Home from CA

We enjoyed a wonderful time visiting Gramma Marian in California. We also saw Grampa Glen at Lakeview Lodge, where he is still contended. As always, he was happy to see Mom and seemed happy to have us there too. His recognition of us has declined, however. The last time we visited, he looked at me with a “Where do I know you from?” gaze, but beamed at Melanie and hugged her in delight, seeming to recognize her/me as a little girl. This time, he didn’t really seem to recognize any of us. Sigh! But he was still happy to have visitors and enjoyed our company.

The kids loved playing at the beach, meeting Mom’s new puppy Mocha, and going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Gramma, of course, was thrilled to have them. The drive down and back also had its highlights. On the way down, we had the perfectly timed chance to be part of the Lain Good-bye tour, since they were in Redding at the time we were driving through. The Lains are our close friends/ministry partners from the ministry in Baton Rouge and we just learned today, they arrived safely in Mongolia. Horray! :-> Then, on our way back, before visiting Ann and the kids' buddy Graeme in OR, we spent a few days at the Redwood National Forest.

The kids loved the redwoods, really enjoyed the sky tram up through the trees, and then, unbeknownst to us, actually hiked up the entire hike from the bottom of the sky tram to the top, from which we took the tram down a second time! When Chris posts the pictures, you’ll see one of Andrew & Melanie in front of an “Advanced Hikers Only” sign, which we took after naively doing the hike. We saw a sign about a “steep climb” and decided to go just part of the way and then head back down again. It was steep, but the kids were doing it, with the help of the ropes on the side. After a while, we saw a plateau and thought we were close enough to keep going. We made it to the plateau and, sure enough, walked on level ground and then down hill for a while. We congratulated ourselves for “making it” up the steep climb. Oops. It then went back up again, but we figured that was just the “up” part on the way back down. Nope. The “ups” kept going up and up and up and steeper and steeper. Finally, we sent Chris on ahead to see if we were close enough to keep going or if we were going to have to attempt the treacherous, steep down hills with two children. Thankfully, he came back with good news that we were close enough to keep going. To our surprise, the end of the hike brought us directly back to the very top of the sky tram: Andrew and Melanie had climbed 1570 feet! Andrew hiked all of it by himself and Melanie was carried by Daddy for only a couple of short distances.

To truly appreciate the accomplishment of our 7 and 4 ½ year old, check out the sky tram pictures at the Trees of Mystery site: http://www.treesofmystery.net/ and click “sky trail.” Bravo kids!! Isn’t it true in hikes and in life, that it’s better we don’t know how steep our climbs are until we’re done? :->