Sunday, December 18, 2011

Tis the season for band concerts

Since the first semester of school ends on Tuesday for Mesa Public Schools, the band concert season has been going at full speed.

Lexi first had a concert two weeks ago at Dobson High School. The Dobson band director invites the local junior high bands to play for them as a way to encourage the students to continue playing when they get to high school. Yes, Lexi starts high school next year. Here is the Rhodes JHS Concert Band portion of the program:


Then Lexi had her normal holiday band concert this past week:

Rhodes JHS Outdoor Ed

This year Steven went to the Rhodes JHS Outdoor Ed camp near the Tonto Rim Creek past Payson with Lexi and over 115 8th graders. The weather start off being much warmer that it was two years ago when I went with Lindsey, but then it got interesting.

The first thing we did when we arrived was have lunch and then head up to the fish hatchery. On the way back, a teacher that does not usually lead the "hard hike" back for the campers looking for a challenge lead us (I was in the back making sure we did not leave anyone behind on the hike) got us lost several times. After blazing our own trail and maintaining radio contact with the camp, we made it back only a little later than we were supposed to.

Again, Steven was the "Firegod" in charge of building and maintaining the cooking fires for the cooking class. So I spend the next two days playing with fire. However, Lexi was out having fun on the zip line and mountain scooters (see helmet cam video below).

On Wednesday night, one of the teachers set up his telescope and the kids got to see multiple moons around Jupiter and it was dark and clear enough that you could also see Milky Way star bands in the sky.

On Thursday, Steven was done with the fire and was able to hang out with Lexi for a couple of her classes such as crafts and athletics. This is when the weather changed from sunny (as it has been all week) to snow and sleet.

On Friday morning, we woke up to about three inches of snow which made packing up a bit interesting.

Lexi on the zip line:


Lexi on mountain scooters:


Some of my pictures from the week:

Post Thanksgiving Bike Ride

After having such a great ride at the Tour de Scottsdale in early October, I have been wanting to work on the part of my ride that needs the most work - climbing. The day after Thanksgiving I pedaled over to South Mountain to train. My goal is be able to go up and down the mountain five times in one ride by the end of the spring. On this day, I put in two rides and felt good enough for a third, but had to pass since I had to get home to work on some other things.

Here is what the first ride looked like (sped up of course):