like they did the hike in 12 hours but that is including a couple hours wait at the cables...
Everyone still walks and talks so guess they all survived.
Who wants to go next time?
(Not Evan or Eric...at least not yet. It's probably a little like child birth...)