You know getting married and having a family will change you forever...you just never realize how much.
Was there even life before kids? We can't remember...
Yes....its true...the Martins own a minivan :( Do I need to say more?
Now Blake can't ever say I didn't buy her a really nice present. See, doesn't she look happy and grateful? The car seats are huge these days and our Camry wouldn't fit 3 across in the back seat....so it was unavoidable. It really is nice to have for a family. The kids love it, and its convenient for Blake too, even though there is a definite stigma with owning a minivan. There's no turning back now.
The heat has been unseasonably hot for nearly a week, the weather reports blaming the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico for freezing the high pressure over Southern California. Each day the temperature seemed to get a degree or two hotter. But the hurricanes did something else too. They brought some monster surf to a world famous spot on our local beach called "The Wedge" in Newport Beach. The surf there piles up against the jetty and brings waves many times bigger than other spots on the same beach, and when there is a storm out in the ocean the waves are enormous. But unlike huge waves like the pipeline, the waves at the Wedge are usually a mess as the waves bounce off the side of the Jetty and the backwash collides with new incoming waves. Its exciting and completely unpredictable. Take a look at typical storm condition surf, where the waves just destroy anyone in the way.
This one shows perfectly how messy the waves are, most peaking in odd places and closing out on all sides.
Of course I couldn't leave the beach without a little swim so I dove in, intending to stay on the right side of the wedge, just catching the side of the big guys, but the backwash is so enormously powerful that it sucks you directly back into the middle of the wedge. The most terrifiying part of the area is that the current pulls inward from both sides so if you get caught in an early part of the set, you are pulled straight back into the center of the next one. I only found out after breathlessly escaping from 3 pounding waves that you are required to have fins to swim there:) I won't forget for next time... After all your strength is pounded out of you from the first waves pummelling you don't feel you can hold your breath as the rest of the set pounds your chest. I really felt lucky to escape only short of breath. Fins would have been helpful...
Blake said she had contractions the whole time we were there. I found her the highest spot on the beach and dug two walls and trenches of sand to keep larger waves back, but the waves were so big and unpredictable you really didn't feel like you were far enough away. In my 10 years of coming here I've never seen summer waves that topped the berm above the waves. Its always been dry. You can see Emmy standing on what is always the dry shelf, many many feet above the water level: I have to say though, I was quite proud to have engineered walls that kept her seat (look at the spot below the umbrella) dry when a huge wave snuck up on everyone. The wave came so close to washing our stuff away that Blake just didn't feel comfortable sitting back down hoping that was the biggest one of the day so we moved our stuff back, but you can see the nice dry spot where she had been sitting. Is that a proud husband protecting his 8 month pregnant wife or what!!! :) Blake is rolling her eyes as she reads this right now.... LOL Beside us a family with a newborn baby ran away, leaving their bags and towels to get soaked. Some boys behind us lucked out becuase our walls diverted the wave and kept an area dry where their stuff was left while they swam.
You can get an idea of the size of the waves from a couple shots Blake took while I swam showing a swell piling up against the jetty and then the size of the mess after it broke, with me underneath somewhere... You can see in both pictures tiny little heads of stupid people floating in the water...what a rush!
The weekend got calmer from there, and thank goodness because Blake was going to go into labor nearly 2 months early:)
The only thing bad about the rest of the weekend was the heat. We shouldn't complain about the heat because it isn't nearly as bad as the East Coast with heat and humidity, but it was getting hard to bear day after day, especially with no A/C in the apartment. We usually don't need it, but the 95-100 degree days made the only pleasant place the local mall. Apparently everyone had that idea because our favorite indoor play area was packed with kids and tired parents. That didn't stop the kids from having fun though:) They seem to love the chaos of kids bouncing off each other as they jump from place to place.
We didn't last long because even the malls had turned down their A/C to save electricity and it was so crowded. We luckily had a party to go to for Labor Day, and thank goodness they had A/C.
We stayed until dark:) Emmy had a great time playing with her friend Meyleh.
Gage found plenty to do as usual.
Gage wasn't sure what to do about the new baby, except stay as FAR away as possible!
But Emmy, in typical big sister fashion knew just what to do and started reading and talking to him, and made sure he didn't roll off.
I took a day off on August 13th to spend some time with the fam since I'd neglected them so badly over the weekend and selfishly spent Saturday hiking instead. I also needed some recovery time after the big hike since I don't work out much anymore. My legs were pretty sore for a couple days.
We had a great trip to our favorite local beach on Balboa in Newport Beach. It was all the more fun because I knew everyone else was at work instead.
I'll just leave this as pictures since noone really cares what I think anyway:)
Caution - Nudity Involved (but don't worry, its not me!) (Click a picture to enlarge and view separately)
For those who come here for pictures of the kids (that's pretty much everybody) you can ignore this post as this one's just for me:)
I've been planning a hike up Mt. Baldy for a few months now and was so excited to actually go. It isn't a long hike as far as distance goes with only about 11 miles round trip. But the elevation gain is almost 4000 feet so its pretty much straight up the whole way. Adam decided he didn't want to take the trail so we went straight up the ski lift for the first mile or so to the lodge. He calls it a good "warm up" even though its over 1000 feet up in just a mile.
It doesn't look steep, but it gets worse fast! View from the bottom:
Looking back from half way to the lodge.
Above the lodge the view started to get much better
Devil's backbone was my favorite part.
The trail went right up the ridge with great views off both sides.
The only bad part was the crazy strong wind that tried to push you off the backside drop off..
We made the summit by just after 9:30 so 3 hrs.
The view from the summit is hard to capture in photos. Its really the 360 view that is amazing.
We sat for 45 minutes and enjoyed the view, though I had to put on my long sleeve. The wind was strong, and pretty chilly at 10,000 feet.
I thought we'd be fast going down, but we took our time, mostly because I kept finding rocks to pick up:) Adam was patient with me though seriously every 5 feet I'd see one I just HAD to examine:) This one was like 3 feet across and looked like a chunk of meteorite that stuck in the dirt Actually, I think its a schist....but I'm not a geologist, just a dork who likes rocks a bit too much. Adam calls it "a problem" but I wouldn't go that far, though my little pack did get so full of rocks by the time we made it to the lodge that it was tough to carry with one arm. You really had to wear it or pick it up with two hands. I ended up packing out 25 or 30 pounds of rocks.
I could feel my feet starting to blister a bit, probably cause I wore cotton socks and running shoes. The cotton held in the sweat and softened up my untrained skin. I convinced Adam to take the chairlift down the last mile and carry my rock-laded bag. Then my senses escaped me and I decided I would race him down on foot:) I did actually beat him pretty easily, but that last leg (1000 drop in five minutes of running) really did me in after a long hike. I got a couple nice blisters too. My feet were burning up after the run down from the lodge so I was happy to spot a cool spot on a creek to cool my feet.
Of course within a few days Adam and I were making plans for climbing Mt Whitney. It isn't tall at over 14,000 feet, but its the tallest in the lower 48 and no equipment needed. It will be a great one to conquer. And poor Blakey thought this hike would get the urge out of my system for awhile. It just fed the beast though.... there's no turning back now:)
