She climbs

As the blurry cameraphone photo can attest, my mother did, indeed, rock climb. We found a place in Long Beach that has tons of top roping and doesn’t require a belay test, and spent a couple hours climbing and sweating. I’m proud of my mom for trying something new and doing so well, and proud of myself for somehow persuading her to do it!

That’s suction!

The other day I was complaining about my vacuum, so my father decided to send me a strange present — an industrial backpack vacuum. Now, on the one hand, it’s weird. On the other hand, it is awesome. Matthew was given the honor of the inaugural vacuuming. Here he is sucking all the dirt out of one unhappy couch cushion. Look at that grin. It’s because of the raw sucking power combined with the wonderfully convenient backpack form-factor. Not to mention this thing is built like a tank. I suspect it’ll last a good 20 or 30 years.