Our Own Dragon Ninja, Pictures of the Forest Fire and other January Adventures(and a cat!!!)

 In January Zane started taking Dragon Ninja classes at a gym in Hanford.  Its a cross between gymnastics and parkour.  He loves it.  This has been our first jump into extracurricular activities and so far it's a success, I just need a teleporter to get us back and forth, its a bit of a drive but the gym comes highly recommended.  

Jumping onto the pommel from a spring board

Swinging across the parallel bars

He gets to swing on the bar into a foam pit

Working on the cartwheels

The rings

More rings

Obstacle course(he adds a lot of extra somersaults)

Springboard into a somersault

In the middle of January we found ourselves hitting a few beaches with the Anackers.  The first beach we ventured to was Abalone Cove, it is famous for it's tide pools, which we came to the conclusion are completely submerged except for about an hour at very low tide.  So we didn't get to explore them, but as we left the beach the tide was low enough around some rocks that we got to see a bunch of sea anemones.  

The tide pools are the rocks in the distance

The surf was really strong so the kids could only go ankle deep

Sea Anemone

Searching the rocks for sea creatures

We decided to head up the coast to Santa Monica beach.  This is the typical southern California beach with miles and miles of sand and a million people in the summer.  Thankfully for us it wasn't super crowded, the surf was perfect and the kids had a great time playing in the water.  

Santa Monica Beach

Digging in the sand

Zane and Henry sitting in the holes they dug

Zane and Evie playing in the surf

We were able to take a hike to Pierce Pond which is just to the east of us over a small ridge.  During the wildfire this last fall, the fire burnt right to the top of that ridge, about 1/4 of a mile from the middle of camp.  It was very interesting and sobering to see the extent of the damage of the fire so close to us.  Some areas still had spots of green and others were scorched bare.

The fire burned east all the way to Big Baldy in the background

The trail to Pierce Pond

Out in the meadow, you can see behind Casey one spot where the fire made it through the trees

Jumping from hummock to hummock across the meadow

The fire made some interesting burns

We stopped at Hartland's cross on the hill on the way home

Our last adventure of the month was getting a cat.  Zane has wanted a pet for a very long time.  We found Callie on craigslist.  She was abandoned at an apartment complex, so we don't have much history on her.  She's pretty timid and wants to hide a lot.  So currently she's an indoor only cat as we develop a bond with her.  She does love being petted but is still unsure of us.  Zane loves her!!

Callie

Hanging out on her cat box we made her 

That wraps up the month of January, enjoy until next month.