Happily and sadly we are reaching the end of the week. The hills seem to be getting steeper everyday. I've often witnessed that time goes by fast when having fun. But this week I've learned that it also goes by fast when Mother Nature is kicking your tail. I am amazed that it is Thursday and tomorrow we will be leaving camp and heading home. I was surprised by three raccoons last night. They are so brazen. They just stared at me as if they were saying, "Okay you Elmer Fudd lookalike give me some food. Don't just stand there." I was so shocked. I was there with three other ladies. But I missed my chance. I should have taken there picture. Then it turned really turned really strange, the big one and I mean big growled at us. We just backed off. The last thing I wanted is a mountain 3 on 1 with masked wildlife. So we are one sleep away heading home. I am sooooo ready to sleep in a real bed. So RAWR campers I'll post photos next week. Cya

What a day. I'm a foot shorter. I walked my legs off. I had to do cabin inspections. Some of the cabins were so clean. Everything was put away and swept beautifully. Others not so much. Then I had a delightful surprise. The teacher who was doing cabin inspections with was driving to the beach and tide pools to photograph our students for yearbook. When we got to the ocean, it was angry. The waves were really high and the water was carried way up the beach. It was a beautiful display. But reality set in because we had to get back the student's recess. Then it is up and down the hill again for dinner. Now we get hear about all the trouble that the students from our school into. Now I wait for campfire and then lights out cabin check. But wait I have to go beach and tide pools tomorrow. But remember you all RAWR. To DC RAWR squared.

We have arrived in the redwoods at science camp. I got a lot of reading done on the two and a half hour bus ride. It always amazes me that the students think that the bus is always about to crash. They scream in those high pitched screams that strike teacher like a bolt of lightning. Then it is the Pacific Ocean's time to excite them. It is so cute they don't realize what they are looking at is the ocean until they see the waves hitting the beach. Ten miles of ocean views are not seen until that white foam extends onto the sand. Finally, climb the hill to get into the redwoods and we are there. Now they start having fun and I start having to walk up and down these verdent hills. I will march around inspecting for lights out cabins. Then I go to my cabin and read. No phone, no TV, no computer awaits me. Hope I sleep well. Bye for now and RAWR you all.

Look Out Disney Here We Come

Look Out Disneyland Here We Come

I was watching the Disney Christmas Parade and they announced that on February 29^th, Leap Day, the Disneyland Park will for the first time be open for 24 hours.  This may sound crazy but to me: 

Everyone Has a Picture Here

Disneyland is reality and the rest of the world is fantasy. 

I am the original Disney child.  I grew up on the Mickey Mouse Club. 

The original, you know Cubby, Annette, and Darlene, not the Justin, Christina, and Britney.  

We lived like a lot of boomers in Orange County when Disneyland was being built.  We, like all people, went there that first year.  And we went back every year since.  Over the years we both have changed.  

Matterhorn

I remember them adding the Matterhorn,

Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for Me
Pirates of the Caribbean,

Best Ride Added at Disneyland in the Last 10 Years

and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster.  

I have seen attractions go like Mike Fink keel Boats,

Scuttled

Now Unmoved

the People Mover, 

3 Minutes to Nowhere

and the Rocket Rods.  

Hotel Mickey

My family is so intertwined with Disneyland and Disney.  My mother was born in 1928 same year as Mickey.  She liked that coincidence.

I have been to many Christmas celebrations and

It's a Small World Decor

Main Street Christmas Tree

three News Years eves.  

Waiting of the Year

My wife and I danced the night away at the Tomorrowland Terrace on a Disneyland date.

 We have been to five 4^th of Julys, including the Bicentenial in 1976.  We have celebrated many July 17^th birthday parties.  Including that incredibly busy day of July 17th 2005, the 50th Anniverary.

So when I heard that it was going to be open for 24 hours I said to my family, “We are going!”   

So grab your children by the hand and meet us at the Happiest Place On Earth.

The clock is running.

This is a Test Only a Test

This is my attempt to post to my blog from my iPod. I am going to science camp next week so I needed a dry run. Today is the day that I am at the bowling alley for my son's travel league game. I am so proud of him. He has become almost a good of bowler as me. I wish I was almost as good a golfer as him. This week the travel league is a home game so there is a lot more thing for the parents to do. We had to make cookies for the bake sale fund raiser, put together baskets for the raffle. Well, I read and searched for a way t move the photos from my iPod photos to my blog. I spent an hour doing this. What a frustrating time. I am also going to try to finish my Disney blog today. It is from my computer and maybe easier. Good luck as of now all blog posting will look like this from science camp.

Not Cute Today

California Coast

Okay! Enough being cute.  I am sitting here prepared to make some new and exciting posting when it came to me; I have to go Next week to science.  I dug up some old photos that I took previously at the tide pools to show my current students.  But they were little jerks.  Not the ones who weren’t going but many of the ones who were.  They don’t care a thing outdoor school and what they might learn or purpose or by accident.  I think they think that it is a week away from school and not an opportunity to learn in a non-traditional learning environment.  So, I thought it might be cool to show you some of the pictures of the tide pools I tried to show them.

Orange Sea Star

 I try not to disturb them. This one is covered with a few inches of seawater.

Ridged Limpit I did my study in invertebrate biology on the limpet. I am still trying to photograph an owl limpit.  They are really cool they farm the algea on a tide pool rock. 

A Group of Periwinkle Snails

Sea Anemone

Purple Sea Stars

Famous Santa Cruz Banana Slug

This is my mother waving at me.  Yes, we came from the ocean but this is not the metaphoric source from which life sprung.  My mother was a Seattle Norwegian.  She wanted a Viking burial.  You know the one where you place them in there ship, set it on fire, and push them out to sea.  That is not possible today so she was cremated and her ashes were spread off the coast.  So whenever I see that sea wave hit the rock, I think that is my mother waving at me.

That is all for today hold tightly to the ones you love.

Cold as Ice

What was that noise?  Ever hear a strange noise in the middle of the night. I awoke the other night only to hear a strange noise coming from downstairs.  Laying there in the dark your first thought are what was that. Then I realized, it was the icemaker dropping ice into the half emptied bin in the freezer.  As I lay there unable to fall asleep again, I began to think that the icemaker and I are the same.

The icemaker has to work without stop to replenish all the ice that we use.  It wouldn’t do it any good to complain because is dedicated to complete the assignment no matter how much the reserve goes down.  My life seems like this everyday, I work to fill the bin that is really our family’s bank account and each family member dips in and it melts away.  The icemaker is forgotten; nobody really notices it until the bin is low.

Sometimes when there is a big event on the horizon, you try to plan. Filling a baggie with ice.  But it never works; you still end up buying a bag or two of ice.  This is the same for me I try to save but I still end up supplementing my income with loans.  Like the ice machine I work hard for my family and what I provide is needed. The final way that I’m like and icemaker is I know how to chill and I am cool.

Bowling 1/2/12:  222, 182, 246 = 653

If you see the obstacles you've taken your eyes off the goal.

Mound of Memories

There is a pile of memories lying on my dining room table.  I wake up this morning at what tomorrow will be the normal time to get up to follow the rut of my life.  I look out the window and it is foggy. Not untypical for where I live and not untypical for how I live.  I know that there is so much to do some fun, some obligatory and some necessary.  But there is definitely a pile of memories on the table. These memories are the Christmas ornaments that I removed from my late Christmas tree.  The poor tree lies in the gutter waiting its final appointment with the garbage man that should come to get it this morning if my son remembered to place it in the street.  I forgot to remind him to do that when I told him to take the trash out last night.  I will need to go check that soon.  But the tree is going to be gone but the memories are still lying on the table in a pile.  Those memories are my link to the past. Each ornament has its own life and its own story. 

I remember a hot August day riding in a rented moving van moving from southern California to this god forsaken valley. I remember leaving my few friends.  I remember it all. But what I remember most riding in that van with no air conditioning and the over 100 degree temperature sitting between my dad driving and my mom sitting in the passenger seat with two boxes held on her lap.  In those boxes was her most precious possessions. Was it gold, silver or, crystal?  No it was her Christmas ornaments.  Those few most antique mercury glass baubles her mother had given her.  They were my heritage.  They were what passed to me to keep.

As the years progressed those two small boxes grew.  Each year a few more ornament arrived from Seattle to my mom from my granny and a few were added to fill that yearly visitor, the tree.  So each year I get the boxes out and unwrap each ornament and place it in its honored place on the tree.  I hold the past in my hand with each one. Each one reveals its story to me.  They speak to me of the good times and the bad.  I remember that we kids couldn’t touch them, mom hung them all.  I remember the one that was my dad’s favorite. I remember when I was considered responsible enough to hang a few. I even remember the one my brother and I argued over to place on the tree. 

So here is the New Year and the memories are all off the tree and ready for their return to the box for their slumber until next year.  Soon they will be passed to another generation, I need to tell the history of them so they will still be honored.  Because the ornaments not only represent Christmas they represent our families history.

First of the Year

 There are many things that occur at the start of a new year.  You make resolutions, and see how fast you can break them. You set goals for the upcoming year.  Everyone knows some of the goal realistic, and some are fanciful.  I am going to make a million dollars, bowl a 300, and get a hole-in-one, are just a few of the goals I might consider fanciful.  Realistic goals, however, are seem better because we know they are achievable.  But because we know it will happen, it takes all the anticipation that comes from the goal.  My life has become a set of realized goals.  There are few surprises that give me the feeling that at the next fork in the road, I will encounter a surprise.  Many people believe that it is because I take the same fork in the road.  That is probably true.  I have become predictable that I been taking only the same road.  I go for the safe path.  Bound by that most horrible ally, obligation.  I know one day I have to look at that road most traveled and rejoin the other choice.  Only taking that road less traveled will an unexpected goal appear. 

So here I stand at that fork again.  Gazing down the road less traveled.  I take my first few steps.  I start this blog.  I hope it is a truly new goal that can give me an unpredictable outcome.  So three cheers to the bumps, and good-bye to the ruts.