Darth "Ryan" Vader Dances!

Ryan in his Halloween costume for this year dancing to a tune from One Direction. He wanted us to record this.

Just Dance 4

Late night talk show host Conan O'Brien reviews the latest video game offering from the "Just Dance" series with Alex Morgan, soccer gold medalist and former Cal Bear.

Naomi's Art 2011-12

Final Flight of Space Shuttle

It was fitting that the final shuttle flight was completed on the last day of summer.  It was also fitting that the flight that left from Edwards Air Force Base was delayed by an hour to make sure that the fog would have lifted by the time the shuttle passed by the Golden Gate Bridge.  Isn't a photo-op flight in the Bay Area not complete if it didn't include the Golden Gate Bridge?

One Direction

Do You Drop Zone?

Naomi tried out the Drop Zone at Great America recently with her cousin Kimberly.  Actually, they went on the ride (I guess it's a ride) twice. Here's one of the drops.
 

Getting Ready for Cal Basketball

Maybe this will help you Cal Bears fans forget about the awful football loss yesterday at Cal's return to Memorial Stadium...maybe not. Or for others like me, this should help you get ready for the upcoming basketball season.

This was probably one of the top two or three games that John and I ever attended in our 18 seasons or so of attending Cal basketball together, especially so because the comeback was against Stanford. The best part was that the comeback took the entire game to accomplish, which lengthened the suspense even more. Imagine a good novel with the reveal at the very end. Once the comeback started, it wasn't a certainty that the Bears would make it all the way back. It was not like Stanford played poorly. They were just in a boat with a slow leak.

Ryan's Road Trip - Part II

Ryan continues his tour of the San Diego area. The latest information from yesterday is:

Old Town SD today after visit to first CA Mission in SD. Pool for hours, finally off to Legoland tomorrow.

Below is a picture of Ryan with his friend Brooks and Brooks' siblings.

Call Me Maybe?

At the A's game this weekend, Jimmy Fallon appeared on the Diamond Vision screen at the Coliseum with a singer that looked familiar. Then the song started and was instantly recognizable to me because my kids have been singing to this song all summer.

The crowd was over 30,000 which is a lot for an A's game so it was quite the sight to see all the people bopping to the song. I noticed that they were doing some sort of hand motion to the song but it was not what was happening on the video with Jimmy Fallon. Now I know the rest of the story.

Ryan's Road Trip - Part I

Ryan is on his road trip to Legoland and the San Diego area with his buddy Brooks and Brooks' family. This is suppose to be a birthday present for Brooks, but Ryan seems to be getting a good deal out of this too. Brooks is Ryan's friend from preschool. Although we don't live near each other, somehow the two of them have been able to maintain a good friendship that has resulted in Brooks' request to have Ryan join them on their family trip.

The trip included some creative scheduling as Brooks' older brother was in a soccer tournament in Sacramento which meant that they would be traveling north to go south. They had contingencies for their travel south depending on the results of the tournament. We have not heard about this, but we do know that they are approximately in the intended destination. We received the following text messages and photo from Brooks' mom.

Monday morning: On the grapevine. Kids doing great!

Monday during the day: Hi mom! Went swimming, shopping at wharf, eating Mexican now. Built B's presents and loving it! Drove by Legoland and cried, "we want to go now!"



Monday evening reply to Ryan: Hope ya'll had a relaxing day today after that drive.  Give Ryan a big hug for us and tell him we love him : )

Monday evening reply back: He says I love you too....I haven't forgotten about you yet dad.

Flight to Columbia

The last week of school Ethan had quite the treat. It was a delayed birthday gift of flight. A good friend of his, Ben, has a father who is a pilot and has his own plane. Ethan's birthday gift was a voucher for a plane ride. So on June 10, Ethan was able to collect this most unique gift.

The original flight plan was to fly to Willows in northern California with the goal being a game of helipad baseball. This was game that Ben and his family had invented while on one of these day flight excursions. However, the weather gods were not in a cooperative mood and travel plans were changed to Columbia, a small former gold rush town in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

On the flight over to Columbia, Ethan was given the chance to pilot the plane. What a treat indeed!

Summer Vacation 2012

As we wind down another summer, we are also winding down another road trip to Seattle. We experienced the hottest days in Seattle since...2010. This past weekend temperatures in Seattle hit 90 degrees for the first time since 2010 we were told. We felt every bit of those 90 plus degrees as grandma and grandpa's place does not have air conditioning.

We started the week experiencing an aerobatic show by the Blue Angels that marked the end of Seafair. We were somewhat amazed that one of the two main routes across Lake Washington would be shut down for the Blue Angels show not just on one day, but both on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe this is not as drastic as shutting down the Bay Bridge, but the bridge was shut down for two hours at midday with the other path across the lake now a toll bridge.





Another less than usual event that we took in was the King Tut exhibit that's at the Pacific Science Center through the first of 2013. This supposedly is the last time that this exhibit will be shown in North America, perhaps until the next time that it is shown (tongue in cheek humor?). Although a couple of our kids seemed to take in the exhibit in record time they were patient enough to let the rest of us take our time to enjoy the 100 plus artifacts on display.





Finally, one of our new adventures was kayaking on the bay, or more accurately on Lake Union. We rented kayaks and set off for an our on the high seas...sort of. Yuki had Ethan and Lianne in a triple. Dorothy and Naomi were in a second kayak, and Ryan without an oar and I were in a third kayak. Ryan thought that he wouldn't be able to paddle so he didn't want to take one with him, preferring to be a sightseeing passenger. We looped around the lake taking in the sights of the Seattle skyline and other locales where we were previously on the other end watching other kayakers go by. Near the end of the tour, Ryan decided that he would give paddling a whirl and found that he could do it. We were on a one-hour clock since we had the return the triple kayak in that amount of time since it was reserved for others. Next time we'll take a longer trip.







Okay, one last photo that we need to share that needs no explanation.

Hot Day in Seattle!

Although it's cooled some, it was still hot enough to play matador with the giant water fountain at Seattle Center.

Blue Angels

Camp Chawanakee - Volume 5

The last full day of camp was Aloha Friday. The scouts spent the morning checking in with classes to wrap up any last minute items. In some cases, it was to make sure that all requirements were complete to earn a merit badge.

The afternoon featured a camp-wide competition called Chawanadayze. We were somewhat hampered since one of our scouts was on crutches, but we gave it our all to show our scout spirit.

It all paid off at the final evening flag ceremony where we learned that we were an overall winner for one of the thumbsticks, the Twig of Destiny. That evening was also the final campfire where certain recognitions were given out. Troop 370 was named one of the honor troops for our performance during the week. Our senior scout, Chris, earned the highest rank for Chawanakee campers. Ethan was surprised to be selected Pioneer Hike, which is given to one scout who best displays scout spirit from each troop. For this honor, he was able to sleep one final time outdoors with the other Pioneer Hikers in a "secret" location. During this campout, each award winner was asked to write what scout spirit means to them with these essays to be kept at the camp office for future viewing.

Camp Chawanakee - Volume 4

This volume features a water theme due to the many pictures taken of our scouts at waterfront classes like swimming, canoeing and lifesaving. Ethan was able to complete a couple survival swimming maneuvers that involved jumping into the water fully clothed and taking off your pants to use it as a flotation device. Later in the week, Ethan was able to earn his first merit badge, the Swimming Merit Badge.

In the evening on this same day, most of the troop went on the Canoe Outpost to the other side of the lake. This excursion featured paddling a canoe across the lake, camping outdoors under the stars, and campfire activities - also they had to wake up extra early to make it back for the regular breakfast time at 6:45am.

Ethan also got to shoot a gun for the first time, a 22 caliber bolt action rifle.  Perhaps next year he will try for his Rifle Merit Badge at camp.

The other camp activity that kept the scouts busy was making camp gadgets.  These are things that help improve the camp site.  These were important for the purposes of competing for the thumbstick because the gadgets resulted in bonus points.  Starting with the first gadget, the flag pole, the scouts also made a sun dial, towel rack, a four-hole mini-golf course, a weather rock, pine cone toss table, uniform rack, wash basin, gateway arch for our campsite, and a compass rose.  Ethan was quite involved in the making of most of these gadgets and came up with the idea on how to complete the rope webbing for the arch.

Camp Chawanakee - Volume 3

This volume of Camp Chawanakee videos introduces the "Turtle" formation, Mr. President, and the Twig of Destiny. The "Turtle" is what the scouts came up for their march formation to and from flag ceremonies. The idea was to have all the scouts form a turtle shell around their leader, Chris, the Senior Patrol Leader for summer camp. A game they came up with was "Mr. President" that involved pretending to answer a call from the President. The objective was to not be the last one to answer the call. Finally, the Twig of Destiny was the thumbstick that the commissioner that was assigned to our grouping of troops awarded to one troop each day of the camp. We won the thumbstick on Tuesday. Winning the thumbstick meant that we would have to add something to it before the next evening's flag ceremony where it would be given out once again. The overall winner at the end of the week would get to take the thumbstick home with them.

Camp Chawanakee - Volume 2

This is the second video in a series of five from summer camp for Ethan's boy scout troop. Camp Chawanakee is located on Shaver Lake northeast of Fresno in the Sierras. The camp runs for nine consecutive weeks. Apparently, our troop has been attending this camp for several consecutive summers now.

Camp Chawanakee - Volume 1

This is the first volume of videos from our time at Camp Chawanakee located northeast of Fresno in the Sierras at about a mile high.  This was our first boy scout summer camp. This video covers parts of the first two days at camp. The first day was check-in. There was the getting settled into our camp site, including the making of our first camp gadget: a flag pole. We also got a tour of the camp by Grant the "Plant" who was the counselor assigned to our troop.

Summer of Sketching

Naomi was busy earlier this month sketching for murals for summer camp at our church for the kids to color as one of their activities.  Here's a sampling of some of her freehand sketches.