Lisa in her school play, cast as the Red Riding Hood's grandmother.

Lisa's Pegasus.

By the end of April, one can feel the end of the school year in the air; tests are being completed, extra-curricular activities phase out, field trips and other school-avoiding happenings abound. Lisa's theater was the first harbinger, for it had culminated in its final public performance. This time, Lisa had been cast into somewhat greater role, playing Red Riding Hood's grandmother, who testifies in a court in favor of the bad wolf. The Bad Wolf is actually not bad at all, for he's ecologically aware instead. Fortunately the script was written with wit and humor, not really reminiscent of an agitprop piece of a socialist labor task force from our dark past, as it may seem at a first glance. And Lisa has been truly enjoying theater, and showing some skills. She has a presence, can carry herself, gestures naturally, and (mostly) remembers her lines. She overall stands a bit apart from our family, for besides theater she does drawing+painting, and some of her compositions are not bad at all.

On the last weekend in April, we had organized a trip to Pinnacles — one must go early in the year before bats begin nesting and the caves, the most prominent attraction there, become closed for public. It is possible to bypass the cave trail, but such endeavor smacks too much of hiking. You see, if you go on a hike, your legs will ache and you get horribly tired, while crawling with a head-lamp up a staircase in the dark alongside an underground waterfall isn't tiresome at all, and nothing aches afterwards. Alas, Lisa was so excited by Julia's and Oliver's presense that she kept running and jumping on the way back until she hit a ceiling of one small cave with her head. She had grown since the previous year and now she appears too tall to stand up straight in those caves.

Expedition to Pinnacles.

Walking in the caves is no hiking - your legs won't ache.

On May 17, there was the annual Wings of History day at the San Martin airport. We have been helping there for years now with balloons, which means getting up early. I tried to get everything ready on the evening before, I even made my offspring prepare their clothes. Tom surprised me, for he had set up his alarm-clock, jumped up, changed, brushed his teeth and was ready to go in a record time — he's usually the one with a slow start, needs a lot of time in the morning and often remains unusable thereafter. He was probably so much looking forward to go ballooning that he managed getting up! Curious, how with advancing kids' ages more and more things become much easier.

The day at the Wings of History proceeded as expected. First we had to stand around, until Jennifer arrived and we began building balloons. Some departed, but two remained tethered, and subsequently kept loading visitor one basket at a time, giving them rides up and down. Several friends of our kids also showed up, and so they could be instructed importantly, what to do. They all worked to earn a flight of their own. A belated breakfast ensued then; Tom excused himself for a while and disappeared to make an obligatory balsa model plane. He completed it on his own this time, and balanced it so well that it would fly beautifully.

Later at home we crawled back to bed in the afternoon (at least we, old and tired parents — Tom parked himself at a computer and Lisa in front of our T.V.); our friends Táňa and Tomáš arrived in the evening, being on their journey through California, and so we had fun chatting company. On Sunday we twisted our visitor's arms to accompany us on a small hike to Borel Hill, releasing them subsequently on their continuing trip toward San Francisco, while we were invited to a birthday party of one of our kids' friend. All this socializing in one weekend was somewhat overwhelming. It does not really compare with any real sports activity like skiing, but nevertheless I fell in my bed on Sunday evening like a log.

Kids flew...

...but also helped with the balloons.

The last May weekend is extended by Memorial Day — a Monday off that traditionally offers the first true opportunity of the season for camping — assuming weather plays along. This year it did, and we talked our friends to join us on our trip; I reserved horses at Leavitt Meadows. Our first way-point was a Chinese restaurant in Sonora, the second our usual campsite above the pack station. The pack principle took over all the kids; they scattered around in the woods, scrambled on rocks, explored a creek and collected firewood. We went to check out horses at the pack station and confirm our ride for the next day. Soon we had to return and start roasting sausages. Unfortunately, I developed a horrible headache that night and since it continued in the morning, it became clear it was not caused by a mere altitude. I received a brutal common cold attack, and the rest of the weekend remains somewhat out of focus for me.

Of the Svajdas, only Julia had ridden a horse before, and it was the first time for the rest of their family. The resulting verdict is undecided — Oliver and Mirek said they can easily leave horses alone next time, Julia and Luba demanded more; yet Craig had been booked for this weekend, and we will have to postpone it till September. After the performance we refreshed ourselves at Hays Street Cafe, continuing with a hike to Virginia Lakes. There had been some spring-time snow and rain on the previous weekend it this part of the Sierra Nevada, and we could only make it up to the prospector's cabin, for the trail disappeared under snow afterwards. Given my developing sickness I wasn't really disappointed.

Campfire's ready.

Horse ride at Leavitt Meadows.

I was hoping that soaking in a hot spring would help me, but the subsequent night was even worse than the first one. I was getting up quite early in the morning only because I could not sleep and needed to arranged myself upright to stop suffocating. Lisa got up with me, we made our breakfast enjoying the silence. Mirek followed soon, surprised that he was not the first. For much of that time, a deer had shared the quiet morning with us, who decided to not let people interfere with her grazing at the campsite meadow. After about half hour I resolved to take a picture — only my raising the camera made her turn her back to me and walk away among the bushes.

Since all the children were bound to be back at school on Tuesday, we decided to pack before noon and embark on our way back. We would stop on a river bank along the road and let the kids play some more, which should afford us a decent time of arrival back home. Well, it wasn't the best of ideas. We got stuck in a traffic jam near Jamestown, apparently caused by local police efforts to regulate an intersection. Memorial Day is known to be one of the worst weekends traffic-wise, and we had obviously chosen a bad timing. A lesson for next time.

About half way home, Tom remembered that he had left his wrist watch by the river. We tried to explain to him that we would not be turning back and driving another hundred miles through the congestion just to recover a cheap watch, and he cried. Well, that's life. We could expect it: Tom wears his watch, but keeps taking it off (e.g. at school during a break) and puts them down in random places — losing them was only a matter of time.

Virginia Lakes (Blue Lake).

One must properly celebrate the last day of school.

The last two weeks of school were truly demanding — special happenings all the time, of which I was learning at the last moment, including requirements like "I need a green t-shirt tomorrow", plus many e-mails from school asking for volunteers. I admit I still don't understand the difference between a Field Day and an Olympic Day (both consist of kids running around on the school field). I had also found quite asinine to plan another outdoors event, a Gold Rush for the fourth-graders, in hottest time of the day — the afternoon. Fortunately the gold fever turned out rather erratic; kids could choose which of the several stations they engaged, and I had wisely volunteered for gold panning located in a shade. Tom soon landed there and remained purposefully digging in pools full of water (and sand and faux gold), effectively eliminating any chance of a heat stroke. When I asked after it all ended, what to do with all those buckets of water and sand, I was told to simply dump them right there on the field. Great — for the remaining few school days, most children spent their time digging in the sand on the field, continuing to search for "gold" (and therefore remaining wonderfully nice, instead of dithering around).

The end of school brought report cards — nothing surprising here, both kids do great, and there's not much to deal with. Just like last year, I had organized a celebratory trip for our children and their friends to San Lorenzo River. Its water was icy, but there are rope swings strategically located above the pools. This year, nature has presented the kids with a large log caught in a pool over a rapid, and they spent most of the time pushing it up and down and around. I chatted with Iris — another friendly mom, who brought the other half of the expedition — and enjoyed myself, aware that soon there would be time when puberty takes over, and our offspring would no longer simply enjoy an afternoon on the river.