Race Weekend

Back in December Dave was given the gift of a race registration by my sister.  The race was this Across the Bay 12K in San Francisco, and part of the gift was that Heather and her boyfriend Jeff would fly out and run it with him.  It was a great gift! Dave loves having something like a race to train for to help motivate him to run.  The length of this race was the perfect challenge and its course couldn't have been cooler-- all around and across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Because of a change in their plans, Heather and Jeff were only able to spend these 2 days with us, but we loved having this time to catch up and get to know Jeff better-- especially since we learned that he recently changed from being Heather's boyfriend to her fiance!!

After we picked them up at SFO, we did the first thing a first time visitor to San Francisco must do-- take a ride on the historic cable cars!  We caught it at the wharf, where the line is always the longest.  But, it was a warm sunny day and we had life and wedding plans to discuss, so we didn't mind.  Above, Ella is silly showing off the humorous "Cable Car Safety Tips" sign and below she poses with Auntie Heather and Uncle Jeff and the rainbow race bracelets she loomed for them.

We were also able to watch the trolley turn around on the turn table a number of times.

Then it was off for a ride!  All the adults except me got to stand and hang off the side, which is the most fun way to ride.  They got their pants brushed by cars' rear-view mirrors and high-fived standees on cable cars coming the other direction.  Delia viewed each hill as a roller coaster and spent most of the ride with her hands in the air.  This experience is so unique to this city.  We've done it a few times now and never get tired of it!

We ate dinner and did some quick shopping in Union Square then took the cable car back to our hotel on the wharf.

A fun night of card playing at the hotel was followed by Race Morning!  Jeff, Heather and Dave got up early to catch the shuttle to the start line in Sausalito.  The girls and I walked to the finish line a few hours later.  While our racers tackled huge hills and crazy fog across the bridge, Ella, Delia and I waited for them.  We found a place to watch cable cars rumble by while eating breakfast pastries in a shop. At the Finish Line some company gave us free cowbells to ring all the finishers in with. 

And pretty much right when they said they would be, we found our favorite runners headed to us at the Finish Line.  We were excited to see and hear that they were able to stay together for the whole race!  I'm always happy to see smiles in that final stretch.  I know those happy faces are a combination of seeing a personal cheering section AND the words "FINISH".

 (Dave, Heather and Jeff ran in the second wave of starters, so note that this Finish Line time is not accurate.  They were about 15 minutes faster than what is shown here.)

Here are our 12K finishers and their medals!  Everyone was pleased with their efforts and time.  They all said the race was a ton of fun.  Dave was thankful for such a neat birthday gift.

We had some time to explore SF before Heather and Jeff flew out to their next destination.  Though fog, traffic, millions of people and impossible parking tried to defeat several of our attempts to see stuff, we persevered and found a few things to explore.  First up, a revisit of the "Enchanted Stairs" we discovered last summer.

Then we walked around the wharf for a while.  We saw seals and funny street performers, ate crab cakes and soup in sourdough bread bowls.  This stroll actually ended up being the perfect way to round out our SF weekend.  This picture shows one of my favorite parts of this weekend-- Uncle Jeff was holding one of the girls' hands for pretty much the entire two days.  Delia told me she thought he'd make a good uncle because he is "funny and handsome."  Jeff won Ella's approval too, though he never did complete the "Can He Dance Test?" she told him she'd subject him to! :)

One of the best parts of this quick visit was that at goodbye time, we were able to say, "See you in a few months!"  With a wedding in the Midwest now this summer, we get to take an unexpected trip back in 2014.  Yay for more family time! :)

Silent Auction

This Spring Dave is headed back to Guatemala, this time with a team of 8 people from our church who hope to begin a construction project on a new Community Center for the ministry our church partners with.  He's really excited to go back and see the land and people he grew so fond of during last year's fact-finding trip.  Dave is even more pumped because a fund raiser the team hosted last night was a HUGE success!  They put on a taco bar dinner and silent auction.  What has been so neat to see this week as the donations rolled in was how everyone had something to offer-- so many from our church donated their gifts and talents.  Sure, there were a few fancy gift baskets and items from church members who own businesses, but the majority of the items were things people make.  We had artwork, wood work, baked goods, hand sewn purses, quilts, baby clothes, and kitchen cloths.  People that grow blueberries donated those.  People who do nails at the salon donated pedicures.  People that grow almonds donated nuts and cords of wood.  People who take pictures donated photo sessions.  I donated custom card making (so a display of all you guys in your Christmas cards was seen by everyone who attended last night!).  When the numbers were tallied last night, we couldn't help but cheer.  To send 8 people to Guatemala is approximately $12,000 and after last night's dinner and auction, as well as some special offerings we've taken, they are fully funded!!  The members of our church came together to donate their skills and talents, and in so doing raised an insane amount of money.  Praise be to God!  

Besides being blessed again by the generosity of the people we work with, the dinner was a ton a fun and provided plenty of laughter.  The girls were each allowed to pick an item they liked to bid on and given a budget.  Ella picked a purse, Delia picked a blanket (both homemade).   Ella had a friend who also had her eye on the purse and made the mistake of telling her friend her limit.  So, Ella was immediately outbid.  We ended up giving her permission to go higher, so she was sneaky right back-- writing in her new bid at the very last second, as Dave as giving the five-seconds-till-pencils-down countdown!  The lady who made the purse saw the girls "fighting" over her item and volunteered to make another for Ella's friend. Delia thought if her name was on the sheet, her item belonged to her.  She stood guard at her blanket and even went so far as to remove the pencil, so people couldn't write in new bids!  She ended up being outbid too, but the maker of the blanket kindly told Delia she'd make her one too.

It was a great night for a great cause.  Though we came together with the simple goal of raising money to fund this trip, we ended up sharing a wonderful night of fellowship and taking some special handmade items home. 

Blossoms 2014

 These girls are such great sports.  Once again, they totally indulged their photo-obsessed mom in a little almond blossom photo shoot.  We'll see how much longer this lasts, Delia did ask, "Mom why do we have to do this every year?"  I tried to explain how we live in such a special place, we need to take advantage of the gorgeous backdrop that is naturally provided annually.  I also told of how much fun it is to mark her and her sister's growth with pictures taken in the same spot each year.  It seemed to be a satisfactory enough answer for them to pose and smile like little models.  This year our pictures look just a little different.  We're late getting out, so more blossoms are on the ground than on the trees.  And with Delia's long hair and new smile, she's been looking more grown up to me.  If you want to take a peek at the first time we did this, click here.  Ironically, Delia has no teeth in these pictures either! :)

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!