Madison goes to Theater Camp

This past week Madison attended Theater Camp at the Brewery Arts Center. They learned improv, all about sets, and musical theater. This is her and her friend Natasha from soccer they spent the week hanging out and even had a sleepover on Monday night.

On Friday they had a parents presentation to show us what they had been doing all week. The room that it was located in is called the Black Box Theater. The walls, ceiling and floor are all painted black which unfortunately is not very conducive for photography or videos.

The homework assignments for the week were to memorize poems and recite them the following day. Because we had soccer practice the night before, Madison forgot to memorize a poem for Friday so we stopped at my work and found one on the internet at a children's poetry website. It is called "My Mom's a Vegetarian".



The entire class performed the song I just Can't Wait to be King from the movie
The Lion King. They made masks and rehearsed all week. You can't see Madison in the video until about mid way and then she is directly in front of me, again the quality is poor due to the lighting in the room.



I think she had a good time and certainly was not shy while performing. One of the parents approached her after the performance and told her she was a great singer - that made her day.

Levi Comes to Visit

No, not Leipheimer Levi the dog. My dad was in the hospital for about a week (he is ok now) so we had the pleasure of dog sitting for him. Levi is about a year and a half old Chesapeake Bay Retriever and Pit Bull mix. His personality is so gentile and sweet and he fancies himself a lap dog.

As you can see in this picture above, he climbed up the back of the couch to get to me to sit in my lap. His body is so solid you can not even push him off of you.

Chili is a pretty good host for the most part. When Levi arrived he was a bit snippy with him trying to show him who was boss.

It is funny because Levi is still a puppy and Chili is finally not a puppy so typically when we have puppy friends over he drives them insane by mauling them and always wanting to play. This time, he was the one being driven insane.

Chili shared his bed, and his favorite toy with Levi - sort of. Levi was making this skull squeak and when he finally dropped it and came to sit in my lap Chili picked it up, brought it over to him squeaked it, growled and then walked away as if to say "hey pal, this is MY toy".

Dad got out of the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and came to get Levi on Thursday while we were at work. We were sad to see him go but happy that dad is ok and back home.

Do Not Drink and Dye

So here is the deal, we were at Robin's house for a bbq last weekend and somehow we got on the subject of the pink in her hair. Somehow Madison ended up getting two streaks in the front of her hair and somehow I was talked into putting pink in my hair. The details are sketchy but pictures do not lie....needless to say, Madison's is almost gone and mommies is still bright as ever.

I was pretty nervous to go into work on Monday but I laid low for a few days until finally my boss saw me and just laughed. Of course this was also the week I had a neighborhood watch meeting, had to meet the parents of the soccer team I am coaching, etc.

It is pretty funny how people judge you based on your appearance, somehow people think I am more approachable with pink hair and we certainly can't have that! I think the girls on my soccer team think it is pretty cool and makes it all worth it.

Sunday on the Flume

A couple weeks ago Brent and I did the
Flume Trail for the first time this
season. We usually try to do this trail at least 4 or 5 times per summer but since we got the road bikes we have not been mountain biking nearly as much.

This is Max Jones in the background talking with Brent. Brent and Max play soccer together on a masters team (over 40) on Friday nights. As you can see here, they are in deep conversation about bikes. From what I understand, Max built the Flume trail and initially it was an illegal trail but thanks to his advocacy, it is now a legal and very widely known multi-use trail. It is open to hikers, horses, and mountain bikes in the summer and in the winter it is used for cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

There are also cabins available to rent. Brent and I actually stayed in the Wildcat Cabin one year for our anniversary. This was before I was such a biker and we had to pack our gear in on our backs. Lets just say I was crying when we arrived to the cabin and too tired to even make it to Marlette to see the lake! Times have sure changed...thank god.

We started from the parking area at Spooner Lake and headed up to Marlette Lake then took the trail clockwise around Marlette to the Flume then up a crazy amount of switchbacks and back down into Marlette for the decent back to the car. In total it was about 22 miles of goodness.

This is the other side of Marlette Lake once you are on the Flume. The trail is right at lake level here.





Here is the view of Sand Harbor from the Flume. This section of the trail is one of the most photographed of the entire route. It is a single track section that is way up in the mountain with a large drop off on one side. Our dog once chased a squirrel and fell down this section and Brent had to rescue him.

There is one section of the trail that has to be walked because it is too dangerous to ride. It was here where some dumb college kids tried to run me over because I was walking and they were not. I had to tell them that they were supposed to walk this section and they looked at me like I was retarded. Then they walked the section and realized why. It was these same college kids that I passed that were walking up the steepest section of the climb from Spooner.

Here I am climbing yet another hill. This is one of the more challenging rides that we do fitness wise, it will definitely max out your heart rate.

Here I am at the crossroads near the end of the most awesome section of downhill single track that is on the Tahoe Rim Trail. This is the reason we climbed the crazy amount of switchbacks so that we could come down this section rather than climb it.






This is a vista where you can see both Marlette Lake and Lake Tahoe. We took this picture using the delay setting on the camera, got the horizon a bit crooked which reminds me of a Todd Snider song...It's a Crooked Piece of Time that We're Livin In...

The wildflowers are still in bloom in sections of the trail. This is the last little climb out from Marlette Lake to the downhill that takes you to Spooner.

The hardest part of this trail is the climbing but there are several ways to do the loop and there is even a shuttle if you only want to do part of it. This recreation area makes me thankful I live where I do. It is only 20 minutes from our house and absolutely gorgeous.