Back to School and Long Weekend Already

JT started first grade last week. Interestingly, his teacher was also his teacher at the German preschool when he was in the three-year old class. He seems to be happy so far, although on the first day he said that the math they do is even easier than Kindergarten. "Count the number of triangles and there were only three!" Somehow I think it isn't going to be too much of a challenge for him.
We'll see what they say when he turns in his reading log this week - they are supposed to read or be read to 20 minutes a day. JT usually gets that in on the way to school and does some more later. This weekend on our camping trip he read for hours and hours - and finished Harry Potter year 3 and is now on to Harry Potter year 4. He needs a good age-appropriate series to read next. He still enjoys Geronimo Stilton and LOVES Star Wars, especially the graphic novel books based on the Clone Wars. He read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but it didn't grab him.
Also, why is he not smiling in this picture? Mr. Burli drove him to school the first day and did the pictures. Where was I? I have no idea. Perhaps I was getting Tiny ready to go? I dropped him off and then went to teach myself.
So one week back and already a long weekend. We went camping near Julian. We stayed at a private campground since everything public had been booked up months and months before we finally got around to booking about a month ago. It worked out fine and the site was nice and shady - which was good because it was hot!

Tiny managed to fall off the picnic bench a few times, so he had to have his own eating spot on the cooler. The site was on a slope and covered in gravel (which they had recently renewed - at the bottom of our site was a small mountain of leftover gravel the kids loved to play on) - which meant that there were several slips but the dust was kept to a minimum.

We tried to go hiking the first morning, but JT and I wilted soon after the first 10 minutes. Eventually we found some shade and picnic'd before taking a more scenic route back down Volcan mountain.

Mr. Burli was worn out. The kids entertained themselves with legos and frisbee games on the gravel hill and playing with 2 girls at a nearby site.

The last night a few drops of rain started falling on our tent as we were sleeping. Mr. Burli and I quickly slipped on the rain fly and went back to bed. The tent was dry in the morning, but after we packed up and had a lovely breakfast at the Julian coffeehouse and started home, it started to rain more. Rain! I am not sure when it last rained. Maybe May? At home the water coming off the roof into the rainbarrel was dirty from all the dust and grime accumulated on the roof.

This scene looks so thirsty - I am sure the plants enjoyed the rain. (Of course, when the rain ended Tuesday morning, it would have been nice to have a cool day - but no, it was 98 and humid! Hopefully this heatwave will break tomorrow because my classroom at City College is a sauna - broken air conditioner and construction going on outside. One student already collapsed and had to be helped to the nurse's office!)

What else did we do on our camping trip? 

Mr. Burli and JT took a tour of the Palomar Observatory. Tiny and I explored the grounds and sent all my change down the gravity well in their small museum. 

And we went apple picking! A little earlier than our usual visits - and much hotter. No family picture of us wearing jeans. Maybe we will have to stage one later! We also ate apple pie twice. That was enough for... oh, a couple days or so.