Wax On, Wax Off

Remember how in "the Karate Kid" Mr. Miyagi made  Daniel-san work in his yard as "training?"  Well, on Memorial day we drove to Riverside to do a little "wax on, wax off" action ourselves in the amazing yard of our old martial arts instructor, Mr. Muchenje.  (His wife, and my dear friend and instructor was out of state visiting her family.  I was sorry I missed her.)

He has a huge piece of property, with an entire huge hidden tropical garden down in a ravine.  A great place for the boys to run and play!

The boys had so much fun roaming the hills and playing in this man-made tropical paradise.  Mr. Muchenje gave us a grand tour of all of the projects he is working on.  He has been busy since he moved away from us last year.

Perhaps the boys had the most fun with the Bamboo.  Mr. Muchenje has a huge bamboo grove that he planted.  It has really taken off.  The boys love to play and hide in the bamboo grove, and love to play with the bamboo poles that are everywhere.

Caleb is practicing his stick fighting skills.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Speaking of bamboo, "Bamboo" is also the name of Mr. Muchenje's new adorable puppy.

I found Luke just hanging out in an irrigation ditch.  See?  This place was fun for everyone!

Well, one thing wasn't very fun.  I found out for the first time what brushing along stinging nettle feels like!  Ouch!  It stings really, really bad.  NOT fun.  And it kept stinging all day long.  Of course after my experience I gathered the whole family around to educate them about what stinging nettle looks like, so they could all avoid it.  I wish I had known.  Yikes!!!

Then, after a bit of visiting and catching up, we got to work.

Derek-san and Dylan-san helped me assemble an entire 7 piece patio furniture set while Alex-san, Nathan-san, and Caleb-san raked and cleared the land in the fire break around his property.  The boys also cleaned the pool - a job they volunteered so they could swim in it later.  We all worked really hard.  Wax on, wax off.

The boys fished a huge scorpion out of the bottom of the pool when they were cleaning it - one of the highlights of the day.  I was instructed to take a picture and post it.

While we were waxing on and off, Dennis-san went to the grocery store, and came back and fixed us up a big barbecue lunch.  It was SO yummy!

When the working and eating was done, it was time to play.  We took Mr. Muchenje on one of our favorite family activities - Geocaching!  What a beautiful place Riverside is!  We had so much fun looking around pretty orange groves and natural giant sega palm groves (avoiding the giant stinging nettle also growing there), and hoofing it down beautiful, palm-tree-lined Victoria Avenue.  We found 3 caches!  What a fun adventure.  I think we got our sensai hooked.

Then, he shared one of his favorite activities with us - archery!  His targets were at least a hundred yards away.  He was good!  I had a hard time just pulling the string back.  We had fun trying to hit the target.  I came close, (within 10 yards!), but Dennis hit it.  My hero!  

Look at Dylan's face!  He was as serious about archery as he is about everything.

Then Mr. Muchenje made us a wonderful meal of fish tacos!  He is quite a cook, using veggies straight out of his vegetable garden.  The presentation was beautiful, and tasted even better than it looked.  Wow!

He set Dennis and I out on the patio to eat - a romantic dinner in the moon light - while he kept the boys inside the house and did a little "training" with them.

Now that is just the kind of training my boys need!  Put them in their place, Mr. Muchenje.

(They LOVED it - they line up for this stuff!)

 

Then Dennis and Mr. Muchenje played a little hot hands for old time's sake.  Mr. Muchenje was fast, but yes, my man was faster and cleaned his clock!  All that waxing on and off must have really paid off!   Maybe Dennis should have a black belt in hot hands.

What a fun day we had!