Glass Beach

Who doesn't love a good redemption story?  We discovered one so fantastic on this vacation, it requires a special post all of its own.

In the 1920's people thought, for some reason, that the beach would make a good garbage dump.  So they brought their trash-- car parts, old appliances, medical waste, things we'd be required to recycle today.  This was stopped about 40 years ago.  But over time, the garbage started to join with the rocks, erode, and become the home for sea life.  You can still see car engines full of anemones, and spark plugs, pieces of shoes, and stovetops embedded in the rocks.  

And something amazing started to happen.  The intensity of the salt water surf beating the garbage on the shore each day wore it down.  The pieces of garbage were ground down into different colored gems-- sea glass.  Dave and I were in absolute awe walking on this beach.  Our feet sank deep into, not sand, but beautiful, multicolored sea glass pieces.  One scoop and you held a handful of real treasure.  Since this sea glass and its story is such a treasure, the state has protected this beach and made the collecting of the sea glass illegal.  It is literally trash into treasure, beauty for ashes!

The main colors were red, white and green.  If you looked really hard you could find rare blue pieces.  Ella was especially drawn to the green stones and spent some time gathering and holding them.

Seriously, incredible.

Because this beach was right next to our hotel and one of the coolest things we've ever seen, we made multiple trips.  The pictures above are on an overcast day.  These show how the sea glass gleams when the sun is shining.

Glass Beach all by itself was worth the drive, worth the sickness, worth taking this vacation for.  Dave has a great new sermon illustration to file away and a new beach has jumped into a top spot on my Favorite Beaches list!

Northern Coastal Getaway

Ella has discovered the classic "Do you want the good news or bad news first?" way to introduce a story with great suspense.  I'll write this blog post under that same premise.  We are just returning from a fantastic four day getaway to a new place we've never explored-- California's glorious Northern Coast.  However, this vacation, more than any other, had its shares of bumps in the road.  So, for sake of keeping it real, I'll start with the bad news.  The twists and turns of Highway 1, though beautiful, made most of us sick.  Like, dump the bread out just so you have a bag to use kind of sick.  Then the hotel had no record of our reservation.  Then I got some bug that totally knocked me down for one whole day.  The day I couldn't get out of bed also happened to be a day where it was pouring rain...all day...in a place where 100% of the entertainment is outside.  

But, there is good news too.  Our hotel found us eventually after a phone call from Travelocity.  We had an indoor pool and the Olympics on TV to make the sick and rainy day actually be fun.  And the days we did get to spend outside with the vast, powerful, awe-inspiring Pacific Ocean far made up for any troubles!

      

On this vacation we mostly explored a chain of beaches and state parks all lined up along the coastline.  This post will show you three favorites.  One thing we were super excited about was wildlife sighting.  It is currently the height of the whale migration and we saw several!  They weren't jumping out of the ocean or anything, but we saw definite and follow-able water spouts whenever we stared out at the water for a while.  And then there were the tide pools-- perfect little pools of peace in contrast to the foamy, pounding surf around them, home to starfish, anemones and hermit crabs.  

The following six pictures are from McKerricher State Park.  We followed a paved walkway along the shoreline to watch seals playing, HUGE waves, and our favorite, a blowhole that erupted each time a surge of water pressed into it.  We also learned more about grey whales by visiting the skeleton.  

  

The next three pictures are Pudding Creek Beach.  This was an actual stretch of sand to play in, something rare along a coastline of jagged rocks.  It had warm sand to dig in, a huge bridge to climb and long kelp stings that made a perfect finish line to our many footraces.  This beach was probably the girls' favorite-- lots of play and little hiking. :)

And these next three pictures are from Russian Gulch State Park.  This park is known for displaying all the different ways the turbulent water has carved out the land.  There were natural bridges, caves, more blowholes and even a big inland body of swirling water called Devil's Punchbowl.

We enjoyed lots of treats on this vacation!  If it wasn't handmade ice cream from Cowlick's, it was our daily stop at the Mendocino Cookie Co., where we attempted to try each variety of freshly baked cookies before we had to leave.  (And we got very close to succeeding!)

 The night before we left, we enjoyed a lovely sunset.  No matter how many sunsets you catch over the water, it just never gets old.  We had to miss a Sunday church service to make this trip happen, but felt there was no shortage of opportunities to praise God for being a good caretaker and the creator of such cool stuff!

Disney on Ice

Just like last year, we were excited to find that our library offered free Disney on Ice tickets to students who completed a simple reading program.  Jetta and I, with our NINE combined children, jumped all over this fantastic deal!  This year we added a few more guys to the mix when Phil and Peter joined the gang.  The show was impressive and great fun to watch again, especially experiencing it through the eyes of our kids.   Seeing their huge smiles, hearing their screams and watching them snap 100 pictures on their cameras has us already planning on taking this outing again next year, provided the library hooks us up again!

    

With so many kids to keep track of in a packed arena, we used a buddy system.  Everyone had to hang on to their buddy and had to somehow be attached to one of the 4 adults.  So here are my girls with their buddies: above, Ella and Helia, below, Cora and Delia.  Though Delia is not showing off her new gap in this pic, Cora is.  All three of our first graders lost a tooth on this same day!  Sometimes I think they really could be family!

A Gap in Her Smile

So, you know how I feel about my kids growing up too fast, right?  Well this weekend I've had to adjust to a huge change in my baby's smile as she lost BOTH front teeth in a matter of THREE DAYS!  Delia's thrilled, of course, but I just can't get used to that big gap or the new lisp that she now sports (though I do think it's pretty cute!).

We're keeping the Tooth Fairy in business around here!