We're about to hike up. Tops in the background are 1,200 feet higher.

The kids and I spent the New Year's Eve at home, after Hippo's departure. I sat at my computer till midnight waiting for the neighbors to finally exhaust all rockets and firecrackers, so that I could go to bed. We have never really been partying around the turn of the year, and thus I was not missing anything. On January 1st we found ourselves at the airport again, this time to pick Pavel up. Tommy asked him whether he'd like to ride on the airport shuttle train. Pavel, with a stony face, replied that after twenty hours spent in the air he really did not long for anything else. Our children don't get sarcasm yet, and so we were bound to ride on the shuttle train. I must say our friends are very brave.

Martin and Bára came to entertain me in the evening. We drank a bit and Martin said that on the next day (Saturday), he could borrow the children (another brave friend) and let me and Bára climb. Later he admitted owning a electric train set, and all he lacked was an excuse (a small enthusiast) to pull them out of storage. I promised to lend the children out; what would you not do for your fellow man!

Kids enjoyed steps, bridges and a tunnel at Pinnacles.

Tom was absolutely joyous about this plan and I think that from the moment he saw through a crack in the door the boxes with rails, he tuned me out of his mind. Lisa does not entirely share Tom's railroading enthusiasm, but she worries that she might miss out on something worthwhile, and she, too, was quite eager to come visiting. Bára and I left in an old Subaru. It was my first ride in a car that Sid used to own when he came to America back in 1995 (already used then), which is still in service with Vanas. One good thing must be said about Subarus -- even back then, they knew how to make comfortable car seats.

Pavel, too, came to the climbing gym, as in the ski resort of Kirkwood, where he was about to go, a generator (or whatever) burnt out and ski lifts would not operate. Bára used to climb at younger age, and she actually outclimbed me in cracks. To explain -- I DO NOT like cracks and I have always been avoiding them. Just the thought gives me creeps: wedging my hand or the whole arm in, hoping that a) it will hold me and b) I will be able to later pull the hand out and use it again. Now when the guys kept laughing at me and threatened to not take me out climbing in Yosemite, I ordered crack gloves by Weingartel in December. They serve the purpose of being able to pull the hand out again with one's skin mostly still attached, while the integrated rubber and leather gets scraped (although I know some dudes who climb crack bare-skinned, sporting one big scar on each hand without much feeling left in it. I somehow tend to side with the opinion that climbing should be fun, not suffering).

Tom, Lisa, Kuba, Filip: little hikers in a hollow.

Cracks became my Nemesis before Christmas. Where even lesser climbers easily drift up, I was very un-elegantly fighting and subsequently giving up after a few inches. And now Bára, who had not climbed for many years, out-climbed me in a crack. What cheek! I tried to counter by dragging her through an overhang, which she mastered just as well; she fell off at some 5.11. Well, some are naturally gifted, others (like I) have to work hard on everything. At some point during our climbing, I asked about a saw. A tree grows in our front yard, which I believe to be a mulberry, and which requires all branches to be pruned in the winter. For a few last years, we had gardeners come and do it, but this year I have decided in the context of saving some money to do this chore myself. Bára had offered a hand-saw, Pavel offered a hand-saw, a ladder, and eventually (under a mild pressure) even himself, thus reinforcing his standing of a very brave friend.

In the evening I picked up my kids at Martin's place; I was obliged to admire the track layout the boys had put together, and then watch a train run on it. As he had the kids for the whole afternoon, and all I had to do was mere admiration, I think I got out cheap.

If you look carefully at the larger picture, Tom and Lisa can be found on the bridge.

On Sunday at two p.m. I grabbed Martin's saw and a ladder, and climbed up on our tree. It took me a while to discover the proper trick how to deal with the branches. Then Pavel came and started on the tree from the other side; things got moving. Kids surprised me, for they lasted most of the three hours, helping and dragging cut-off branches on a heap. Our activity completely fascinated our neighbors' eighteen-months-old Hudson, who currently completely admires Tom and whatever Tom does. Thus, for a fraction of the afternoon, we even had audience. I must mention that several women in the neighborhood showed up on the street -- I don't know if it could be attributed to the nice weather on a Sunday afternoon, or the fact that a STRANGE MAN was hanging out around our tree.

Beginning Monday, kids started school and preschool again, respectively. This left my mornings free, but my afternoons got proportionately busier. Lisa was rumbling sometimes that she missed her father. Tom wasn't rumbling, but hung onto me the more. He got whinier, kept coming to snuggle up, bothered me with things that he would normally managed on his own, wept about every little thing. The teacher at school asked me for how long his daddy will be away, as Tom was hard to control -- I reckoned he was giving her hard time as well. At times we had debates about our deceased granny - Tom has reached the age when he obviously understands the concept of death and needs to process it somehow.

There's always something to watch at the Seymour, like this baby shark.

Meanwhile my Hippo stayed in Prague and Brno, working out things about inheritance and funeral. He was not merry either, and the fact that we could not be together at the time like this, made things worse on both sides. Something positive came out of it after all -- our discovery how many good friends, I mean real friends, we have. Those who help out when you need it. From arranging the funeral (my mom), over organizing things around an apartment (Kroulák), through various errands and friendly company (Ivan in Brno, Martin, Bára and Vendula in California), to help cutting our tree (Pavel) and babysitting (Martin, neighbors, schoolmate mothers).

On Thursday we finally drove to pick daddy up -- the third time we found ourselves at the San Francisco airport in the space of a single week, and this time even Tom agreed not to ride up and down on the airport shuttle, only taking the two necessary stops between a parking garage and the terminal. Whining left our juniors miraculously with the arrival of their father, and in the evening they flew around the house like on broomsticks.

Weather improved a bit during the weekend and we all needed getting out. On Saturday we stopped at the ocean for a bit and on Sunday, which was likely the last good day of January, we arranged for a trip to Pinnacles with Tezaurs. We took our favorite Juniper Loop in the western part of the park. What was a strenuous hike for the kids at the edge of their capabilities about a year and half ago, with its twelve hundred feet of elevation gain, turned out an easy one this time. Having friends along makes a great difference, too -- Tom was excited to be with Filip again, they even walked hand in hand for a while. Lisa in the presence of older boys forgets to be a princess and whine, and thus she tirelessly jumped at the head of the team.

Our kids with a whiteboard at the aquarium. While another boy draws a whale skeleton, Lisa drew herself and Tom is figuring out a two story bridge with his obligatory "round" and "square" train engines.

In good time we had reached the top from which there is a great view in many directions; our favorite loop awaited us over rock-carved steps and bridges. Unfortunately we had no idea that Filip was afraid of heights, but eventually he managed alright. A tunnel through a tall rock was the highpoint; juniors run through it several times, though they seemed about to collapse from exhaustion only a few minutes earlier. I won't likely ever stop to be amazed by children's ability to regenerate -- after a snack break, the rest of our descend proceeded at a brisk pace and generally without whining or complaints.

My Hippo was told at work that he would travel to Japan in the second half of January, which was just what we wanted. I started getting ready for another week with totally out of balance, unhappy children, in a miserable weather, when one cannot do much outdoors. Hippo was to get another jet lag -- as he just recovered from a European time shift (minus nine hours), he was facing plus seventeen hours shift in Japan.

My newborn niece Elsa

We were trying to take advantage of the last weekend before his departure, but the weather did not play along. I somehow gained a feeling that this winter has been truly tiresome. Perhaps I am spoilt by previous years, when it was even freezing or raining, but only for a day or two, and then sunshine came back. This year's January is unpleasant and consistently creepy, sunny days can be counted on one hand -- and they're interleaved by long periods of gray sleet. Therefore we enjoy our mended roof holding together, and thank God for our neighbor Guillermo.

Still weather nixed all our plans, and we resorted to our obligatory trip to the train museum on Saturday and the aquarium in Santa Cruz on Sunday. Aquarium had an interactive center for kids open, juniors crafted paper weather vanes, colored some drawings etc.; our kids ended up near a whiteboard and drew upon it. A little boy who joined them picked to draw a whale skeleton, in line with the aquarium context. You may guess what our kids were drawing (Tom featured trains and Lisa made a princess followed by various "decorations").

Niece Elsa (left) and our Lisa (age 3 days, right).

Since the death of Hippo's mom, I don't like surprise phone calls. When my own mom called me on Monday, it shook me up a lot. I learned to expect things on the worse side. This time it was good news -- my sister Kristina has a baby girl. True, she had her about one month sooner than regular, but they were both alright, skipping incubators and intensive care. I became an aunt to little Elsa -- however in our scattered family it is a question how soon I am to see my niece -- my sister lives, of all places, in Spain, and it won't be simple. Elsa reminds me a lot of Lisa when she was a newborn, I only hope that she won't be as strong-headed and combative.

On Tuesday, after school, we took Sid to the airport. It was raining like crazy, so we just dropped him off in front of the building and did not attempt getting out of the van. It's only natural that several things happened instead of a proper farewell -- Sid was pulling out his luggage in the downpour, I was switching behind the wheel, a mother of Tom's schoolmate called in the same moment, cars were honking, traffic regulators were whistling, simply a madhouse. In the end I was glad to be able to leave the airport -- I was to drive in a storm, in a crazy traffic -- highway 85 was flooded and cars tried to find alternative routes, which clogged highway 280 as well, the one we took.

From Hippo's trip to Japan: shogun's palace Nijo in Kyoto.

The chaos continued for several more days -- fallen branches on the roads, power and internet outages, with me more or less reduced to staying indoor with the kids, for one could truly not venture outside. At least Vendulka loaned me a few movies for long winter nights (e.g. Summer with a cowboy), and thus I enjoyed watching romantic comedies that Hippo would not watch with me anyway.

On Friday, an e-mail by Hippo disquieted me, for he mentioned checking out of his hotel. Before his departure, he claimed to plan to return on Sunday. If you apply common sense, it would really seem that if somebody leaves Japan on Saturday EVENING, he would, after a nine hour flight, land on SUNDAY morning. Crossing a date line introduces chaos -- and closer inspection of his reservation confirmed that Hippo would land in San Francisco on SATURDAY morning -- i.e. actually BEFORE he departed from Japan. Well, he's lucky having married such a smashingly intelligent wife who discovered this kink soon enough to await her beloved husband at the airport on the correct day.

It would seem that with Hippos arrival, all ended well. And it might, had I not immediately after gone down with some nasty cold. My body seems to have worked while it was required to; in the moment a replacement showed up, my body succumbed to an illness. If at least it were a three-day sniffle, but it stupidly took me out for two weeks, and I could not recover for ages; I even stopped climbing! Then Lisa took over and smoothly continued in my illness, followed by Tom. Paradoxically, Hippo stayed the only healthy person, despite his loitering in the crowded Japan and going through airports full of people from who knows where, and weakened by a jet lag. Either he is simply tougher, or he simply was not exposed to as many school-bound microbes as were the rest of us.

Hippo's trip to Japan is briefly described in the Japanese gallery.