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| Proof the girls had a good time: They were covered in dirt! (This photo doesn't even come close to doing it justice.) |
The girls got to see real raccoons for the first time, and these little beasts were bold! Daddy did a good job of scaring them off from our campsite, and we quickly realized we needed to keep any food-related items locked up in the car. Some of our neighbors weren't so fortunate: That evening when we decided to take a stroll to a nearby overlook to watch the sunset, we caught one raccoon successfully breaking into someone's bear box (it was an ancient wooden one), then just one more campsite down we spotted two raccoons actually dragging someone's cooler into the woods! We almost couldn't believe it! In fact, when I ran into the owners of the cooler later, they didn't believe me either until I pointed in the direction the raccoons had gone, and they found the cooler (fortunately, still unopened) half a dozen yards into the woods. Over the course of the weekend, we also spotted a fox, a rabbit, a lizard, and a number of small birds.
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| (left) That's right: in California we have pine cones as big as your head! (center) Saturday was cloudy, but that hardly matters when you're camping above the clouds. (right) We made it to the summit of Mt. Diablo! |
Our Saturday morning, we decided to make the hike to the summit. It was only a little over a mile one way, but there's a 1,000 foot change in elevation, so it gets pretty steep! The girls were a bit whiny at first, but they found their stride and completed the hike beautifully. The big discussion on the way up was forest fires: the trail went through the site of one that happened less than a year ago, and while the smaller vegetation was back in force, there were a lot of blackened trees to be explained. We talked not only about how dangerous it is (and why there is currently a fire ban at the park) but also about how fires can actually benefit certain species. Once we reached the top we gratefully toured an air conditioned visitor's center and utilitized their real bathrooms and water fountain (thanks to the drought, it's currently the only potable water source in the park). The visitor's center itself is inside an old beacon tower that was used to guide aircraft before the invention of electronic navigation. It was shutdown after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the beacon is still functioning and is lit as a memorial on Pearl Harbor Day every year. The hike back down to the campsite was a much faster trip! The big discussion on the way down was gravity. It's a topic we've discussed before, and Bug was explaining to Daddy how it was harder to hike up because we were working against gravity, but now it was actually helping us. She also made the connection between using her walking stick to slow herself down on the steep sections and Daddy's using the gears in our car when we descended Pike's Peak a couple of weeks ago.
We returned to our campsite for a picnic lunch and a rest in the shade, then hit the trail again! This time we headed for a section of the park called Rock City that turned out to be even more fun than we anticipated. It featured a number of huge sandstone rock formations that people had worn hand and foot holds into for those adventurous enough to do some bouldering. There were also several small wind caves to be explored. Our little climbers were in heaven, and Goose was incredibly disappointed to discover she was too little to climb one of the tallest formations.
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| I think this rock was probably the height of a three-story building, and Daddy guided Monkey and Bug to the top! They did manage to get Goose into the wind caves though! |
Library Day
We actually did go to the library last week--swimming lessons conflicted with storytime, but we squeezed in our own visit on Wednesday afternoon. The girls picked out a LOT of books in very short order, and then had fun playing with the puzzles a bit. We came home with:
The Princess and the Three Knights
A Train Goes Clickety-Clack
Mouse in Love
When the Fireflies Come
Fish Is Fish
Whose Mouse Are You?
Olvina Flies
The Growing Story
Timothy Cox Will Not Change His Socks
Does Anybody Love Me?
Lunchroom Lizard
The Jungle Book (illustrated, abridged chapter book; the girls wanted to check this out for their bedtime reading with Daddy)
Swimming Lessons
The girls finished up their swimming lessons this week. Goose really came through this week! No tears, and lots of accomplishments! She was willing to dunk herself underwater, and her teachers could even let go of her when she was practicing her back float and front stroke without her freaking out. (She can't actually go anywhere using that front stroke, but attempting it solo is a big deal.) She was very excited that she'll promote to the Angelfish level! Monkey is still struggling with a willingness to put her face underwater, and that's really holding her back. Her front and back stroke are improving, but she still needs some light support, and her teacher requested that she repeat the Otter level. Bug on the other hand really took off this week! She can now swim several yards independently using freestyle or the back stroke, and she succeeded in "diving" for rings (she wasn't in over her head, but she had to completely submerge to reach the ring). Like Goose, she was thrilled about getting promoted to the next level! The next round of swimming lessons (we're planning to sign up for two days a week in the fall) will be the first time Monkey and Bug will be in separate classes for anything. That may be a bigger challenge for them than the swimming!
Three Rs
Monkey--reading: Hop on Pop; math: addition, fractions, time, place value; writing: Exodus and Deuteronomy worksheets
Bug--reading: Whose Mouse Are You?; math: addition, subtraction, fractions, time, multiplication/skip counting; writing: Exodus and Deuteronomy worksheets
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