Today was the annual children’s holiday parade in Los Gatos. Katy wanted to put the Triumph in the parade last year, but the engine was out of it making it a bit difficult. But we made it this year. Katy, Margaret, Sam, and I were in the car and Susan and Elizabeth walked Daisy and Jax along with us. As you can see from the pictures, we marshaled near the Duck Flambe. Unfortunately, it was not allowed to spew fire like it was designed to.
Sam wrote a Christmas wish list. Here it is, with original punctuation:
Shoe phone! [like in Get Smart]
Real Light Saber!
My Sims Wii Kingdom!
Car’s!
Brown Horse webkinz!
Lil’ Kinz chickade!
Scoter! [scooter]
T.V.!
Little Laptop!
Video and picture camera!
Dormax DDR!
New bed!
desk!
Nice nes gun! [niceness gun – an invention of Sam and Izzy. Not in current production]
Back ogone! [no idea what this one is]
Another Halloween has come and gone. This year wasn’t as crowded (a little rain), so we only had about 1000 trick or treaters. We had the usual open house as well and everyone brought too much food.
Margaret and I in one kayak, Elizabeth and Sam in the other, made the trip from D. L. Bliss State Park to Emerald Bay. We stopped and had lunch in the Tea House on Fannette Island. After that, we went to the mainland and swam a bit. It was a 9.2 mile round trip. By far, the longest trip any of us have done in the Kayak. Margaret did really well paddling on the way there and she took most of the pictures. You can see a map of the trip on the Rusty’s Rides site.
We have now received 5 pieces of mail from camp – and my mother has received one more. None are from Margaret. Katy has sent two letters to us at Tahoe, and her mandatory postcard went home. We know that she likes her cabin mates, her counselor is English, she misses us, and she has a list of things she wants in her care package. Both she and her counselor have told us that she passed the swim test and that the trip up in the bus was long and boring.
Margaret’s counselor told us that she is bright and a skilled reader and excited to ride the horses. We would be skeptical about the last thing, but today the photos showed her on a horse and not looking too terrified, so maybe the counselor did know which child she was talking about.
We hope that the lack of mail from Margaret means that she is too busy and having too much fun to write home…
Katy and Margaret are at sleepaway camp right now near Yosemite. This is a first for both of them. Margaret returns this Saturday, Katy a week from Saturday. From photos posted by the camp, they look happy and relaxed. Today we got our first letter, written last Sunday, the day they arrived at camp. I knew it was from Katy when I picked it up and saw the back of the envelope that read: “P.S. I didn’t know the return address, so I put ars.” Pirate mail.
The rest of the letter said: “Dear Mama, Daddy + Sam, I’m sending this to Tahoe even thou I don’t think you’ll be there when it comes. Can you send lotion in the care package + candy + gum. I took the swim test today and passed, but Margaret didn’t. The people in my cabin are all my age + fun! Talk to you later! Love, Katy”
Katy (and Charlotte, and the Coopers) went surfing in Santa Cruz. It was incredibly foggy and we could not see Katy surf at all, but she had a good time. Hopefully, she will want to go back often.
As Elizabeth mentioned in the previous post, we have had a lot going on in Tahoe this summer. I have rearranged some of the pictures from last week and added some new ones as well. There are the flower pictures, the swimming and kayaking pictures (and movies), the Barker Pass hike, the exciting tree cutting, and the hike to the f-tree.
A week ago, we all drove up to Tahoe, where we have had great weather and little to no smoke.
We have been keeping busy. Rusty has done some mountain bike rides, including one with our Los Gatos neighbor, John. The children all spent the night up at Tahoe Donner with the same neighbors, and went swimming in the Tahoe Donner pool. Later, they played tennis and went for bike ride along the bike trail. The children have also been swimming in Lake Tahoe and hiked up Eagle Rock with our Tahoe neighbors. We have been on a bunch of walks and hikes, too, including trips to Barker Pass, Page Meadows – which is beautiful right now – and to the waterfall up the Tahoe Rim trail.
The dog is exhausted after playing with his sister, going on lots of walks, barking at cyclists, and best of all, learning to swim in Lake Tahoe. We drove by his swimming beach today, and he sat up and started shivering.
We have been really fortunate to have our friend Roy up here for a few days. Roy has a vast knowledge of flowers, something I had been trying, pretty unsuccessfully, to learn a bit about. Roy patiently found and pointed out many, many varieties to us. With his help, Margaret and I started an herbarium (fancy word for pressed flower collection), and tonight I found and identified two new varieties, all on my own.
