Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

I have been trying to finalize plans for my thesis project. This task might have been made easier if my advisor was more involved in the decision making process, but with my current situation I feel like I am making a project which can be critically evaluated and still contribute something to my discipline. While I was technically on spring break this week, that really means nothing for someone who is working on their thesis and only misses one class this week because of break. I spent Monday and Wednesday working specifically on thesis plans, but parts of Thursday and Friday were spent finalizing work for a show at the ICA in San Jose.

Tuesday morning I woke up and realized it was spring break, and probably my last spring break ever. Not only that, but we haven't taken much advantage of being at home together with Paela these past few months. So we decided to drive out to Yosemite. After a brief evaluation of the drive out to Yosemite and a reminder that it was mid-March still, we felt that the road might be a bit too perilous and snowy -- something we forget about often after living in the bay area for so long.

Instead, we decided to drive around the bay, visiting some of our favorite haunts. We made a quick visit to the beaches at Half Moon Bay, giving Paela some opportunity to play in the sand. Her runny nose and the wind were a bad combination and after an hour or so, we continued up to Muir Woods on the other side of the Golden Gate. When I was single living in the bay area, I used to visit Muir Woods quite frequently (especially as a Sunday afternoon drive) and it was usually a quiet place for solitary thinking. When we got there Tuesday afternoon, the place was packed with cars lined all the way back to highway 1. I can only assume that some people think that a walk through some peaceful redwoods is a good way to spend their time when they aren't insanely drunk for spring break? Maybe?

Paela loves her walks through the forest. She would run ahead (or back) until someone stopped to talk with her and then she would run back to us. It completely exhausted her and she slept through our drive around Point Reyes. Point Reyes made me nervous. I had never visited before, but since it was free and we were in the area, I thought it might be cool to visit the lighthouse or see the elephant seals. Instead, it was terribly windy and I was paranoid an earthquake would happen. You see, Reyes Point is on the other side of the fault line and during the earthquake in 1906, the whole peninsula jumped 20 feet. And you can see the land slide areas along the beach. We eventually got back right in time for Paela's bedtime.

As I said before, Wednesday was spent up in Oakland doing research with a colleage on materials and design for my thesis project. I need to purchase some plastics, hoses and MDF board for building the structure. But after that day of running around the San Leandro area, we figured we should probably go visit the zoo on Thursday. Which is what we did. Paela likes elephants and petting the goat "nice." She got tired of sitting in the stroller for so long and walked for the second half of the zoo. I think we must have missed a good number of the exhibits because we forgot to pick up a map at the beginning and they don't have their directions printed on a sign. However, I doubt we will ever go back.

The rest of that day and for much of Friday, I worked on video production. Friday afternoon we drove down for one last campout at Lehi Park. It has been such a cool place to visit during our time here in the area. The people here have a great blessing to have access to these campgrounds; we've been really thankful to use them. This was the most social camping trip Rebecca and I have ever been on together. There were around 10 families who came to do service on Saturday, cleaning the campgrounds.

Paela had a few tantrums as well. She has hit her 'terrible two' stage early, I suppose. But after a tearful fit over controlling her spoon (with most of the yogurt on her pants instead of...anywhere else we could think of), we enjoyed the slides on the playground. This slide was perfect for her because it was wide enough and shallow enough that she could get on and off without much effort. A Paela who can do things herself is a happy Paela.