Ella in her Element

We certainly miss her.  But knowing and seeing that Ella is having the experience of a lifetime working in the trees this summer does help.  As does the fact that her home is a very reasonable day trip for us and the perks of us getting to enjoy her job with her are FABULOUS.  Ella picked a shift she was working and got us onto her ropes course in a not-advertised, first-thing-in-the-morning time slot (the course to ourselves!!) for 75% off.  It was one of our best family adventures ever!

Ella and her partner for the day, Mason, made an awesome and hilarious team, first guiding us through harnessing up and ground school.  We loved all their jokes (Ella: "This is not a two for one deal, if you are pregnant, no ropes course for you.  Our trees are high enough, we don't need you to be also.  If you are under the influence, no ropes course for you...")  Ella and her Adventures friends have actually turned their 30 minute safety spiel into a song that their supervisor wants them to legit record in Mount Hermon's recording studio!  Haha!

The course has 3 levels of difficulty.  Ella explained that it was "Challenge by choice."  There was always an easier and harder way to get to each platform.  Our guides' goal was to keep us in the "Growth Zone", not the "Panic Zone".  I went in a little anxious because the feeling of what I'm standing on swaying beneath my feet while I'm a hundred feet in the air is quite unnerving, but I never felt scared.  And by level 3 I was choosing the harder paths.  Goal achieved!

Just love these shots of Dave and Ella.  He always chose the harder paths.

Here's a fun game: find Ella and Mason in the background of my pictures!  Their poses and photobombs made us laugh!  Mason pretended to struggle with Delia's name and spent the whole tour calling her things like "Deuteronomy" or "Dudeya".  Ella always works with a partner and they were not putting on an act for us.  The goofy camaraderie was genuine and something each tour gets to enjoy.

We were very high up in the Redwood canopy, but always completely safe with the harness and clipits.

Ella even came with game ideas!  Delia did this holey, swaying bridge obstacle with her eyes closed while her sister guided her across with verbal instruction!

Brave Dave on the hardest elements-- like the high wire above or floating stumps below!

When your guide takes your camera for a family picture, you get secret bonus selfies!

The obstacles all have fun names like "chop sticks" or "hammers" or "monkey bars". This one is called "cookies" and it's the hardest one in Level 3. Ella glides right across like it's nothing!  This was the only one Dave put his harness to the test on when he fell off.

More funny Adventure Guide photobombing.

There's that cute guide again swinging into our selfie.

The highlight of the course are the 2 ziplines.  Our guides actually let us go on them twice, so we got 4 zips!

Ella and her co-workers zipline so many times a day they have all different poses for getting across.  They showed us Upside-Down, Spiderman, Cannonball, and I think this one is "Chillin'"?

Our morning spent with our amazing Adventure Guide in the canopy was a high point of summer 2024!  We loved seeing Ella in her element.  She had a bit more work to do after our tour, so we hung out on campus waiting for her.  It was known that Ella's Family was around for the day, so her supervisors and coworkers made a point to find us and tell us how much they enjoy working with Ella.  We're very proud of her.

Lunch and a walk on the coast-hugging Lighthouse Point Trail to watch surfers, seals, and dogs frolicking on the beach added to a fun day.

As did a round of Pirate Mini-Golf.  We won't see Ella again till we pick her up in August.  It was one last day to play in Santa Cruz, rounding out a fantastic summer of trips to see Ella.  How cool that this was her home for a season!!

Bragging

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming of our adventures on this blog to insert a quick brag about each of these awesome girls!

This week Ella is The Big Cheese.  The Big Cheese is an award handed out to outstanding staff members, kinda like an Employee of the Week.  She was given this recognition with a little speech about how appreciated she is for her positive leadership, competence, communication skills, and the great vibe she brings to her whole Adventures team.  On our recent visit, Ella was too cute, excitedly showing off her cheese.  For keeping her energy level up for every single tour, while caring deeply about each of her guests' safety, and managing to make work so fun and squeezing every drop of joy out of this experience, we're so proud!

This year Delia stepped out of her comfort zone to take the hardest class she's ever taken, and the hardest class our school offers-- AP Environmental Science (APES).  She honestly took it because the science credit sounded more interesting to her than Chemistry.  She quickly learned that she'd have to work HARD in this class, which she did!  She learned new and better ways to study and a lot about herself as she rose to the challenge.  The AP test results for the nation were posted today, and Delia learned that she passed and earned the college credit!  The APES test is famously one of the hardest of the APs to pass-- less than 50% do.  For doing hard things, the training and perseverance it took to succeed, and for the one less class she needs to take in college, we're so proud!

Chillin'

July temps are hitting as high as we've ever seen them, so the only thing on this week's summer to-do list was keep cool.  Luckily, we have multiple scenic ways to do this!  And a few even included Ella!

Yuck.

With our church staff starting to take off on their summer vacations, Dave found himself in another busy week, so he stayed cool in his office a/c.  Delia and I started with an outing to Pinecrest, where we enjoyed a 30 degree drop in temp (so in the 80's!), floating with the geese, reading in the hammock, a mini hike around about a quarter of the lake, and the stop for ice cream that a trip to the lake always requires because it just tastes better up here somehow!

Then we made the most of Ella's day off by ticking things off our Santa Cruz bucket list with her.  First was a stop at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.  She hikes through it with campers each Wednesday, but our family has never seen it, so Ella took us on a little hike.  Temps at the coast were still in the 80's, which is warm for this area, but again better than our 113!  And the shade of the trees did a lot.

We did 2 trails at this state park-- the redwood loop and the river path.  The trellis above is the one the Boardwalk train we rode each summer at MH goes across.

After a yummy lunch at a local café, we put on our waterproof hiking shoes and conquered our favorite Creek Hike.  This was more adventurous than I remembered, with multiple fallen trees to traverse.  Glad we had a professional Adventurer along to guide us! ;)

Ella spends every day enjoying the river from her birds eye view up on her course.  Fun to see it from so far below!  She's looking at level one here (the easiest and lowest to the ground).  We're scheduled to take a tour with her in about a week and a half!

Current, slippery rocks, intentional step choices, obstacles to climb over and around-- this hike is moderately challenging!  Happy to report all ankles remained untwisted and, though there were a few close calls, no one went in the water. 

 We ended by the waterfall, which I climbed in for the first time since I was wearing my bathing suit anyway.  It was FREEZING, but felt SO GOOD after the hard, hot hike.

Next, a hop in the Conference Center pool.

Late afternoon we went for a little drive along the super scenic Highway 1 through Santa Cruz to check out this new spot on the coast-- Shark Fin Cove!  A hike along the windy bluffs had us actually putting sweatshirts on and getting goosebumps!

Can you see the shark fin?  This was a super cool stop, for the scenery and the cold winds!

While driving on this side of Santa Cruz we passed the funky, all pink building that is Ferrell's Donuts.  Ella said all her friends love this place, so we had to stop in and try it!  

It took almost twice as long to get home as it normally does as every person with the same info on their home weather app as us bottlenecked the freeways to leave the cool coast, but we'll take traffic over heat!  Thank you, mountain lakes, shady redwood forests, bubbling creeks, icy waterfalls, the refreshing MH pool, and windy coastal bluffs for helping us survive this heat wave!