The highlight of my day was going hiking with my mom and dad (my brother was conveniently at some counterstrike tournament in LA with his friends). I know that it has been so long when we did anything like this together, and going to college doesn’t make it any easier to have opportunities like this. Well, we left around 9am (ah, a familiar time when I would go to sleep during finals season last week) and drove to a well-known hiking trail near Big Bear. Hahah…my parents were also happy because a parking fee wasn’t required on the last weekend of every month…a measly $5. apparently, they already knew about this deal through the Korean newspaper, which is also how they found about the hiking trail and stuff…geez, Korean parents would do anything to save a money! ;)

But the trail itself was very beautiful…it was a breezy day with some scattered clouds in the sky. Lots of different plants and flowers…and wow, pinecones all over the place. There were also a lot of redwoods and sequoias (I think) throughout the trail. Something funny happened…there was this one fallen tree with a branch sticking out vertically, and my dad eagerly shouted to me and my mom (in Korean), “look at my tae kwon do skills!” he kicked the branch really hard, but it was still too strong…so my dad bounced back like a rubber band and nearly toppled over…me and my mom were crackin’ up…ahh it was one of those times when you just had to be there to see it. =P

I think we hiked for a couple miles before we started our way down. It was great talking to my mom about stuff…she also started telling me stories of stupid things I did as a little kid. A long time ago, we went to Chinatown in San Francisco, and for some reason I got mad…so I ran away and hid behind a building from my family for the longest time…hmm, okay I guess it doesn’t sound too stupid. or interesting. But I could imagine myself doing the exact same things today that I used to do as a kid…but I’m glad that some things will never change.

Well, I previously mentioned that there were a lot of pinecones all over the place. My mom got this ingenious idea to illegally steal the pinecones from the park, spray paint them different colors and use them for Christmas. Wow, talk about thinking ahead like half a year hahah… my dad conveniently brought along a big plastic bag, and I think he stuffed like thirty or forty pinecones into the bag. We finally left, ate a healthy meal at subways, and went home. It felt really good for once to wake up early in the morning and use my day productively…and spending it with the family made it all the more worthwhile.