Sea of Orange

This year, we broke with tradition and ventured to Half Moon Bay to choose our pumpkins. I'm so glad we did. It was a beautiful sunny day at the coast. Farmer's John pumpkin patch had everything we were looking for. We picked this place because it wasn't commercialized; no rides. Daveo and Loni had fun exploring Native American houses, climbing on bales of hay, and marveling at the variety of pumpkins. We even took our picture in front of corn stalks to send to our Iowan missionary. 

Next, we drove north to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Just as we parked the car, the fog came rolling in. Brrr. The temperature drastically plummeted and we found ourselves wishing for San Jose's warm sun. We sat for a while on a bench marveling at the waves rolling in at many different angles and the cute seals playing in the tempest. The tide was in to far to explore the tide pools. However, a nice ranger pointed us in the direction of a nice trail through Cypress trees. We all had fun exploring this new place and before long, the sun burned off the fog. Our walk led us to a sandy beach where we spent the rest of our time. What a wonderful afternoon we had!

Going Home

We woke to snow! It was snowing so much, we decided we'd better skip going to church with the Corcorans and head on home while we could still get out. After a lot of slipping and sliding, we finally made it onto a paved highway. Our drive home was full of crazy weather. After the snow, we drove through heavy rain and two hailstorms. Quite the adventure with loads of fun memories.

Twain Harte

This morning, Loni and I watched a herd of deer leap past the cabin, disappearing into the nearby woods. Loni excitedly said, "They're going to see Santa!" HaHa!

In the early afternoon, we drove to our sledding spot, with the Corcoran's joining us. Today was colder and windier than the previous day. After exhausting ourselves and almost devouring an entire jumbo bag of Cadbury mini chocolate eggs, we ordered some pizza and had a party back at the cabin. Then our friends went on their way while we stayed in Twain Harte. Kirsten and I explored an old fashioned Pharmacy shop that had the BEST fabric selection. We easily spent an hour looking through it all. We finally settled on a couple of prints that Kirsten has a project in mind for. 

For dinner, we ate at The Rock, which is located in the quaint town. The food was delicious and everyone (including picky Loni) was happy with their dinner. After the little one's had taken baths and put to bed, Steven, Kirsten, David, and I continued watching Stranger Things (a Netlix series). It's a scary and suspenseful show, so when the lights in the cabin began to flicker and fade, then brighten, we were a little freaked out. 

This area is supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow, so we will have to keep a close eye on the situation. We don't want to get snowed in.

Cork Haven

A couple of weeks ago, I told the family that for my birthday I wanted us all to drive to Lake Tahoe for the weekend to play in the snow and go sledding. Last week David and I began searching for an available cabin to rent. It was at this time, our friends, the Corcorans, invited us to stay in their cabin for free which is located in Twain Harte. We jumped on this offer and scrambled to be ready to go this next day (a week earlier than planned). 

A year ago, our friends moved to Sonora, so we were all excited to see them again. On our first day, our family found a fun sledding hill eight miles up the mountain from where we were staying. I quickly learned that sledding is exhausting fun. after a couple of hours, we were all wiped out. In the evening, we went to the Corcoran's temporary home for dinner. It was fun catching up with the family. Loni and Lena, Daveo and Daisy, and Kirsten and Emma picked up from where they left off as if they'd never been apart. Once night fell, we all drove a couple of miles to get a tour of the Corocoran's dream house that is under construction. Outside on their property, we built a mini-bonfire and chatted the evening away. 

The Red Giants

So, a FedEx envelope was delivered for Steven this morning. We asked him what it was and he said that it was just his seminary transcript. I looked at the papers and saw on the bottom of the stack a travel itinerary. What is this? Steven said that it was just FedEx's tracking list of where the package had been. I took his logic as fact and thought that this was sent to him because he had just graduated from seminary. A few hours later, Dad was looking at the papers, because we were still confused with the whole thing, and actually studied the travel itinerary. He discovered that this was Steven's flight info to the Sao Paulo, Brazil MTC! Now we were more confused because his call still hadn't come in the mail. The mission president's name was also on the paper, so Dad looked it up online, finding out where Steven would be serving. He told me, but Steven wanted to wait for his white envelope. Sadly, and maddening, it never came today. I don't think Steven will be getting a good night's sleep.

In the afternoon we played among the "giants".