You know you’re having a tough childhood when the end of the school year is almost here and your class goes for a field trip to the beach. I can see everyone is having a truly terrible time.

Gabe did awesome at his school play about The Shortcut. He really enjoyed being a mountain man and saying his lines with a heavy southern accent. We’re still talking about Jim Bridger and their great journey.

A few shots of the latest garden action around the house. We’ve come to refer to the century plant blooming as an indication of alien plant activity. Sure looks like some kind of interstellar signaling apparatus to me.

Today’s hike sees some of the girls enjoying Fall Creek over in Felton. All that rain is still pouring out the mountain.

Charlotte loves hiking in the hills with her friends so much, it’s her idea of a perfect Mother’s Day. And since she gets whatever she wants on Mother’s Day, that’s exactly what she did this morning. Back home a few small gifts with flowers from the garden to get her all choked up. Next stop on the parade of whatever Charlotte wants to do is the beach. I’m certainly not going to argue about one of my favorite places to go. It’s such a beautiful day that we have no trouble finding lots of company. ...

It’s time for our annual fundraising bicycle ride again. The ride is a great excuse to ride with friends and raise money for our schools at the same time. Charlotte puts in a huge amount of effort every year for this event, and it really shows. The ride was a little smaller this year, but we still raised loads of money. A few rest stop shots Charlotte took while she handled SAG for the 50km ride. ...

Charlotte, Sonia, and Cindy are off for a hike at Pogonip and up to UCSC. A nice pond and some wildflowers along the way look like they made for a very nice walk. A brave and very large gopher is busy making a mess of things.

Matt and I are off to Yosemite to enjoy an amazing day in one of the most fabulous places anywhere. It’s a great chance to spend a big block of time discussing work at the same time we get in some photography. The weather cooperated nicely and the water was really flowing. Yosemite falls were really raging. I thought the kids would like this cloud man waving to us. ...

Charlotte headed out to Monica’s track meet over in Scotts Valley after school today. Not sure how the whole team did, but Monica did great in her events including the discus.

Time for our second trip out on the bay with our new boat Nemo. This trip’s firsts include Gabe and actually doing some fishing. Other than forgetting to unclip the trailer bow hitch and no fish, it turned out to be a very successful trip. We made it out to Soquel Hole along with almost fifty other boats, though mooching didn’t produce any bites. We’ll start trolling after a few more learning trips I think. ...