Rob and the California George Family

Over the Thanksgiving weekend (last Fri - Sun), Hayley and I went camping with another dad and daughter in their tent trailer. We headed out to Calico Ghost Town on I-15 on the way to Las Vegas. I had passed it many times, but never stopped.

Calico was purchased and restored by Walter Knott (of Knott's Berry Farm fame) in the early 20th Century. He eventually turned it over to San Bernardino County and it is now a county park.

We stayed at the town's campground which was a great place to camp. Lots of hills to climb and small mines to explore. We were in walking distance to the actual ghost town which had shops and various attractions. Our afternoon in town was fine, but we spent more time exploring some "backlot" places than we did doing any of the real attractions.

A big highlight of the trip was doing some offroading in our friend's mini SUV and then shooting some soda cans with his .22 rifle. We drove through a cool place called Rainbow Canyon and the girls each got to take turns with the steering part of driving. If I have some time later, I'll post some pictures. We took a lot on the digital camera, but I have not checked them out yet.

Labels: Camping, Hayley, Rob

Hayley wanted a remote control car for her birthday. I remember getting a remote control car as a kid. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to get one. However, it wasn't what I expected. The car that I got went forward in a straight line and turned to the left when it went in reverse. That's it. Forward = straight, Reverse = left turn. It was sorta fun, but disappointing compared to what I expected.

That experience told me what NOT to get Hayley. While shopping at Costco, I found her gift. Hayley got an SUV-style remote control vehicle with big tires that can roll over grass, dirt, or hard surfaces and that could turn left or right in either the forward or reverse direction. It has pretty good speed too.

I haven't gotten to drive it yet. I'm afraid that I won't give it back when I do.

Labels: Birthdays, Hayley, Toys

Hayley turned 12 yesterday. Her Girl Scout troop is on a campout, so we took a cake out for her and her troop to share.

She celebrated with her friends last weekend with a sleepover. I took a few of them out geocaching before dinner and then we had the rest of the girls over for dinner and games.

Happy Birthday, Hayley!

Labels: Birthdays, Hayley

Peanut the Hamster passed away sometime early today. She has not been well for the last 2 weeks or so. We suspect that she may have had problems due to the smoke from the fires, but we don't know for sure.

Peanut escaped a number of times as chronicled in this Blog. However, she always came back. Unlike our previous hamsters, she never bit any of us and had a great disposition. Definitely a good hamster experience!

Thanks for spending the last year or so with us, Peanut.

Labels: Hamster

Our Fall Volleyball season is over. I coached Bethany's team. Hayley was one age level down and had a team that did ok. Hayley had a lot of fun and wants to sign up again next season, so I would call that a success.

Bethany's team did very well. The league that we play in does not track wins and losses or have any playoff system. The goal is to play and have fun. However, that doesn't stop the kids from tracking wins and losses.

Each week that we play another site, there are 4 games. We had 3 weeks of tournaments and 1 week in the middle where we just played the other teams from our site. For the tournaments, our team had 11 wins and 1 loss (4-0, 4-0, 3-1). For the intersite games, we went 1-1. Our only tournament loss was to another team from our site. We never lost to teams from another site.

I can't really take much credit as coach. I made sure that they did some basic things like talk to each other and I made sure that they had fun and supported each other. The rest was all them. I guess you can call it a "get out of the way if they are having fun" coaching method.

Hayley says that I have to be her coach next time.

Labels: Bethany, Hayley, Volleyball

When Bethany was born, we lived in our Townhouse in Lake Forest. At the bottom of our hill, there was a horse stable that we saw nearly every day.

At around the time that Beth was forning full sentences (probably 18 - 24 months) she told her first joke. We were driving past the stable one day when this exchange happened:

Beth: "Are those the horsies?"
Mom & Dad: "Yes, Beth."
Beth: "Are they horsing around?"

I don't know if she intended to make a joke, but she definitely beamed when we all started laughing.

Labels: Bethany, Family

My second ever post to this Blog was a discussion of variations of names that I go by. In that entry, I mentioned that "Bob" is my least favorite variation. I don't know why, it just strikes me as wrong for me. It works very well for many other people.

However, for some reason today it hit me just how versatile a name it is. Not many names fall into all of these categories: palindrome, acronym (Break Out Box, Best Of Breed, Bureau of the Budget, Big Old Bug, etc.), verb, hair style, fishing implement, a term for money (old term for British shilling and current abbreviation for the Bolivian Bolivano), a Shoemaker, a type of sled, type of bird (Bob White Quail), and more. There are other uses of the word, but they get more obscure and silly.

Labels: Rob