KCRA News

Another fun scouting "Go See It" was visiting the KCRA news studio.

Our den met at 5:45 to get together and tour the station and sit in on a live 6pm Sat newscast.

The old control room, where the news feed and cameras are monitored and switched.

The new control room, where the same cameras are all displayed, but now digital and all on flat screens.

The kids all gathered around the weather desk.  Dirk Verdoorn was the host for us.

After the news, the kids all hop on the stage with Dirk, Del Rodgers and Chris Riva. 

Here's the video of Nate doing the weather forecast.  The kids are more focused on the monitor rather than the camera and have a hard time explaining the weather.  Nate had a great time, very quiet and was listening to what was going on.  The KCRA team were great hosts.

Cub Scout Family Hike - Quarry Trail

One of my favorite ideas about the cub scouts, is that we can get our boy into the outdoors and do fun activities that I wouldn't take him on by myself.  The first "Family Hike" started at the confluence of the North and middle fork of the American River.

We visited an old limestone quarry.Where all the folks are standing was a limestone deposit.  This was mined in 1906 and used to make concrete in the rebuilding of San Francisco after the earthquake.

Nate exploring one of the little caves.

Nate had some fun, but was also a little bored on the hike.  

Here are all the scouts lining up for a photo shoot.

The miners would drop the limestone into a cave where it was captured on a rail cart and hauled by train to SF.  They've since gated the entrance to the cave.

Inside the cave, you can see it's well worn.  It wasn't boarded up until 2006.  They discovered lots of fossils in here, dire wolves, giant sloths, mastodons etc.

After exploring the quarry, the scouts played some games, disc golf, trivia questions and were allowed to eat lunch and run around a bit before heading back.  We stopped for a frozen yogurt on the way home and capped off a very fun day.

More details on the hike can be found here.  http://members.psyber.com/asra/tgquar.pdf

Heavenly Skiing

We purchased season passes for skiing this year, didn't work out so well.  After an amazing year of snow last year, we didn't really get any good snow this year until March.  With all that late snow, our minds had already shifted to spring, so we did not come anywhere near close to utilizing our passes.  Oh well, when we went we still had a great time.  We managed a few trips to Northstar and a weekend in Heavenly that was truly amazing.

Nate at the top of Northstar, he really enjoys skiing.

Our last day at Heavenly and the weather was so warm we didn't need to bundle up.

With our season passes, the Epic mix team had lots of places to take photos, here's a "action" shot of Maria.

As much as Nate likes skiing, he loves a good snowball fight even more.

Here's our boy atop the mountain with that amazing view of Lake Tahoe in the background.

Maria and Nate on the lift.

Dog Pile!

Maui Jim was handing out the lei's, supposedly if they saw you skiing with them they would hand out prizes, we never saw them again.

Here's my action shot.

One of the many shots of us and the lake.

Follow me, I know the way!

Our first night at Heavenly was a bit cold and snowy.  We had dinner at a new  place for us, called Nephelle's, which was amazing.  We have wanted to try it for awhile, but always got stuck going back to our usual place the Shore Bird.  Good thing we decided to do something different.  Our weekend was so much fun, we're planning on making it the destination for Maria's birthday next year.

Easter 2012

Maria's latest craft project in her effort to become Martha Stewart.  She had water balloons and wrapped them in string soaked in a starch glue.  After it dries, pop the balloon and you have these eggs you can decorate your yard with.  

Egg decorating became a neighborhood event this year.  Some folks are very creative.

We had the Thompson's(Ethan, Paisley, Taryn & Frances) along with the Higgs (Jackson and Chandler) and Austin come to decorate eggs.

This year the Easter bunny hid Nate's basket, but left clues around the house as to where the basket might be.  Each clue led to another clue until...

Nate eventually found his basket under the dining room table.

Nate's basket was filled with books, toys, a magic 8 ball and enough candy to fill several sweet tooth's.

The eggs "hidden" around the yard.  Very popular with the kids.  Although it seemed the eggs with small toys in them were more popular than the ones with candy.  One suggestion for next year is to place coins in the eggs of various amounts, along with making the eggs a bit more hidden.

Of course with as many kids as we had over for the egg hunt, hard to hide that many in our yard.

It was more a question of who could move the fastest or who had the biggest basket for picking up eggs.

The Easter Bunny showed up and took pictures with each of the families.  The Harris family.

The Thompson's.

The Knight's

The Bowman's

The Green's

Nate and Ethan checking out their stash of candy

Maria made this creative dessert, with chocolate pudding, green coconut and eggs.

The finely decorated eggs from the Tuscan Grove Cir clan.

Spring 2012 Sports

We did our second year of Hot Shots basketball.  It came on the heels of our Hawaii trip and we never really got into the season.  Not sure if it was because we didn't know a lot of people on the team or what.

The team had fun together, it was a non-competitive league.  Nate never seemed to get into the basketball mode.  He was back to twirling at half court and didn't display the stellar defense he had at the end of last season.  He rarely practices basketball with the neighbor kids.  Prefers to ride his bike and scooter.  We're thinking we'll hold him out of basketball next year and focus on skiing or other activities instead.

Nate getting his basketball trophy.

Moving on to Farm ball, Nate is no longer a Pirate as that team disbanded.  He is now a Padre.  We kept a strong group of former Pirates together and are enjoying the new team.

Nate seems to like baseball, although he could still use a lot of practice.  Loves to bat and playing with his teammates. 

Taking a break on the bench.

All smiles, as are his parents.  Games are played at Veteran's Park, which is walking distance from our house.

Nate putting on the catcher's gear.

Behind the plate.

Missed on that one, but put in a full swing.

Nate eventually got a hit and gave the coach a high five!

Out in the field, Nate's favorite position is pitcher as you're closest to the action.

The formal team photo.  Love the banner idea, helps with Names and we get to keep them at the end of the season.  During games we can hang them in the dugout.