Hey everyone. I was planning on updating our neglected blog with a report on my China trip (got back a couple weeks ago). However, jet-lag hoarded my body and mind for several days and I’m just getting around to it. Unfortunately, more pressing topics need attention, so I’ll postpone a China post (but stay tuned).
For those of you who don’t know or weren’t sure, we live in La Crescenta. We just bought a house here this summer. La Crescenta is in the middle of the biggest wildfire in California right now. It started out as a ranger station fire in La Canada (our neighbors but no real physical boundary). It has spread to Tujunga to the west and now caught us in the middle.
We are OK. We bought next to the freeway, which didn’t seem like a perfect place as it has noise, but luckily the freeway is at the bottom of the small valley, so we’re far down from the fires up the hill. My dad’s house however, where I grew up and where my brother lives with his wife and four kids, is in serious danger. Yesterday my sister-in-law Becki brought carloads of valuables over to store in our garage (which was surprisingly close to being emptied out) and later brought the four kids down. My brother and father stayed to weather it out. At about 3:30am, Ryan called to tell me he was in my driveway – the police had just evacuated them. They used the loudspeaker from the patrol car as well as the reverse 911 phone system. My dad, decided to camp it out somewhere in in his shag-carpeted pickup truck – don’t worry, he loves that kind of stuff. We were just fortunate with the timing of our house (& size) to be able to fit everyone in.
So far the fire has not been contained much and tonight is creeping closer to the top of the house-line where my dad’s house is. We’re holding all the kids pets as well. School was supposed to start tomorrow but the whole district has cancelled school tomorrow. Yeah – another day to get ready. Actually we’re heading to my mom’s at the beach in Oxnard where Ryan and family went for the night. Here’s a few photos I took last night of what’s going on:
Megan is doing fine and we are looking forward to the birth of our daughter in another week. No signs of labor yet. She’s been a trooper.We’ve got our hospital plan in place and ready for it whenever it happens.
We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime I’ve posted a few of the photos I took last night and today. You can see more in my Facebook album at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033336&id=1402600995&l=43396719a4
Brett
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I’ve been travelling through Chinafor over a week now and the adventures continue. With little time to blog and slow, spotty internet connections I’ve only had time to fulfill the duty to keep the Discovery Student Adventures blog, but wanted to give a brief summary of my journey.
After spending about 4 touring Beijing we’ve left thef city for a more rural setting. We camped overnight in the village of Gubekoi where we woke up at 5am to hike the Great Wall. This is the most fantastic hike I’ve done (the Materhorn is close). We went through parts that required special permits, but we still had to get off the wall in the military zone and hiked through thick brush. The views were amazing as we hiked in the mist of the mountains. The up & down terrain kept our pace fast. Cliche as it sounds, it was an amazing experience.
We arrived yesterday in Shaolin, the birthplace of kung fu. Yesterday we went to the Shaolin temple where the students are taught by Buddist monks. The head monk spoke to us about the history of how both Buddism and kung fu was brought to China from India. We can see a monument way up on a hill where an Indian named Bodhidharma came and spent 9 years living in a cave, meditating. Sounds like creative torture to me. We have morning prayer and breakfast with him tomorrow, 4am.
We spent today at a newer kung fu school less than a mile from the temple. I’d seen video footage of these schools on a screen before but you have no idea just how ridiculous it is until you’re there with 6,000 boys (and about 5 girls) running around in red shirts and black track pants, shouting and doing drills in unison.
We spent the morning getting instructed by a group of scary-looking 19yr-olds you would not want to be on the other end of a bar fight. We learned a drill routine that takes about 20 seconds to run through if you’re fast. It took us 2 hours and enough sweat to fill up a swimming p0ol to learn. It was tough like yoga but they would stop and perfect our technique by moving our hands or feet or knees, holding a lunge the whole time.
Hot and humid understate the weather. I estimate that I’ve drunk about 50-60 water bottles (0.5L) in one week. Luckily they’ve got the perfect refreshment at every meal: tea and hot soup. I am going to come back and make my first million in this country with icemakers. Nothing is cold – not even the refrigerators.
The kids have been phenomenal on this trip. Kids from Wisconsin & New Jersey along with my CA kids have bonded like I’ve never seen before. They have formed one mass, dissolving the state lines and miles that separate them back home. Here, they’re all Westerners. I would travel with this group of kids again. We’ve fully enjoyed our journey and will be leaving China on Saturday.
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That’s how big our to-do list is. It’s almost as big as the unread email list since we’ve been without internet for over two weeks now (since we moved). AT&T gives you a 12-hour window to be home 8am to 8pm. I was there all day and they didn’t come, curse them!!
Here’s a short list of things we’ve accomplished along with the help of our fabulously generous friends:
- washed, primed, & painted entire upstairs including doorjams & trim
- installed a new master bath vanity cabinet & top along with plumbing
- installed shower door (via Lowe’s)
- installed new carpet (via Lowe’s)
- killed a bee’s nest living under garden shed
- cleaned out kitchen cupboards
- moved half our stuff into the house from garage
- installed 3 new windows (via California Deluxe Windows)
- Megan fashioned new curtains for all upstairs windows
- made 16 trips to Lowe’s & Home Depot
- bought hundreds of dollars in tools
Are we done yet? Will we ever be done?
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