Delia's Unconventional Dance Recital

There's a fun wordplay in here about how we've had to pivot so many times this season, we're becoming quite the ballerinas!  Delia's big dance recital was one of May's many causalities.  But, her dance studio came up with a creative solution for this required cancellation!  Her classes continued on Zoom, then the classes filmed each dance separately.  We dance families were just sent the link to a virtual recital with all the dances stitched together to enjoy viewing at home.  It could have been yet another devastating thing Delia had worked so hard at all year getting cancelled, but our studio impressively stepped up and we're so thankful for the way the dancers' work was still honored!

Because we received all the dances in small files too, I can finally share a professional version for our far-away family to see!  Enjoy Delia's number Zero to Hero, and as you watch, keep in mind that a good portion of its choreography was learned right from our living room, watching her teacher and classmates in tiny squares on an iPad screen!  Pretty amazing, huh?

Robotics Team Builds Character While Building Robots

After their unique season, Ella was asked to write an article for a local magazine about her Robotics Team experience. Robotics ended up being such an important part of our lives this year, and a life-changing experience for Ella, I'm gonna paste her words from her article here, along with some pictures of the team working and having fun this year! (Edited to remove specifics about our school.)

Whether it be wiring control panels, creating carbon fiber, coding a robot to pelt balls at a target, or chugging a two-liter bottle of Sprite, our high school Robotics Team is always up to something interesting! These hard working students take on the challenge of building, coding, and competing a robot made from scratch in the First Robotics Competition each year, while forming bonds and having tons of fun along the way.

Coached by mechanical engineer Mr. U., along with a few brave mentors, the Robotics Team mainly focuses on educating students in coding, engineering, and all together coming up with creative ideas, and learning about teamwork. This year’s team was made up of 8 student participants, 7 of them freshmen. While there was a lot to learn, this team proved to be a capable, quick-learning group, who built a robot they all were proud of. The robot, dubbed “Rookie”, boasted the ability to recognize and line up with a target, launch dodge balls into a goal, and suck up discarded dodge balls to funnel into the launcher. As cool as it may be, this robot only came together because of the commitment of every team member and their specialties.

The Robotics Team is split into two primary groups: the programmers and the engineers. The programmers troubleshoot and come up with solutions, testing their code on a robot from past years in a wide open space in the school’s Industrial Arts Building. The engineers, consisting of the majority of the team, jump between prototyping, wiring, building the robot, and working with carbon fiber. When the robot is almost complete, it’s all hands on deck to finish the rest of the wiring and pnematics in one long night. Once the robot has been tested and tuned, it’s off to competitions! 

The First Robotics Competition, or FRC, has robotics teams from around the world compete in a specific game that was revealed at the beginning of the season. The game usually includes multiple tasks and objectives for the robot to execute, with a scoring system based on how well it completes the task, with higher points awarded for more difficult actions. This year, the assigned objectives were to pick up dodge balls, shoot them into easy, medium, and hard targets with points rewarded accordingly, recognize colors on a color wheel, and lift themselves off the ground for bonus points at the end of the match. Competitions are a great experience for teams to interact with other teams, showcase their robots, admire other robots, and finally see all the hard work of the team come to fruition. 

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, most competitions were canceled this year, including both competitions our school's Robotics Team was scheduled to compete in. This was especially sad as most of the team had never experienced a match before. The team was able to see the beginning of a competition, which included setting up their pit station and checking out other teams’ robots. While the actual element of going head-to-head with an opponent didn’t happen, team members still say that it was fun to get a taste, seeing other schools’ robots and getting to hang out together.

The end of this Robotics season proved to be a disappointing one, but all of the Robotics Team members report that they had an awesome experience being on the team and having the ability to make something extremely cool. Lots of learning still happened, ranging anywhere from discovering how to install a non-lethal computer virus to debating about if Cool Ranch Doritos are indeed the best kind of chips.

This upcoming season will host the same game so that all the robots created this year can still compete. Extra elements will be added to the games, and teams will have an entire school year to create an amazing robot, instead of just the regular single semester. This poses an exciting year for FRC, promising some very interesting robots with lots of time to make the competing robots perfect. Our school is excited about the opportunity to take their robot to a whole new level, while learning new things and spending time with teammates who have become great friends!

(Blog Editor's note: I'm such a proud RoboMom!!!) 

Cleo's Bath

Yesterday we finally crossed a hike off our list that's been on it for years.  You know we love our Pinecrest for camping, hiking, horse back riding, kayaking, geocaching, swimming, playing in the snow, and watching movies under the stars.  There is not much of this area that we have not explored over the years-- except for this big, almost 8 mile, hike that takes you waaaay up above the lake.  Cleo's Bath is a bunch of gorgeous little swimming holes fed by multiple waterfalls made from the river that feeds Pinecrest Lake tumbling over the cascading boulders.  We've heard it was a strenuous hike, but one well worth the views and swims!

 The hike starts with the regular loop around the lake.

 But then veers off at the river for about 2 miles.  The last part of the hike is crazy rock climbing!  Like, four points of contact, huffing to catch your breath, don't twist an ankle, climbing!!

 Make it through the rocks, though, and you find yourself above the tree line and rewarded with that spectacular view of the lake way off in the distance.

 Go just a bit further and you come to the baths.  The water in these pools is snow melt.  It's numbingly chilly.  But, after working up a good sweat on the long hike and rock climb, the water actually feels pretty amazing!  We did wear our suits, intending to swim, but Delia and I both got in a little quicker than we had planned-- slipping on a slimy rock and sliding all the way in unintentionally!  I guess that's the best way to enter cold water, though!  

There is a lot to explore up at Cleo's Bath!  Cliffs with great views, many different waterfalls, and small cut outs in the rocks forming fun little "hot tubs". 

We ate some lunch and then decided it was time to get in the deepest, prettiest pool.  

 Some of us entered a little more slowly, and some of us took a running jump right over the waterfall and off the cliff!

 We got an early start on this day to be sure we secured a parking spot, so we had the baths pretty much to ourselves, except for a few other nice families.  We took pictures for each other and cheered each other on as we got in the freezing water.

As refreshing as the water was, it didn't take long on the hike down for us to feel all hot and worn out again!

We made the miles pass by playing SPELL and admiring butterflies, wildflowers, and the ever-changing terrain.

And it didn't take too long until that far off lake was right next to us again!  

An hour on the beach to float on the kiwi and unicorn rafts, read a few pages, and consume fun beach snacks ended this wonderful day at one of our favorite places.  It was a great hike, hard, but worth it enough for both girls to agree they'd totally do it again!  The outcome may have been different if we had tried it with our kids any sooner.  Having two teenagers is kinda fun! ;)

Golden Girls

It's obviously been a more low-key summer.  Delia's one request for a special birthday, one she's been thinking about all year, was to celebrate her Golden Birthday with a donut-themed sleepover.  We took a lot of time considering if and how this would even be possible this summer and decided to go for it, but to keep the number very small-- just her 3 best friends.  And it turned out only 2 could make it.  She's been seeing these gals every day already at Drama Camp, so we did not feel the risk was too great.  It ended up being perfect.

"Donut-themed" for Delia meant her cake was actually the famous Giant Donut our local shop makes.  She also made mini-donuts as a snack for her friends, served Munchins for breakfast, gave packets of Krispy Kreme Jelly Bellys as a favor, and we spent a few hours crafting the cute, felt donut wreaths.

Delia had her friends bring their roller blades along for the greatest late night glow stick skating party in our church parking lot!  As I watched their glowing helmets fly around our dark parking lot at 10:00 and listened to this delightful group of gals make "Aladdin!  On Rollerskates!" to perform for me, I just rejoiced.  I thanked the Lord for this glimpse of normalcy.  Delia and her kindred spirit friends getting the chance to laugh and create together was such a great gift.  The giggles continued as the party moved back to the tent in our backyard, where the girls "slept" under the stars. 

Fun fact, these girls ALL turned 13 on different months' 13ths this year, making them a true group of Golden Girls!  

A Long Post Starring Auntie Heather!

This was supposed to be a summer where we traveled to Chicago.  But, like everything else in life, plans changed and we had to adjust.  When my sister Heather reached out and told us she could fly crazy cheap to us, if we were okay with her germs, we didn't hesitate to welcome her with open arms!  I'm soooo happy our summer could still include a little time with far-away family!  Heather wasn't here for long, but we packed her visit with lots of fun, spending 5 days laughing and making new recipes, new clothes, and new memories!

 We took her to our favorite little coffee shop while the girls were busy with Drama Camp.

 We followed the 7 step instructions for making Bitterballen-- a new Dutch dish for me, but one Heather discovered in the Netherlands and wanted to try to cooking.  What is it, you wonder?  It's deep fried meat and gravy balls.  Yep.  Trust the Dutch to come up with this crazy, but delicious, recipe!

Heather had the fun idea to do a big tie-dye project with the girls!  This also was new and we had a blast researching our designs, anxiously applying the dye, patiently waiting for them to dry, and finally revealing the mystery of how they turned out.  We each looooved our shirts!  Ella and Heather loved theirs so much, they even did a round two!  So now between the four of us, we have a tie-dyed hoodie, leggings, three shirts, and two tank tops!

 We celebrated our summer birthday girls with ice cream cake and presents.  We giggled over the 2020 way to extinguish birthday candles-- fanning, NOT blowing!

We took Ivy to the river for a few hours to teach her how to swim!  She did not love not feeling the ground under her feet, but she did love splashing around playing fetch in the water.  We all loved discovering a new place to cool off.  

And then we girls took off to the coast for a few days!  It's wonderful that this piece of our state remains open, with a few easy-to-follow guidelines for staying safe.  We really enjoyed that we can still be outside soaking up gorgeous scenery, while dealing with very few summer crowds!  We started our getaway with a morning on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and wharf.  The rides are closed, but Pirate Mini Golf was open!

 We played a super competitive game, all of us within a few points of each other.  Ella ended up squeaking out the W with her hole in one on the very last hole!

After a picnic lunch at our pick of dozens of empty tables on the Boardwalk, we made our way over to our favorite little cove beach.  Here it is warm and sunny, with great waves, hot sand, and lots of pelicans flying over.  Do you like our matching shirts? ;)

 Of course, every trip to Santa Cruz must include a stop at Marianne's for ice cream.  The dining room was closed, but this local hot spot figured out a way to still serve safely, all outdoors!  What you're looking at here is blueberry cheesecake, coffee almond fudge, heaven, and salted caramel.  Yummmm.

We then drove about an hour down the coast to where we'd spend the night at a cute little hotel in Carmel.  We went for swim in the pool, had another outside meal at Pizza My Heart, and then chased the rapidly setting sun with such ferocity, the shocks on our car got a work out and the kids in the back got locked in!  (Not to worry.  When you accidentally lock your kids in the car because the sun is a minute from sinking below the horizon and they are too slow, they just call you up and ask to be let out!)

Bright and early the next morning we headed out to explore a new spot on the Carmel coast-- Garrapata State Park.  The views here could not be beat!  But, brrrr!  It sure was windy hiking up in the fog on the cliffs!  By the time we returned home to 110 degree heat, we realized we'd felt a 60 degree temperature change in one day!

 See the rainbow in the fog?

After Garrapata, we took Auntie Heather on the famous 17 Mile Scenic Drive.  This is a road we've traveled a lot in the past, but this time we had the goal to stop and check out every one of the 17 landmarks.  This made it so fun!  We walked around the ritzy Pebble Beach Resort and found the 18th hole right on the water. 

We took the obligatory picture with the iconic Lone Cypress.  

We played in soft white sand, and explored tide pools, and hiked boardwalks, and watched otters and sea lions. 

 And we did it all with very few other people around!  California is indeed for Californians (and the occasional Coloradoan) this summer!  Thanks for braving airplane travel to brighten our summer days, Heather!