Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

Brad and I went to Yosemite for a few days last week. It was soooo fun! We went to Tuolumne Meadows and were lucky enough to get a campsite. After we set up our tent and other camping gear, we went a-hikin'! We hiked Lemert Dome which is 9,400 ft. Not taking any time to acclimate to the elevation, I was really gasping for oxygen. But, we did it. Brad went all the way to the top, and I made it almost to the top. I was happy where I was. We met a couple from Finland on the hike up and she didn't go all the way to the top, either (and she was a lot younger and in better shape than me). We met several people from all over - it was fun talking with them. We also hiked to Dog Lake and ate our lunch there. After we came down from that hike, we went the other way and went on the John Muir Trail a ways, to Twin Bridges and a bit beyond. We waded in the cold river water. It was really beautiful. We took many pictures. Here are some of them:

This is the backside of Lembert Dome elevation 9,400 feet


Here is Brad at the top of Lembert Dome

Here is as far as I went (and it took a LONG time to get to this point!)

Here is Brad taking photos in a meadow by Dog Lake

Here is our campsite

Some shots of the Dana Fork of the Tuolomne River




We stopped at this lake on our way out of Yosemite at the east entrance


I will post more photos when Brad downloads them from his camera. These shots were taken with my little Cannon digital.
We hiked from 11AM to 5PM. When we got back to our campsite, we hopped in the car, drove to the Tuolomne Meadows store to buy a few things. One thing we bought was a dark chocolate Haagen Daaz ice cream bar and it was sooo yummy - and we didn't worry about the calories one bit since we'd been hiking all day! We fixed our dinner back at our campsite - Knorr Parmesan Noodles to which we added lemon pepper tuna, cleaned up, sat and looked at the stars for a while (and batted away the relentless mosquitoes! Yes, we had bug spray on) then we went to bed. We had been told it got down to 38 degrees the night before, but it was very pleasant when we went to bed. It got increasingly colder until we had put all our layers on and I was still cold. About 2AM I needed to visit the little girls' room and it was quite a little hike from our campsite. There was no way I was going out in the pitch black by myself 'cause there were bears. So I woke Brad and bless his heart, he accompanied me. When we got back to our tent, I put on socks, a fleece jacket, put a few more layers on and then I was warm and we slept. I even slept through the morning chorus of birds, which usually wakes me up. We brought our bikes with us and cycled around the campground the next morning. You can only bike on paved surfaces, which was fine. We decided we will go to Yosemite Valley on the off-season, when it is not so crowded. And we will hike to some falls next time. I LOVE YOSEMITE!

I'm sick of the old posts...

Just to get something new up (cause I'm sick of looking at the old posts!). I have not had time to do much - been sick, out of town, etc. Keldon's club team has won their first three games at the National Cup Soccer Tournament, so they now move on to the quarterfinals this weekend. We had our last overnight stay in lovely Lancaster, CA and I have to say, I will not miss the wind there! Whew! It blew up to 45 miles an hour this past weekend. The wind played that game, but we still won. I don't know how the women in Lancaster keep their hair from turning to straw - yikes! I will post more when I am feeling better - and no, it is not the swine flu!

Another CIF Win!

So, Keldon's soccer coach sent out an email kindly reminding us of the CIF rule of "no noisemakers" at the games. Okay, no noisemakers. Instead, I made 35 of these flags for the parents to wave. Well, it worked, because Keldon's team beat the #2 soccer team in the nation, La Costa Canyon, in a nail biter of a game. They entered overtime tied 3-3 (Keldon scored one of those goals!) and when neither team scored in the extra period the game went to a best-of-five penalty kicks. La Costa Canyon grabbed a 2-0 lead and things were not looking good for Westview. But our goalkeeper stopped their next three shots and we made our next three shots and won the game! The victory caused the Westview fans to erupt while a stunned silence overtook the La Costa crowd. This was their first loss all season.
I am still on a high from the game. I am so happy for Keldon and all his teammates. They were incredible! Now they play Torrey Pines in the finals on Saturday. They beat this team a few weeks back 5-0. Hopefully they can repeat that performance.

CIF Win!

Keldon's team won the first round of CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) playoffs, 3-1, against Grossmont High School here in San Diego. We played on our own field, which was really nice. I brought all my New Years' Eve noisemakers - slappy hands, kazooes and maraccas - all the moms had fun! We made lots of noise every time they scored. They play again on Friday against Poway, who happened to win CIF last year, so they have their work cut out for them. We can do it! GO, WESTVIEW!!!

This is a photo Brad took of Keldon at last night's game (he's #17). He headed it to a player then that player headed it for a goal! It was a beautiful goal.

Keldon, Soccer and College

Keldon's high school soccer team won their league championship - yay! Now they have CIF playoffs starting tonight. We are so excited for them. They are ranked 25th in the nation by the ESPN National Boys Winter Soccer poll and 11th in California. I am the webmaster and Brad takes the varsity team photos. We are getting ready for our soccer banquet on March 18. A fun tradition for the seniors is that the moms make a Senior Board, which is a poster with pictures from the boy's soccer years, from kindergarten on up. We have 14 seniors this year and I'm telling you that some of the moms are really into it, having poster parties to work on them and such. Brad puts together the video of the three teams pictures and I am doing the program, which has photos and bios of all the seniors. It will be a fun banquet. Our VERY LAST ONE!!! Check out their website at http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/pusdwvhs/athletics/WestViewBoyssoccer/Home.


Keldon received his first college acceptance letter, from University of Arizona. He also got a $4,000 scholarship - pretty nice. He was also accepted by UC Riverside and UC Merced - he didn't even apply to those schools, but they need students, I guess. We are waiting for the other colleges now. Did you know that not all colleges require a transcript these days? News to me and I don't like how I found that out. All of the kids in our area were receiving word, via their web accounts, from BYU. My friend, Laura, called and asked if Keldon had heard anything. Her daughter and Keldon were the only ones that hadn't heard. So, Keldon got onto his account, to which he fiercely protects his password, and we saw the word INCOMPLETE - TRANSCRIPT NEEDED. Yikes! How could he overlook something as important as that??? Well, our schools were off last week, so we had to wait an entire week before we could get his transcript and overnight it to BYU, which we did yesterday. I spoke with someone in the Admissions office and they said that they would still consider him but may offer him an alternate admission date like winter - ug! We are anxious to hear. He has applied to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Davis, UC San Diego, San Jose State, to mention a few, so we are waiting to hear from them, also.

Having oil in your lamps...

This past Sunday, February 22, was our Stake Conference. Brad attended the Priesthood Leadership session on Saturday afternoon and we both attended the Saturday evening session. Tithing was the topic, which I believe to be a timely subject with the condition of our economy. We were promised by our stake president that we would be richly fed in the Sunday session and to be sure and come. I usually sing in the stake choir and have a good seat because of that, but couldn't make the practices this time around so did not sing in the choir. We still wanted to sit in the chapel area so came early. We had a 50 minute wait, and as the time drew nearer for conference to begin, suddenly people started standing up. As I stood, I looked up and guess who was walking onto the stand? Elder M Russell Ballard, an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I was so excited! I felt like I was at BYU again. I hurriedly texted my children to tell them. Nicole said that she got my text as she was leaving to go to her Regional Conference and M. Russell Ballard spoke to them, also. With today's technology, you can be in two places at once! Actually, he told us that he had recorded his talk for the Regional Conference earlier. Elder Ballard and his wife were in southern California to visit good friends Nate and Bonnie Wade in Laguna Niguel. Elder Ballard had called our stake president on Thursday and asked if it was okay for him to come visit our stake conference. Anyway, it was a wonderful conference. What a blessing to receive counsel from an Apostle in person. He invoked a blessing on the people of our stake. I was so thankful to have had "oil in our lamps" that enabled us to arrive early enough to be able to sit close to the stand and partake of the spirit of that apostle first hand. It was quite an experience. I was impressed that they were able to keep his visit a secret. I was in front of our Stake RS President, and she didn't even know about Elder Ballard's visit. At the end of his talk, he asked everyone to lift up their right hand and to shake it - he did the same thing, then said "Now you can say you shook hands with Elder Ballard." He and his wife needed to slip away quickly. Cute way to get out of an hour of shaking hands with people!

Time to archive that Christmas post!

I really think it is time to change my Christmas post - what do you think???
I wish I had more time to devote to blogging but I just don't right now - not like I'd like to, anyway. I am maintaining 2 websites for the high school and have a client for which I am maintaining a website. I am also in the process of redesigning that website. Then add to that a week (at least!) of being sick with a nasty, wicked virus - I didn't do much of anything, not even sleep. Don't you just hate it when both nostrils are completely plugged? I mean, sleeping and trying to breathe out of your mouth JUST DON'T MIX! I now know how stringy my hair looks after three days of not being washed - ug!
And, AREN'T FRIENDS JUST WONDERFUL?

I had two friends bring me soup - one was homemade cream of mushroom, my favorite! - flowers, fresh fruit and homemade lemonade. I was so touched.
We are also in the middle of high school soccer season, which involves two games a week, a team dinner every other week, team lunches at school (which we Moms take care of), then all the photos and web page updates - it takes a lot of time, but I love it. I will really miss soccer next year when Keldon is in college. That has been the same with each child as they have left home - with Nicole, I missed her Speech and Debate events and music performances; with Amanda, I missed her school play performances and her choir events; with Kim, I missed her softball and volleyball games; with Ethan, I missed his swimming and water polo events; and with Keldon, it will be the soccer I miss.
Keldon received his first college acceptance letter! He has been accepted to University of Arizona with a $4,000 per year scholarship. Who knows if this is where he will go to college, but it is nice to have received at least one acceptance letter. More are to come. He also received an email from UC Riverside saying he was automatically accepted - guess not too many apply to their university, so they come looking for you!