California McMillans

It's great working in Brentwood again because I enjoy dropping off the boys at school.  We ride bikes, they make a big skid in front of the bike cage, and then I walk onto campus with them to talk with my friends.  They looked so cute today in their matching fun run shirts that I had to take their picture.  Scott, who is motivated by money, was real into getting sponsors for his fun run.  He raised lots of money and got the prizes he fancied.  Tyler wasn't into the prizes as much but did 36 laps and was happy about that. Good times.

Mr. Photogenic turned 7 last Thursday.   We celebrated at the Clayton Skipolini's with Pop, Heather, and her kids.  I'm really proud of Tyler because although he has a short fuse, he seems to have a lot of insight that other kids his age don't have.  Like, he talks about the future a lot.  He enjoys sports.  He seems to have friends at school and is doing well academically.  When we rode bikes to school on his birthday, people wished him a happy birthday and he looked them in the eyes and said with a smile, "Thank you."   Heather got him a razor trike (like a big wheel) with unfixed rear casters so he can drift.  He also got some legos, clothes, a helmet, nerf gun, pocket knife, tape measure, and RC helicopter.  About the knife--the boys were real into carving pointy sticks on our camping trip so Tyler asked for his own knife.  I wanted to get him a Swiss-army type but China Freight didn't have any, so I got him a lock blade that used box cutter b

Had a great labor day weekend camping at Big Trees State Park in Arnold, CA.  I wanted to see the redwoods and Heidi got the last available campsite which was handicap access.  We drove up on Saturday, pitched the tents, and did the north point hike to see some of the big Sequoia trees, which can grow over 300 feet tall and have huge trunks.   I think this is a stump from a Sugar Pine but is still pretty big. You can't really tell but this cut stump is over 20 feet in diameter. The root system of a fallen Sequoia.  They spread laterally 150 feet but only 6-8 feet deep. The ranger told us to stay on the trail, but no one was around and there were footprints everywhere, so I let them climb up on this Sequoia. Scott was always looking forward to the next thing.  We wanted him to just enjoy what he was doing at the moment.  I didn't realize it when I took this picture but he's probably 20 feet in front of the tree and it still looks mammoth.  Imp