8/29-9/7 Burning Man "The American Dream"

We were not virgins this year, we were experienced Burners, we arrived again in the middle of the night, Black Rock Desert here we come. We stayed in Kidsville again, a village of 130 families or so and this year we were very excited that my best friend Alexis was camping with us and bringing her kids. The best news of all was that we were right next to Camp Nectar, yoga every morning at 9 under the big parachute kept me very happy. I did venture out to another camp that had Kundalini one morning, but the teachers at Nectar mostly San Francisco yogis were the bomb! I also got a Thai massage and took a partner Thai massage workshop, lucky me, my partner was a physical therapist from San Diego who uses Thai massage in his practice everyday! He could have taught the class, I learned a lot from him. Camp Nectar hosted an Erotic Tantric Touch workshop for couples that Steve and I checked out, very cool. We survived 2 all day gnarly dust storms, the dust was an inch high everywhere in the motorhome, all part of the complete Burning Man adventure. The boys had a blast playing with the 50 or so kids their age in Kidsville, the trampolines, the mini thunderdome battles, water fights, loads of fun. We hooped, we danced, we explored the playa and watched all the beautiful people express themselves though art, dress, music, fire, it was delicious to all the senses.
One of our neighboors that it would be so fun to blast Eye of the Tiger every morning at 6:30am and wake everyone with a one mile radius up, it was harder to appreciate that expression. I really ventured out and attending loads of fun workshops this year; Opening to the Goddess, Feminine Submission, Eye gazing, Sensual massage, Resistance Play (I got to wrestle with several girls in this one, so much fun!) and a few too spicy to mention here..
Our conclusion was that Burning Man is not optional, we need it, it offers something nothing else does, it is a stripping away of conditioning like nothing else, it frees you, opens you, exposes you, and if you can endure that stripping away.. you discover underneath it all... YOU

the rest of August..

I am officially 6 weeks behind in this blog.. so to catch myself up.. we spent a week or so driving across Utah & Nevada, sweating, it was over 100 degrees and us with no AC.. we went from pool to pool.. air conditioned movie theater to bookstore to children's museum.. we spent several days in Carson City and hit a hot springs there too.
We met up with Steve and headed for Sacramento to attend a 4 day Homeschool Conference that we went to last year. It was so great, swimming, nice hotel room, tons of fun with friends, so many activities for the kids and great speakers for us as well.
We picked up Marcella who babysat for the boys for several years until she moved to Sacramento and she spent a few days with us, that was great. Reese got to do live action role play games, kind of D&D live, with homemade swords and battle plans galore. He also dazzled and delighted at the talent show with his hula hooping and acrobatics.
Luc painted, sculpted and lego'd himself ad infinitum, we saw lots of friends from Southern California and got reconnected to our unschooling peeps.. My favorite were the radical unschooling panels, I got very inspired to let go even more.
Control is a substitute for love.. I was reminded, feels so good to let go of control, most of the time.

After the conference we headed for Lake Tahoe where we had a condo booked and my girlfriend Colleen and 4 of her kids came up for a week to be with us. Massive relaxation is what we did, we did not leave the condo for 4 days, we swam, ate and played games galore, that is my kind of vacation. Finally we drive a whole mile away to play at Lake Tahoe, beautiful but chilly. We rented a kayak, a jetski and lounged at the beach.
We also enjoyed a tour of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, learning all about the lake, how it evolved and how they keep it blue.. Colleen and I really enjoyed the tour.. just so happens a reporter was with us on the tour and she took photos of Luc and Iman for her newspaper article.. http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=823838

Luc did his first mosaic tile project at our condo, he made a coaster for his dad and grouted it, polished it, the whole deal, it is magnificient! After a week we headed for Reno to shop for Burning Man and on Aug 29th in the middle of the night we drove to the Black Rock Desert .. very excited..

8/6/08 more photos..

8/8/08 Arches National Park, UT

After 2 weeks traveling through Colorado, we crossed into Utah and headed to Moab and passes by Arches.. I had no idea.. The most incredible rock formations, amazing red rocks, I drove through the winding roads in the park with my mouth mostly hanging open. We stopped a lot, had a picnic, played some chess and cards, and really took our time. We spent the night at one of the viewpoints, we were all alone and we sat and watched a 3 hour lightening storm. It was the most spactacular lightening show i'd ever seen, I sat in awe.. saying "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God", the boys loved it too.. truly mother nature doing her thing..