Merry Christmas from Tenaya Lake!

With Tioga Pass open and rumors of smooth ice on Tenaya Lake, we decided to take advantage of a day off of ski team (Sierra is a J6 on the Mammoth Mountain Ski Team) and go ice skating!  Although we have skied across the lake before on ski tours into Tuolumne Meadows and from Mammoth to Yosemite Valley, ice skating on Tenaya Lake is a rare treat.

The ice was very smooth, which made for great skating.  As we skated around the lake, we stopped to talk to friends, met the winter rangers (also on skates), and were invited to join a pick up hockey game taking place on the west side of the lake.  We skated until the sun began to set, then headed home.  Merry Christmas!

The Verdict is In!

School board meeting or circus?  Seems like an obvious choice!  Given those two options, what child (or adult, for that matter) wouldn't choose to go to the circus?

Yes, the circus was in town, and Sierra had a free pass for the evening.  But the school board meeting was also scheduled for this evening, and the Board was deciding on my request for a leave of absence to hike the PCT with Sierra.  Although we reassured Sierra that the Board could make the decision whether she was at the meeting or not, she wanted to be there.

Sitting in the meeting while the Board debated our request, I had a sense of how a defendant must feel when the jury goes out to consider the verdict.   But in the end, the Board was very supportive.  The verdict is in:  we're hiking!