Social Bubble Hiking

For July, I joined the step challenge initiated at work and was averaging over 20k steps everyday. I discovered the hiking trails that are easily accessible around the area. With some safety measuer, we started family hiking as our social bubble event. So far, we still feel more comfortable only interact with family members.

This is the Las Trampas trail that we have become very familiar with. After a steep climb, the trail presents awesome view through its ridge trails.

Max and I found some time to fix his uniform by removing the Cub Scouts Den number and sewing on the Scout Rank. With some nudge, he earned his Scout rank smoothly after joining the troop 805.

This time we took Max with us on the Las Trampas hike, with mom waiting in the car.

This is the third hike at Las Trampas. We went on a hiking trail but got side tracked. We ended up climbing this hill to get our bearing right.

This is our standard gear for hiking these days. Even though I don't think the mask makes much difference in outdoor and with enough space for social distancing, it seems to be a good idea to wear it and keep everyone comfortable. Plus, from time to time, you do need to cross each other on narrow trails.

This is the Tasajara Ridge trail that I have discovered. It is really cool that within half an hour, you can walk into an area like this.

Max does not realy look forward to hiking. But whenever we get him out, he is always in good spirit.

As a family, we came to this trail several times after dinner. It is great to watch the moon and the sunset from here.

Lastly, we took this picture and put it next to the one from the year when Renee was born.

One year older and outing limitde

The fourth month into shelter-in period. Year 2020 will definitely be a year we all remember. We continue to do things online and spend weekends with limited outings.

Renee and Max joined the Scouts BSA's service project to make masks for the medical workers. This has turned out to be a pretty inefficient work, with one scout making one mask every hour. But they are motivated to do it, and we have knowledgable volunteers to instruct them. It went smoothly.

We took them to Alameda during one weekend to watch the kite surfing. But they were more interested in playing on the sandy beach.

Renee showed off her flexibility again. She has been sort of keeping up with her practices at home.

Here is Renee blowing off her cake.

Here is Max blowing off his.

New Norm on Month Three with Virtual Campin

It is hard to tell what is norm.  But on third month, we have some patterns established to live under the roof literally most of the time. We continue our hikes in low traffic areas and attended the Scouts National Campin event.

Boy Scouts of America arranged a "National Campin" event.  Renee and Max joined the event.  Even though we are just camping in the backyard, we tried to make it like the previous campout events, including preparing for the menu.

Renee and Max pulled the tent together all by themselves.

I happen to have the sawhorse with me.  So we set it up in the backyard and Max got a chance to practice.

In fact, I didn't touch my Van after the Scout Skills event was canceled at the beginning of the shelter-in-period.  So we have the axe and the wood for cutting practice.

BSA was streaming the program for the entire day.  We put the laptop inside the tent and watched a few of them.

Renee is quite experienced in cooking with the past camping events.  This time, Max joined and served as an assistant cook.

We sat next to the tent and ate the food that Renee and Max made.

This is another weekend when we went out for a five mile hike through a route I plotted through Danville.

Here is another weekend when we went out for a bike ride on the Iron Horse Trail.

We went to pick cherry in Brentwood.  The experience is quite different since we cannot eat them there and we didn't want to touch too many things.

On the last day of school, Renee and Max made the signs and took this picture.  The last two months of school are very strange.  We tried our best to keep them engaged but we still wonder how much they have missed out.