By the Sea

As mentioned, we broke up the Pinnacles trip with an overnight by the coast.  A friend recently showed me how I can use my library card to get free tickets to museums all over our state and I am in heaven!  We tried it out for the first time by securing 4 free passes to the Seymore Marine Discovery Center.  Now, having been members at the Monterey Aquarium, my expectations for this small educational facility connected to the University of California were not high.  I thought we'd maybe spend an hour here and feel thankful that our tickets were free.  We were so wrong!  We spent over 3 hours and viewed this stop as a real highlight!

What we loved about this place was having it ourselves.  Dave and I talked about how the aquarium is so huge, you always feel the need to keep moving quickly to see it all.  Since this place had only a fraction of the exhibits and a friendly volunteer at each one to educate us with interesting information, we spent a long time engaging in Q&A and hands-on activity about various ocean animals.

One of the many cool things we got to do here was pet a shark!  We were taught that of the 500 some species of sharks, really only about 5 are dangerous and even capable of biting a person.  The sharks in this tank are nice ones.  They felt like sandpaper.  The girls are excited to tell their friends that they hiked through caves and petted sharks this Spring Break!

We also spent a very long time at the starfish touch pool.  The volunteer here even asked if we'd ever seen a starfish turn itself over.  Um, no we hadn't.  So, she flipped one for us and we sat for 15 minutes watching the starfish do a slow, but fascinating, somersault. (Open the pic below to see it for yourself.)

My favorite is always the octopus and today I fell even more in love with this amazing creature.  He was active today so we watched him traverse his entire tank, changing from bright red to sand color to seaweed color.  He opened all up and showed off his 8 tentacle-y legs and he squished all up into a shell and crawled around looking like a crab.  He is a true master of disguise and to spend a long time watching this great show with no other crowds was quite the treat!

We also took a guided tour behind the scenes and learned interesting things, while visiting with dolphins that are being studied and monk seals that have been rescued (couldn't take any pics of the tanks that hold research animals, though).  After this taste of marine biology, Ella has picked a new college and future career!

We ended our time at the Marine Discovery Center with some otter watching out in the ocean.

Then we spent the afternoon at the cutest beach ever.  It had these colorful little beach houses, and a long wharf to walk down, and an inlet of water that wasn't quite so freezing or wavy to play in, and a whole crowd of friends from our church and school!  It was fun to bump into some familiar faces and visit for a while.

Our beach had a super fun little downtown area to roam around too.  We let the girls pick out a salt water taffy treat for the drive home.

It's only been a week, but we feel like our Spring Break has gone on forever (in a good way), because each day has held something different.  It started with a nice weekend in SF, then 3 days of dinners, playdates and sleepovers with friends, some productivity, plenty of time to read and relax and watch Frozen, and now this mini-vacay.  It's back to life as usual in just a few days, but before we know it, summer will be here!

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!