Vacation Is The Best

This year's trek took us back to one of our favorite places to visit: California. This vacation was dual purposed: college shopping and Yosemite hiking. We flew into San Francisco and spent a few days exploring the area before heading off to the universities.  

After securing lunch, we headed up to the Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley. It gave us spectacular views of the bay, the city of Berkeley as well as San Fran. The weather was sunny and mild, only in the high 60s. After learning of the arrival of a family of Minnesotans, California decided to have a small cold front move in. No kidding. It was cold the whole time we were there. But at least it was sunny.

We kept finding these little button like things all over on our little nature walk. Come to find out, they are the seed pods for the Eucalyptus trees that are so abundant in the area. The amazing thing was, they had several different designs on the inside. The intricacies of nature never cease to astound me.

Our first hotel stay was in Santa Clara, south of the city. Heading down that way we stopped for a visit at the Intel Museum.

Chloe learned how to write her name using only binary code.

Next we headed over to Stanford - not one of Gavin's colleges of choice. We wanted to walk around the campus just to say we'd been there.  

The next day we thought it would be fun to go see some Redwoods. So we packed up and headed up to the mountains to hike the El Corte De Madera Nature Preserve. We thought we'd only be gone maybe an hour; that is why we didn't bring any backpack filled with water, whistles or food. Turns out we got lost and we gone over 3 and half hours. 

Apparently the signage wasn't all that good. We were hopelessly lost, hot, thirsty and tired. It felt like we walked uphill the whole time. Chuck's fitbit said we climbed 187 floors. It was an adventure nonetheless. From that day on we carried a backpack full of water and snacks with us everywhere we went. Lesson learned.

Once we found the car and our water, we headed straight to Half Moon Bay Beach. It was freezing! But it was beautiful. 

The absolute coolest thing about being at the beach this day was all the whales we got to see. It was incredible! They were everywhere. You could tell where they were about to come up because the seagulls all crowded around that area of water. 

A family selfie to prove we were here.

Our hotel for this night was up in San Rafael which is a beautiful little town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We ended up crossing that bridge at least 3 times during our entire stay here. We didn't mean to come to this particular location. We got lost (by last count we had made over 10 u-turns throughout the trip) and ended up at this viewing area instead of the one we thought we were going to. Turned out even better than we planned. Some of our funnest times have been unplanned mistakes.

 

The next morning we left San Rafael to head back into San Francisco to actually explore the city.  But before we got there we decided to visit Point Bonita. There was supposed to be a light house there that we could go see. Unfortunately for us, it didn't open for another 3 hours. Fortunately for us, there were a bunch of other cool things to explore.

Like this! This old ruin is actually the Battery Mendel. We were shocked that it was open and that we had free reign to explore. We were the only ones here this particular morning and had a blast.

Bennett climbed a wall in true American Ninja Warrior fashion and hung on to the metal ring.

As did Gavin, but he took it a step further and decided to take a selfie while hanging on for dear life.

This is the view from the ruin. The place was surrounded with such pretty wildflowers.

We finally made it into the city and down Lombard Street.

We ate in THE BEST Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.

We took pictures of buildings really close up....and remembered our backpack.

We drove down Highway 1 and stopped every so often to appreciate the view.

The next two nights we stayed in Fremont with our friends the Submaranians. We stayed at the house of their Uncle Shikrant. We didn't get too much time to sit and visit as we had to drive at least 2 hours everywhere we went. We planned to visit both colleges and Yosemite together.

We toured the campus of UC Berkeley 

We also toured the campus of UC Davis

We headed up to Napa Valley to tour a local vineyard.

Rama and Chuck enjoyed some superb taste testing.

We were surprised to see only green grapes. We learned that the grapes don't turn red until September.

From Napa we started our trek over to Yosemite. 3 hours later we arrived at the western park entrance. Unfortunately, our hotel was still another 2 and half hour drive from there. I unknowingly booked our hotel at Mammoth Lakes. On their website it says its only a 50 minute drive to Yosemite. True, it only took about 30 minutes to get to the east entrance. But what they fail to tell you is that everything you want to see is at the Yosemite Valley area which is another 2 hour drive into the park through numerous switchbacks, mountain passes and treacherous roads. We drove ALOT! On the plus side, I got less scared of looking over the side of cliffs as our car drove precariously close to the edge multiple times a day. On a sadder note, we learned that Chloe doesn't do so well with rapidly changing altitudes. She threw up in the car for the last hour of the trip. Thank God we had a plastic bag in the car.

This is one view we never would have seen had we only stayed on the west side of the park and not been forced to come in and out of the east entrance. 

I could sit and look out at this all day long.

The serenity of the area is palpable and awe inspiring.

More driving.

On our first day in Mammoth Lakes we decided to just stay in the area and not take the 2.5 hr jaunt over to the park. There was more than enough for us to explore here. We took the gondola up to the top of Mammoth Mountain. It was the most amazing, breath-taking experience! I have never been in a gondola that went that high. We later learned that Mammoth is the only year long ski resort in California. There was still snow and still skiers (going straight down on double black diamond runs). It was 23 degrees on top of the mountain with a 20-40 mile an hour wind gust. We were FREEZING! But oh, was the view and experience so worth it!

Here we are at the top of the world. Not the best family picture because we were looking directly into the sun. It almost looks as if we have a fake background behind us.

Can this get any more breath taking?!

Love this!

All the kids on top of the world. We were at 11,053 elevation. Don't worry, Chloe was fine by now. She only threw up in the car. We pumped her with much more water the rest of the trip so her body could better handle her new elevation.

So good to have such good friends to share this adventure with. 

After being on top of the world, we headed over to Mono Lake which looks almost more desert like. The black mound in the middle is an actual, non-active volcano. The color of the lake was an erie green color. They explained to us that it was only green because of how windy and dusty it was that day. They said that normally it's the brightest of blues. There is only one fish in the whole lake and its a type of shrimp. Cool fact: there is more salt in this lake than in The Great Salt Lake and the Pacific Ocean.

Since meeting up with our friends, we separated into our new "Car Families". We did everything as a car family.

Our first day in Yosemite. Our first hike was a strenuous one: The Vernal Falls. It was a consistent and steady climb to the top. All said and done it was an elevation increase of 1000 feet. We probably only hiked up 800 feet.

This is near the top of Vernal Falls. Those steps keep going up an up and up until you reach the very top. It was sopping wet on those stairs. And the higher you got, the more narrow the stairs got. Plus the spray from the falls was everywhere. There was no staying dry. 

This is as far as I made it. It was thunderous and loud, gorgeous and terrifying. I almost made it to the top, but I was afraid of my camera getting wet and Chloe and Priya were still down below and I didn't want to leave them there alone. The boys made it a little farther up, but still not all the way.

Tree huggers.

This was interesting. Of course we had to check it out. Unfortunately, there were no bears in there.

At the awesome resort we stayed in a 2.5 hour drive a way, there were 6 hot tubs and 2 pools for the kids to relax away the days hiking aches and pains. Of course they all made use of the complementary robes. It really was freezing outside (like maybe in the 40s and 50s), but thankfully, all the water was heated. 

The other car family. The one where most of the puking occurred.

The best mistake ever! Our last day in Yosemite, as we were coming through the east entrance for the last time, we saw this hike leading to Lake Tenaya. Unfortunately, because all the snow was melting, the trail was too muddy and we had to turn back.  Fortunately for us, right next to where we parked on the other side of the street from where we just were was this Rock Playground (our name, not Yosemite's). Not another soul was here. We walked all over the place. It was THE BEST hike we took by far. We explored our hearts out, jumped up, over and around rocks/boulders/cliffs. It's hard to tell from the angle of this picture, but these were steep mountains. And the best part was they went on and on and on. We lost ourselves in their beauty. I think we wandered around exploring aimlessly for over an hour and half. 

The view from the top of the Rock Playground hike.

Our last day. A beautiful vista we couldn't resist along the side of the windy, mountain pass. This is a spectacular view of the Yosemite Falls with the Merced River in the background.

My favorite people with the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls behind them.

A picture perfect postcard.

The clouds gave us a beautiful treat on this last warmish day.

Too beautiful a photo op to pass up.

Goodbye beautiful Yosemite.  Goodbye Halfdome. Goodbye El Capitan. Goodbye Bridal Falls. I will miss you all.  Goodbye mountain passes and long drives. It's been fun. Until next time!

Stuck In A Car With Bennett

Nothing else needs to be said or explained. The video speaks for itself.  This is Bennett at his finest. He is our glue. He keeps our family together though laughter and acts of outrageousness. Enjoy the car ride...we sure did.

Mater Wisdom from Mallott on Vimeo.

Mater from Mallott on Vimeo.

The Definition of Insanity

You know how every night after dinner I get the dreaded question, "So, Mom, what's the plan for tonight?" I barely pulled together food to feed the family. I certainly don't have enough brain power left to be the entertainment coordinator for the evening as well. You would think I would be used to this after 17 years...but alas, I still cringe under the nightly scrutiny. I literally feel my brain back-pedaling to remember fun activities that we can do that don't involve the couch or the tv.  I should be honored that the kids still love to hang out with us night after night - and I am. I just don't want to be the planner anymore. I call being the follower. I'm okay with that.

Gavin told us a few days ago about a card game he was playing with his friends at school during lunch (and no, they don't usually play cards at school during lunch, they were on a field trip and had an extra long lunch and shockingly, some kid thought to pack cards - genius). So he tells us all about the game hearts and how it would be fun to switch up our nightly games of golf  or nertz with this game. We agreed and now, here we are. On the cusp of learning a new game.

Chuck and I played this alot growing up but couldn't remember the rules. So Gavin was the Game Meister for the night. He starts off by not telling us all the rules. It only goes downhill from there. He decides to share rules whenever he deems them necessary - which is whenever he's reminded of them from some action someone just took. Overall, it's pretty simple. You want to get rid of the queen of spades and all your hearts. Play low cards first. Winner is the one with the lowest score. Boom baby. Got it!

Unless you're Bennett who is more like this:

I can't tell you how many times we caught Bennett in lala land. He hand NO CLUE what he was doing each and every time it was his turn. He was just sitting there starring off into space, rubbing his hair, making goofy grins, and singing "I need you now....more than words can say I need  you now" (by Alias) And yes, because the song is so addictive, I might have also broken out into song a time or two to accompany him (but I was paying attention). And to make matters worse, every time we got to the end of the game, he still had an extra card left over. Every. Single. Time. What's up with that?!! It was beyond exasperating.

So we played our first hand as an open hand. Great. Got it. Let's get this little show on the road. Second hand...Bennett had an extra card. Game didn't count. Third hand...Bennett had an extra card. Game didn't count. Fourth hand...Bennett has no clue and plays high cards and hearts, thus, inadvertently giving himself all the points...and he has an extra card at the end. 

Game over. 

It was maddening. And hilarious. We laughed so hard. Another night for the memory books. 

If you ever want to play with Bennett, make sure it's basketball only.  All other games, play at your own risk.

The Big Day

The Big Day finally arrived. Gavin and his friends, Collin and Andrew, set aside this past Sunday as "Build Day". After a year of working and saving every penny, Gavin finally earned enough to purchase all the parts necessary to achieve his dream of building his own computer. Excitement was in the air (as well as a lot of boxes, trash, plastic and screws). The kitchen island was deemed the build site. They never even noticed me and my little playskool camera. They were knee deep in this venture from 10am to 4pm. There was ALOT of problem solving going on around this island all day long. I'm amazed and impressed with how they stuck with it and pushed through some of the problems. There were no temper tantrums, melt-downs, or cussing. Like I said, impressive! There was only one Best Buy run due to a broken part. These boys amazed me. After a whole day of problem solving and building, Gavin decided once and for all that he prefers to program and build code over actual physical engineering and building machines. This was not his forte and was so thankful for his friends' help. He said many times he could never have done this on his own. 

Admiring the motherboard

Installing the motherboard

Figuring out what to do with the gaggle of wires

Andrew hugging the case (actually, he's trying to something important, not sure what)

Installing the graphics card holder thingy (I think)

Checking to see if it works

The boys taking an ice cream and shoot the bow and arrow break

The new computer in it's final resting place with it's happy owner.

My Filter

My Filter

You may think I see things just like you

But my lens filters everything that comes through.

When I look at the world I know what I see

Others can't know exactly what that will be.

We view the same basic image to be true

But the color and clarity might be different to you.

Maybe the way I see things, to you, are new.

I use my words to explain what I see out there

But if your filter is different, you may feel I'm being unfair.

You may think I'm not explaining the way things truly are

But what if your filter is skewing things from afar?

Communication is the important key,

I patiently explain to you, you to me, 

exactly what we see.

Mutual respect is the object here,

Not authority, correctness or something to fear.

We need to take time to listen, learn and be kind

To another's point of view that's not like mine.

Understanding where the other comes from

And listening to how life's experiences shape some

Displaces the fear and anger that often come

From the desire to be right all the time

And replaces it with compassion and words that are kind.

I may find a tribe who share the same filters as me

But that doesn't make us right, it should cause us to be

Sensitive to others with opposing views

Because none of us have all the truth.

If I want to understand you,

I must respect and listen to what you think is true.

We need each other to love, learn and grow

And from that open heart peace begins to flow.

We then start to understand that more we listen, the less we know.

photo credit: http://www.webappers.com/2015/10/29/cssgram-instagram-filters-with-css-and-blend-modes/

Smell Association

Helen Keller says, "Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived." Isn't that just beautiful?! It's the truth too. When I go for my daily walks around the neighborhood and the sweet smell of the lilac bushes envelops me, I get this goofy little grin on my face. It just makes me happy. Minnesota equals lilacs. So that got me thinking, what do the other states/places I've lived smell like? When a certain smell accosts me, what place do I immediately think of?

England smells like two things to me: fresh cut grass and diesel fumes. Every time a diesel truck drives past me, I'm whisked away to England where I lived as a child. 

Equally pleasurable is the scent of fresh cut grass clippings. This was the best toy in my make-believe world. I would spend hours arranging the grass clippings into floor-plans of houses IN FIRST GRADE! Who does this? 

Virginia is all about Honeysuckle. Mmmm...I can smell now. I remember a friend had a row of Honeysuckle bushes in her neighborhood that I HAD to go smell whenever they were in season. I was drawn to the honeysuckle like a moth to a flame. When I lived there again for a short while as an adult, that's the first smell I sought out. Ahhh....all's right in the world again. 

Connecticut also has two smells, both very personal to me. Whenever we visited my grandparents it was usually summer. We spent most of our time outside in the back yard. Sweet, fresh-cut grass always takes me back to their backyard. We swam in the little plastic Scooby-Doo pool they set up each summer for us. I think it had more grass clippings in it than water from our dirty little feet. We played bochie ball, whiffle ball games and had many, many family pot-lucks there as well. Good times.

Cigar smoke. Love it. My Grandfather used to smoke these down in the basement. My Grandmother hated the smell and exiled him to the basement. I loved spending time in the basement playing school, thus my love of the cigar.

Texas comes roaring back to life at me through the smell of the Texas Mountain Laurel. Chuck and I like to call it the Kool-aid tree cuz that's exactly what it smells like. We were first introduced to these in Nacogdoches at the school aboretum where we went to college, but gradually saw more and more in the Dallas area the longer we lived there. It looks similar to the vitex tree, which is rampant through-out Texas since it is so drought tolerant. But this smell...it makes you giddy with excitement.

Lastly, and probably surprisingly, the smell of Texas is also pine trees and pine needles. The Piney Woods covers the smallest portion of East Texas. We lived in the heart of it when we were in college at SFA in Nacogdoches. With the smell of pines, I'm instantly transported back in time and place. It is a very nostalgic smell for me. I don't think I appreciated it enough while I lived there, but I sure do now.

It Is Finished

It only took a year but we finally did it! Our master bathroom is complete with working shower and all. Here's what we had to work with....

Green and ugly

Dark and gloomy to...

Open and light

clean and bright

white and nice

my happy place

We did every single thing by ourselves except for installing the glass in the shower. Thus, the year timeline. We ripped everything out and were down to studs, plywood and a few pieces of sheetrock. Our original plan was to get rid of the post by the shower, but it turned out to be load-bearing, so...we worked around it. It was a long, tedious process. Everything that could go wrong pretty much did. But alas, it is finished. It's not perfect...but neither are we; so it fits us nicely.

Poverty

This sick, narsty (these are positive traits, or so at least I'm told - I'm speaking his language) 8th grader just wrote an amazing poem for his English class. He gave me permission to share it here:

Poverty

I'm walking down the street in a poverty ridden city

Looking for a place eat, trying to swallow my pity.

When I see that old man holding up a sign

I give him all the change of mine.

He smiles and grabs my hand, thanking me

And asks if I want to hear a story of what he used to be.

So I sit down with him on his cardboard house

 He talks about how he didn't used to be like this.

He said his life used to be a happy bliss,

And he shares memories that he will always miss.

He talks about how he used to be attacked by a mob,

As the police sat back and watched, not doing their job.

I hear about the injustice that cannot be stopped.

He used to be a janitor and mopped.

He talks about the fear that was behind every corner,

And how when his son died, he became a mourner.

Poverty is like tasting the hottest hot-sauce with no water in sight,

It's so painful you just want to fight.

Poverty is like a deadly disease,

It has pain with no cure and no ease

So let's end poverty, please.

The Mailbox

As Chuck and I walked out of our bedroom yesterday, we came upon this....a new mailbox taped to the doorframe. It has the markings of Chloe all over it. We found many little 'i love you' notes inside that evening.

I guess she felt my door didn't have anymore room for her to express her feelings for us.

So she got creative and taped a homemade mailbox up there instead. She said we will know when we have mail because the flap will be up. Not surprisingly, she has an identical one taped to her doorframe so that we can respond in kind. Apparently we have communication issues and Chloe is trying to get us to talk more.

Here's an example of one of the little treats we found inside last night....a comic book Chloe made. It was the perfect size to fit into our new communication device. Who needs email, texting, snapchat when you have a cardboard mailbox to pass notes back and forth with?! 

This is Chloe's desk after the creativity process. Apparently, creativity is a messy ordeal. I am glad, however, that she was able to find an ingenuitive way to recycle the cardboard backing from her spiral notebook (hope that wasn't for school).

So, moral of the story, I'm going to work harder at communicating with Chloe...but everything I have to say must fit on a 2" x 4" piece of paper. I can get a little verbose sometimes. I just hope everything I have to say can fit in there.

Book Talk

Last night at dinner Bennett was trying to give a summary about something he heard earlier in the day and seemed to be having a very difficult time accomplishing this simple task. This concerned us enough to park there for a while and talk about it. You assume that if your kids are in school, they are being taught how to write, research, think critically, explain themselves verbally and in the written word. This is not always the case we found out. Or maybe it's happening, but the teachers need the parents to reinforce the message at home. The dinner table seems to be the perfect place for us.

We didn't let him off the hook so easily. He kept saying, "You know...it was something like that...I can't really explain it...it was just...well, you know....". No, Honey. We don't know. And we want to help you learn the how to summarize something you hear or read. You'll need this the rest of your life. Gavin felt the need to pitch in some brotherly advice: "Bennett. You seriously need to know this stuff in high school. You have ALOT of papers to write in Civics." After this admonition, Bennett accepted his fate.

Thus began The-Night-Of-Book-Summaries-At-The-Dinner-Table. Seriously - everyone was way too excited about this (minus Bennett - but he jumped on the bandwagon soon enough). The object was for each of us to take our most recent book and give either the main idea or a summary about it (both concepts were explained in detail). It was challenging. It was fun. We all enjoyed listening to one another (except Gavin was Mr. Interrupter, that's all I'll say about that).

Who doesn't love to talk about a good book?!

Everyone had so much fun the first go around, they begged to do another book. Oh no! What monster did we just create?!

My how times have changed. Used to be, the kids were impressed if we gave them coasters under their cups at the dinner table. Now it takes much more to impress these people and keep dinner interesting.

Would anyone like a side of interesting, intellectual, stimulation with their dinner? Just pull up a chair, you're bound to get one at this house.