Sabriya’s first day of kindergarten! Her teacher, the same one her older sisters had, remembers when we used to bring Bree into the class in an infant car seat/carrier. Bree is slightly nervous when Jan drops her off in class. She asks the teacher if it’s okay if she holds her Lambie for a while, and the teacher says “Yes” — this week happens to be favorite mammal week, when everyone can hold onto their favorite mammal. Bree relaxes when she finds Luke, a friend and classmate of hers from her preschool last year. Jan leaves the two of them chatting in the classroom’s reading corner.
Liya on the first day of fifth grade. She’s in the second of her two years in the school’s 4–5 division, so most of her teachers are already familiar to her.
Anya, entering sixth grade, displays the relaxed, self-possessed composure for which middle schoolers are well known. Anya also gets to move up to the front passenger seat in the morning car ride — a good thing now that Jan will be driving all three girls in the car each morning.
Sabriya has her first weekend soccer game with her school team. She’s initially quite opposed to even attending the game, but once there, she happily runs around with the other kids on the team. She and her new friends spend most of the game playing in the sand on the sidelines.
Anya returns from a three-day sixth grade class trip to the North Cascades Institute on Diablo Lake. It seems they had a lot of fun, but she and her classmates are clearly exhausted when they get off the bus. We ask her to clean up her room before going to bed. She cleans for a bit, and then there’s silence. When Jan investigates, he discovers that she’s fallen asleep on her bedroom floor.
Jan heads to San Francisco for a long weekend with his brother, Chris. After Jan finishes an afternoon business meeting, the two of them drive to Bernal Heights. They check out a house Chris thought might be interesting to buy. It’s nice, but doesn’t have a parking space, which is a huge disadvantage for a house in San Francisco. Afterwards the two head to dinner at a restaurant in the Mission District called Heirloom, where they’re joined by Chris’ girlfriend, Julie.
Jan and Chris drive to Yosemite National Park for the weekend. An enormous forest fire called the Rim Fire has been burning at the western end of the park since the middle of August. The fire is still burning in some remote areas, but is largely contained now, and they’ve reopened the main road into the park. The road passes through miles of blackened trees and charred hillsides. Interestingly, some pine trees are half destroyed: the top half is vibrant green, and the bottom half is grayish brown.
Yosemite Valley is happily untouched by the Rim Fire. After checking into the Ahwahnee Hotel, Jan and Chris make a short hike to Mirror Lake. The lake itself is dry in the fall, but the views of the valley cliffs (and, here, Half Dome) are spectacular.
Jan and Chris begin a long day hike up the steep Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point.
The views from the trail are amazing. This is facing west along Yosemite Valley, with El Capitan on the right.
Chris looks different with a beard.
Jan and Chris make it to Glacier Point, perched high above the valley floor.
The view from Glacier Point is incredible. That’s Half Dome on the right. You can’t see them in the photo, but a small group of rock climbers is climbing on the dome’s right flank. Even when viewed through a small telescope mounted on a viewing platform, the climbers looked like ants on the huge mountain.
Jan and Chris are too sore from Saturday’s climb to do another hike, so they rent bikes and spend their last morning at Yosemite doing a gentle bike ride around the valley loop trail. They’re blessed with more beautiful weather.
When Jan and Chris stop to rest on a stone bridge, they spot something moving on the opposite side of the road. At first they think it’s a raccoon, but as it pads closer, they see that it’s a cat. It’s a bobcat. As it crosses in front of the stones, its coloring keeps it well camouflaged.
Back to San Francisco. Chris takes Jan to a favorite pizza joint, Delfina Pizzeria, before Jan has to head back to SFO and home.