Creation Testifies!

Ten days ago I had my kidney stone procedure and have been doing a very good job of following the doctor's orders to rest.  But, I'm feeling totally fine again and needed a little change of scenery after all those days cooped up at home, so the fam decided to tackle a hike that's been on Dave's List for a long time now-- the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail.  This was a super strenuous hike, one nicknamed "The Stair Master", but most of us agreed that the moments you thought you were going to die were worth the amazing views!  While calculating how many miles and feet of elevation we conquered, we figured out this fun fact: we could have taken the stairs to the top of the Sears Tower and done less work!

Don't let those mere 3.5 miles fool you-- they are grueling, with almost 3000 feet of elevation gain.  We decided not to go the hardest last third of the hike, which takes you to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls.  We were totally satisfied with our spectacular views of the valley and the falls from a short ways up from its base.

This is what the first mile and hour of the hike looks like-- granite steps stretched out over 60 switchbacks.  Ella, who is probably the most fit of the 4 of us, was having no trouble on this hike and often had to be told to wait for us.  Open the picture below to see if you can find her peeking out from behind a boulder.

It took a while, but the heart pounding, breath gasping work is worth it as the path levels out and the entire valley opens up in front of you.  We ascended so high, we were actually above 2 helicopters circling the valley!

Very neat to see Half Dome from yet another angle!

 Dave and I were enjoying reminiscing on the many hikes we've taken together.  Our marriage pedometer sure has a lot of miles on it!!

After a bit more walking, the Upper Falls suddenly appears before you and it is AWESOME!  Even Delia, who was ready to disown us as we made her troop up a million stone steps, switched into giddy, awe and inspired mode!

We continued up to a shady spot in a cleft in the rocks and enjoyed the lunch we packed with this incredible view!

We were told by fellow hikers on the trail that the views didn't actually get any better the higher up you went, so we felt totally satisfied calling it quits without enduring another mile of steps and switchbacks.

 The way down was way better!  We could actually breathe, so we were able to talk and made the time and steps fly by playing word games.

 Back on the valley floor, we added another mile to our hike and walked around the Yosemite Village Loop.  This was all level ground, with no elevation gain or steps, so it was a piece of cake!  The loop takes you by Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls from the ground level.  We've popped out here to take pictures a dozen times, but after yesterday's hike, we appreciated these falls in a whole new way!  I loved hearing the girls proudly declare, "We were up there!!"

I also love that we can say we were up close to and misted by BOTH Upper and Yosemite Falls!

 We found the above model showing our hike.  Those zigzags are the million switchbacks and steps, and it was our opinion that the model did not include nearly enough of them!

 SO proud of this girl for doing hard things!  We're training her!  She'll be a hiker yet! ;)

Back at the car, we marveled yet again.   Ella is pointing to Columbia Rock, where we took those Half Dome pictures from.  And the below picture shows the high ledge we traversed along to get to that base of the falls view.

And since we were in Yosemite and crowds were not too crazy and it's been a few years since we made all the stops, we took our time heading out.  We stopped at El Capitan to watch the climbers (didn't see the Free Solo guy, though).  We took a picture at Tunnel View and met some people from Clinton, Iowa!

And we did the quick path up to Bridalveil Falls, which were REALLY spouting off, giving us quite the Bridal(veil) shower!

It was a good day in God's creation!

"So now we join in with creation

And sing our adoration

Our prayer is heaven come to earth.

All creation testifies

All creation testifies

That You are good

You are good.

If my lips run out of praises

Please remind me of Your goodness

Creation testifies

That You are good."

Our Amazing Dad!

This is Dave eating soup from a can for his Father’s Day meal.  When you spend your Saturday in the ER and don’t make it to the grocery store, this is what happens.  This picture also shows an amazing dad and caregiver! One who serves his family even after working a long day.  One who sits by your side in the hospital for hours even when he has a sermon to write.  One who will give up a whole day to drive you to Oakland for surgery and then be strong enough to balance a week of working with taking care of everyone and everything at home.  This is what a dad who puts everyone else before himself and a husband who keeps his “in sickness and in health” vows looks like. 

(Trying to honor Dave and how amazing he's been these past few days in this post, but don’t want to be too cryptic.  After the worst pain of my life made me pass out at home yesterday, I was diagnosed with kidney spasms due to 2 big kidney stones and sent home from the ER with good strong meds to manage pain and an appointment for a surgical procedure in Oakland on Monday to bust them up.  Feeling alright again now, but would appreciate prayers!)

High Schooler In the House!

As mentioned, Ella turned 14 while we were on this trip.  Her birthday and a whole week spent in her company caused me to reflect on something that probably seems so obvious: our little girl is growing up.  We've moved into a new stage of parenting this teenager.  We don't take care of her in the same way.  We do a lot more listening and question asking and training.  Through all this, what a joy it is to discover that the person we're raising is actually one of our favorite people to be around!  Ella is smart and funny and teaches us stuff now.  She is definitely her own person-- a gal who loves Chinese food, and Marvel movies, and her friends; someone who is passionate about and whose heart breaks for the unborn; a girl with many interests and talents who can't wait to explore new opportunities in high school! We're proud, but also just delighted in the young lady Ella is growing up to be.  We hope as she moves even more towards independence, she'll continue to give her old parents a bit of her time too...not because we're trying to be controlling or helicopter-y, but because we just love being with her.

Keeping Our Cool

Spending half a week in the desert in the summer is easy peasy when you have an amazing resort!  Off season prices allowed us to upgrade to a place a bit fancier than we usually go for and stay in a nice Westin, where we had a multiple room villa with a kitchen and access to 6 different pools, 2 of them with watersides!  The kids were happiest to just experience Palm Springs by hanging here!  They loved taking the golf cart shuttle to hop around the huge property and explore each pool.  After a very busy season of finishing school, moving my classroom, dance recitals, grad parties, and guests, I was SO happy to just lay in the shade with a good book and a to-do-list-free blank mind. 

  

The resort was super family friendly!  Each pool had various contests throughout the day and an assortment of fun lawn games too.  Giant Battleship was probably a favorite!  We loved playing lots of family games of HORSE in the baseball hoop pool too.  The main pool by the clubhouse even had a DJ!

One afternoon we escaped the heat by enjoying some a/c at the movie theater and a nice restaurant.  Ella actually celebrated a birthday while on this trip and picked Aladdin and PF Chang's to help make it a little special.

And that concludes the recap on how we filled our first week of summer!  What a start!  If this week was just a taste, we have a lot to look forward to these next few months-- more time together, more hikes, more outings, more books to read, more movies to watch, and more opportunities to rest!  

Joshua Tree

Harry Potter World and Joshua Tree National Park.  These two destinations could not be more different, but they were the two big things I was most looking forward to seeing on our SoCal Tour.  There are 9 national parks in our state, with this week's visit to Joshua Tree, we've now seen 6 of them (Yosemite, Kings Canyon/Sequoia, Pinnacles, Lassen, and Alcatraz)!

Joshua Tree was just as spectacular as I had hoped.  The cool thing about this park was how much of it you could see with a little driving around.  We got out of the car a dozen times, but never hiked more than a mile to see cool stuff.  And the variety of landscapes was awe inspiriting!  God is a good creator.  If you go, you should know that you are in the middle of the straight up desert.  There is no water, no cell phone service, and, for us, no people really.  You just have to be careful and prepared.

So, here are few cool rock formations we climbed on and park features we hiked around.  Above, Skull Rock.  Below, Arch Rock.

The Cholla Cactus Garden, home of the famous "Jumping Cholla" or as Delia called them, "Mean Cactus".  She was actually kind of terrified of needley cactus balls attacking her legs as we walked around here.  But, they sure are pretty, right?  Artist Ella appreciated their color gradation and ombre effect.

The Desert Iguana was the coolest wildlife we saw on this day (and we saw them all over).  He looks like a regular lizard, but much bigger.  With caution signs for rattlesnakes, again, I'm relieved we never really encountered anything more interesting!

Those amazing Joshua Trees!  They lined almost every road we drove along-- sometimes as densely as a forest!

We climbed lots of rocks!  Climbing is always the girls' favorite!

Above, the Hidden Valley Trail and below, Key's View-- two great little hikes with a wonderful payout in views!  Key's View showed us the whole Coachella Valley and all the Palm Springs communities.

And the best sight-- my super star hubby doing ALL the driving on this road trip!  He drove us safely through mountains, cities, and windy valleys to see cool stuff and we appreciate him!  The soundtrack in the car on this day was, of course, U2's Joshua Tree album.  We found this little shout out to my favorite band in the visitor center.  "Desert sky, dream beneath a desert sky..."