One week and counting...

Well, B is moving us into our new apartment right now and getting ready to go back to work. I have 1 week before my training is done and then we will be officially moved to SoCal.

I went to see the Vikes crush the Niners last weekend. Go Vikes!

Turkeys, Turkeys, Everywhere

Only one of these individuals has a child inside, can you guess which one?

As always, good times with the E's.

49ers Game

My mom and I got free tickets to the 49ers game AND they had parking...look how close we were! Too bad the niners are no good, but the atmosphere is so much fun that I really enjoyed myself.


We ate garlic fries and sandwiches and perfect polish dogs (shown above).
Our seats were pretty close, this is a 'eyeball' view (no zoom).

This is a bonus picture of the peer that we got on the way home.

Out of the mountains, through the valley, to the LA basin we go...

We're moving! To Baldwin Park (East of LA). They finally decided to tell us where we are moving and allow us to move on with our lives. Ultimately all this really means is that I will no longer be driving these vans...I will probably not stop driving, they will just have a different name on the side.

Photo Club Trip

What a fun nightmare. Get it? There are scarry monsters in the windows.


These are some of the kids in the photo club that went on a trip to SF.

I was only supposed to meet them in SF to drive around, but instead, I spent the weekend driving all over northern CA...it all started with a medical emergency and suddenly I was driving to Redding at 3am on Sat morn.

I picked up 9 kids in a van and drove them back down to SF. We drove all over in the rain and took photos. Then we checked into the hotel and took them to eat. I drove back to my parents place to sleep, got up the next morning and drove them all over SF again, back to Redding, and then back home last night. It was long but really I enjoyed the time to do somehthing different.

These are some of my photos I thought I would share. My attempts at fancy photography. If you blow this up, you can actually see the raindroplets on the dandelion...it's cool if you have the internet speed.

Go Kart Racer!!!!!

Inspired by a CSI episode that featured the death of a GO-Kart racer, we decided to look around the Bay area to find a high speed go-cart place. Sure enough, we found an indoor track that is the largest in the US. It has a super track that is 3/8ths of a mile long and is only 20 minutes from where we are staying. http://www.gokartracer.com



We had a lot of fun running the track. We raced against 9 other people for 15 minutes on carts that reached speeds of 40mph.


When we got done, they even gave us a readout of our times, lap speeds, etc. Pretty cool. Everyone we raced against had raced before, so we were proud of our 5th and 7th place finishes

Fleet Week and The Blue Angels

Well, now that we are done with what we HAVE to do, we finally get to have some fun wandering around doing what we WANT to.
This week is Fleet Week in SF so we took the subway into town and walked all over. This is on our way to the Bay to watch the show.

Before the Blue Angels came out, there were two other groups of smaller planes that flew around and did a bunch of aerial stunts.


Look how low the Blue Angels were flying. Yes, that is them (4 of them) to the right of the boat. They were so low you could really feel it. It was great!


For some reason I got the biggest kick out of the crowds...thousands of people staring up at the sky.

Confused?!?

Get it? Blurry picture? Never mind.

Apparently there is a bit of confusion out there about what is going on with me and my job. Bottom line: I took a one year leave of absence from the school. No I did not quit teaching and no we are not trying to have children. I am technically still employed and so cannot sub in public schools, yet I do not receive a pay check.

Why? We decided that 6 months apart was going to be hard enough (even though I see him on weekends)...If I taught this year, we would guarantee one full year apart (the last 6 months not even in the same city). Since you all have a sense of our relationship and how close we are emotionally, you all know that neither of us would cope well in those circumstances.

What this all means is that if by some miracle of God, we end up back up here somewhere, I will have a guaranteed job next year in the same district that I work in now. If we don't, we will likely end up somewhere in the Bay or LA. I will look for jobs immediately since it is my understanding that in some areas, they are so in need of teachers it is possible to find a job mid-year. Either way, I will find one by the start of next year.

Right now I am trying to finish off a house that was left half done and get moved out by the end of next week. We have renters moving in and I have been working in the yard so our hill doesn't run off into our house, getting the heating taken care of, packing, and trying to keep us financially afloat. It is not so easy moving to one income from two (as many of you can atest). The funny part is that a lot of M's classmates think they are so rich and are buying new cars and the whole bit. Do you remember the days before marriage, a house mortgage, and for some of you kids? Money went a lot further then didn't it? They are still living with mommy and daddy and making that kind of money, so I guess that is what you do.

Speaking of living with mommy and daddy, next month I will move in with my parents until the end of November and then look for a place for us to live. Both sets of parents are going to help us move and both sets have their opinions as to where we should end up (recall that my parents and cousins are in the Bay and M's parents and brother are in LA). We don't have a clue where we will be, so thanks for not asking!

Hope that clears things up.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE...


M and Sammy cuddling this weekend. What a cutie! Sammy that is...until M gets at least some of his hair back, he doesn't get that designation. Sorry Babe!

Bike Rides

M had a little extra time this weekend, so we did things like bike rides, minigolf, poker, and go carts.



He hates it when I do stupid things that endanger my life and I think taking left-handed pictures while going 70mph on a motorcycle that has died 5 times counts. BUT, it's all good, I got a pretty cool pic.

6 Years!

I realize this is one stellar shot of the two of us, but it is all I have right now so stop making fun of it! Yes, that is our front yard...it may not be much, but at least it is green - by way of rain not sprinklers - we like the all natural look.


Okay, seriously, we celebrated our 6th anniversary this weekend in the usual way. We went out to eat, went to back to back movies and just had a great time hanging out and being together. My mom and dad just had their 35th...congrats guys!

Giants Game

Oh, and we went to the Giants game. It was a lot of fun...garlic fries, cotton candy, freezing cold weather, and 13 innings! No home run from Bonds though.

Having fun on Sunday

Micah in a candy store. We visited the historic town of McCloud. It sits at the base of Mt. Shasta about 9 miles from the town of Mount Shasta. Cool place to visit.




We stopped to play disc golf in Weed, at the College of Siskiyous. They have an awesome course there, one of the best we have ever played at with several drives just under 600 ft. long with lots of trees, obsticles, dried creek beds, etc.



Winding up for a drive across a dry creek bed to a basket 380 ft. away. I winged it and it went to the right...doh!!!!



This one looked tougher than it was. The drive was only about 270 ft. then the basket was at the top of the dirt mound standing 14 ft. high. The hardest part was driving through the trees.

Memorial weekend adventure-Grizzly lake part deux

3 or 4 years ago, we tried this hike with a friend of ours. Unfortunately, due to the massive amount of snow that year, we were only able to make it to Grizzly meadows. This time we were determined to make it all the way to Thompson Peak (9002 ft.) Apparently they had a big fire last year that destroyed a lot of trees...


Knocking them over and creating obsticles along the way.


No, it is not a Grizzly, just a California black bear. It is in the middle of the picture-click on it to see it better. Dang it, we need a zoom!


This was the meadows we camped in.


This is the 100 ft. waterfall coming out of Grizzly lake which sits at 7000 ft.


Sammy playing in the snow-He loved it!


Sammy wiping out in the snow...


Looking down on Grizzly lake. We had to hike to the north side around the falls to get up to the lake. A lot of boulder scrambling and picking Sammy up along the way, but we made it. Thompson Peak is over in the top left corner.


Once there, we hung out on the ledge to watch the waterfall do its first drop down 100 ft, then another 650 ft. down to the meadows.




Yeah, that is the waterfall under our feet. You have to step across some rocks to get to the other side and climb Thompson. It is not for the faint of heart!


Climbing the south ridge up to Thompson. From the lake (stepping over waterfalls) to the peak of Thompson is around 2000 ft. elevation in 2.47 miles. It was almost all in snow for us and several times up to our waist as we had to go almost vertical in the snow to get over the ridge. It doesn't look bad from below, but when you look down at it, the steepest part was about a 75 degree angle for 40 feet and we really had to suck it up and climb down. To add to our misery, Sammy refused to climb down, so we had to carry him.


Standing on top. Thompson is the highest peak in the Trinity Alps. The Trinity's are truly the best kept secret in California. The lakes you see are the Canyon Creek lakes. You get to them by hiking the Canyon creek trail up that valley for about 8.5 miles. This is one of our favorite hikes in the Trinity's, especially during the fall when the colors are changing, however, we did it during Easter 3 years ago and we had to hike and camp in the snow, quite an experience.


That is Grizzly lake in the middle of the picture.


Thomas Moser's friend climbed to the top of Thompson and made a memorial plaque to him up there. What a cool tribute!


Our tracks coming down the ridge.


We had a number of things go wrong on this trip. First we forgot our trail map-not such a big deal. Then we forgot to bring along extra batteries for our Steripen-again, not a big deal, the water is ice cold snow run off with very little chance of contamination-in fact it was some of the best water we have ever drunk-glacial water! Then, we forgot our rope to tie up our food in the trees, fortunately, we were able to get all the scented food into our bear canister-which amazingly the bear left alone, although he did move it all around. Lastly, our stove broke down on us and after messing around with it for an hour, we made a very small fire and boiled our water to make our dinner. Sammy stood on guard as we ate.


Hiking out. Becky's best buds. Total hike was 3 days 2 nights. We hiked 18.5 miles. The hardest thing about this hike is the climbing. You start out climbing high really fast, then you descend almost the same distance, then you climb back up to the meadows, then keep climbing to the lake and peak. The trailhead is around 4300 ft. It was a blast and we had a great trip.