Returning to California

Sadly, my trip had to come to an end.  I would've stayed longer, if I could have.  Luke and I had to go back to California.  Carl knew I wanted to stay in Florida (desperately) and made a comment to his coworker that he wouldn't be surprised if I "missed" my flight.  He was half-joking.  

My parents drove us down to Orlando to the airport and...get this... I missed my flight.  Ha!  I rescheduled it for the very next non stop flight before I even called Carl and told him.  It TRULY was an accident!

Well, since we were in Orlando and had to wait SEVERAL hours for the next plane, I called up Mia.  She let us come to her apartment and stay for the day.  We got to spend a couple of hours with her, and then she left us the key and her alarm code for us to let ourselves out since she had to go to work.

I'm glad she got to see her nephew one more time before we left!

It was actually a nice relaxing day, to the end of a whirlwind trip.  We were all exhausted and napped on Mia's floor and couch!

And we got to spend some time on her balcony which overlooks a lake.  It was SO pretty!

 

(Luke could get used to this!)

I had an awful headache for two or three days in a row, so leaving to board a six hour flight was super difficult on me.  I snapped this picture of Luke and I after we boarded the plane.  He slept the entire flight.  People around me asked if he was a real baby!

Once we made it back home to California, we went straight to bed.  We can't wait to go back to Florida and see everyone again.

A Day At The Beach

Last month, when all three of us were in Florida at the same time, we took a road trip to the beach with Carl's mom, Ann. We headed over to Flagler Beach and the boys played in the surf. The water was probably in the mid to upper 80's, perfect beach weather. There was a storm headed in, but we got a few good hours to enjoy the Atlantic ocean once again. Upon arriving, we snapped this shot. See that photo right above? That was the last photo taken with Carl's wedding ring in it. (Cue tears from yours truly.) Yep, the Atlantic ocean stole his ring right off his finger. She may have gained a piece of gold, but she can't have my man! ;) Back off, Atlantic, he's MINE! It was sad. But we tried not to let that ruin our day.

*Side Note: the first time we stuck a toe in the Pacific ocean, we thought it would fall off because IT'S SO COLD!!!  We explained to some friends in California how the water just isn't the same as on the east coast, and they said we went at the wrong time of year because it'll definitely get warm, "Like 60 to 64 degrees even!"  Ha!  64 degrees!*

I'll take it 85 and up, please and thank you very much!


Austin played hard.  He enjoyed getting nice and muddy. And running and splashing.  (Y'all, I promise we feed him.  The boy has good genes.  Many of you know he can just put away the food!) Then Carl splashed him, and...well....  boys will be boys.  (If I had a dime for every time I said that...)
I actually didn't even notice he made this face until I was posting it on the blog!
Oh, Austin.
This is a little better... 3 generations.  :)
 

It was a pretty great day. 

Retreating In The Mountains

A couple weekends ago, we hightailed it over to Yosemite for a church-family retreat.  We left our troubles safely locked up in our homes, knowing they would be waiting for us upon our return.  This weekend was a get-a-way.  Troubles and stress were not invited on our trip.

Since I knew this weekend wouldn't be dirt free, I packed a bag I could carry that could easily be thrown into the wash.  When I took it out and laid it on the floor, Belle saw her opportunity.  And I saw a photo-op.  ;)

She cracks me up. She just hopped in there as if to say, "So where are we going?" In reality though, she could care less where we were going. As long as she gets to go, too. I snapped her photo and then laid her (within the bag) on the bed, next to my other bag that I was filling with clothes for the weekend. I stepped out to grab some towels out of the dryer, and when I came back into our room, this is what I found.

 

She upgraded. 

Apparently, she wanted a more roomier, and girlier ride for the weekend. I understand, little Belle, I understand. We made our trek over to Yosemite (yet again, haha! maybe I should rename the blog to "something about yosemite."  just kidding :)) and I think the ups and downs of the hills made Belle a little resentful toward the car. She started breathing heavily and I just KNEW she would lose her supper any moment! Thankfully, she made it to the camp with her supper still in her belly. We arrived and set up our bed for the night, inside the cabin with our friends. As you can see, Belle was happy to see our bedding.  She quickly rooted around and found her spot for the night.

The theme for the weekend was "Face Your Giants." We participated in classes revolving around the idea of over-coming your hurdles, and "leaving it on the field."

If you haven't had a chance, go read my thoughts on "leaving it on the field."  

We brought Austin's best buddy with us on this trip, which I truly believe, made the retreat about 1,000 times better for Austin.  He had a friend that he could explore and roam the hills with.  They had real "guy time".... no Playstations, no Wiis, no computers.  Just two young men out to explore the wilderness.  And his friend is such a great kid- we sometimes forget he is even around!  He's very well mannered and soft spoken.

We all hiked up to a creek in the hills of Yosemite. The water was ICE cold.... well maybe not ice cold, since then it would be actual ice, but you know what I mean!  

The kids really got into gold-searching. Hey, we are in California, you know...the golden state.. And there were sparkly flakes all throughout the creek.

   

I'm not sure why Belle looked sad in this picture, she was quite happy to be out in the woods. Even if one of our friends did have to pull a tick off her nose while I held her down. Small price to pay.

 Saturday night, my husband let out the card shark within himself. I was going to post some pictures of the card playing group- but I'm pretty sure the people in them would ask me to remove them from the blog.... in every shot, someone is making a dramatic and horrible face. The shots were all candid, so it was bound to happen at some point. 

So our weekend was spend truly retreating in the mountains. 

No work, just relaxation, connecting more with friends, and studying God's word.

Grand Canyon

Finally.
We have arrived.
{At the grand canyon, that is.}

We pulled into the national park late at night, so no pictures were taken upon our arrival.

However, Carl convinced us to wake up early enough to see the sun rise.

We rolled out of the [very comfy] bed in the morning very sleepily and realized it was snowing once we stepped out of our lodge.  (This picture is from later in the day after the sun was up.  But this is our lodge.  Also, the photo was taken from the car because yours truly was shivering.)

 

We headed for the rim of the canyon in search of an eastern view to watch the sun come up.  Well, it was snowy and foggy so our view was not one to be excited about.  The fog cleared up slightly, so we hopped out of our car to take some photos.

I wasn't meaning to make such awful faces in these pictures, but I was shivering to the core.  I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under a sweater, which was under a sweatshirt, which was under a leather jacket, which was under my coat.  I tried to dress warm.  I am from Florida though, so give a girl a break.

 

The fog started clearing a little bit so we took a few more shots. Still, the canyon was hazy so we couldn't see the bottom.

   

On our way back to the lodge to get ready for our trip, we hoped to see a real mountain lion. But this was the best we got.  (A sign. I know, I know. Lame.)  We did see a pretty big deer though... but since those are pretty common in the sunshine state, it wasn't as exciting as a mountain lion would've been.

  

We grabbed breakfast in a cafeteria, where we saw this little sign sitting on our table. It made us laugh...

 

If you don't see why it made us laugh, read the top line in the red background.

Once we finished eating, we headed back out to our car. It was time to pack up our room.  

Once our room was packed up, my wonderful husband carried our luggage out to the car.  

We were back on the road heading for the museum. Yes, this is the road.  

Next to the museum, there was a lookout point of the canyon. At this point, I was so thankful that Carl dragged us out of bed in the morning to go see the canyon, because if we had waited, this is what we would've seen for the rest of the day.  

The park rangers were stoked about how snowy it was. They said it's rarely as snowy there as it was that day... unfortunately the visitors were all a bit let down that they couldn't see this amazing wonder.

We explored the museum for a while, and heard a talk about the canyon, and then we left the park to go see the iMax movie (per the recommendation of some friends...thanks guys!) about the canyon.  That provided us with a pretty realistic view of the canyon, but we'll still need to take another trip back sometime to see it in real life.
At least we got a few different views of it.  Next time, it'll be a summer trip.

Chloride

To end our fabulous mini-vacay, we visited the big ditch.  En route to the Grand Canyon, we drove a good 8 hours through the desert.  

We were trying to figure out where in the Grand Canyon we were wanting to go, and what we wanted to see.  In the middle of the desert, we saw a sign pointing toward a station full of Grand Canyon information.  We decided to head toward the station, so we turned down a tiny side-road that seemed to go on forever.  

Finally, we wound up in the tiny living ghost town of Chloride.  We stopped at a little shack of a store and I seriously debated whether we should actually go in.  Take a look at this picture, there's a coffin on the patio.  Need I say more?

Well, we went in anyway.  I was greeted by a man in all denim and a cowboy hat, with a foot long beard to boot.  He told us all about the little town with a whopping population of 200.

After spending a good twenty minutes with us, reviewing his town's history, we walked around and snapped a few photos.  Austin purchased his sling shot in that man's shop and practiced shooting rocks.

Here's Austin walking out of the saloon that was part of a set for a shootout that the town performs every Saturday. 

Since the man spent so much time with us filling us in on the town's history, I felt compelled to purchase this Shea butter that he told me all about.

Our hands did manage to get pretty dry in the desert.  And this stuff smelled pretty great.  I'm pretty sure it permeated my car though... oh well, at least it smells good!

We gathered up our information collected for Grand Canyon, and took off into the sunset (actually, opposite the sunset, but that doesn't have quite as nice of a ring to it..).

We happened upon Route 66 and drove through a little town called Williams. It was there that we stopped to eat at Rod's Famous Steakhouse. Man, oh man, were they de-lish. I'd have to give this restaurant a 9 in my book. Not a 10 because the bathroom stalls only reached waist high (weird, right?) and they were transparent like a shower door with tempered glass (weirder, right?) But the steaks... oh man they were good!
 

Once devouring some prime rib and baked potatoes, we continued our adventure to the grand canyon.

We took the second star to the right (actually, the left) (and actually it was an intersection, not a star..)and went straight on till morning (or about 10pm).

We were only miles from the grand canyon, finally.

Hoover Dam

After leaving the little ghost town, we headed over to the Hoover Dam.

This was such an amazing and HUGE bridge.

Same bridge, view from standing on top of the dam.

Austin got salt in his eye back at the salt flats, so he was unable to open his eye in a normal fashion.

The Colorado River. It's pretty neat to see how high the water was at some other point in time.

Beautiful Colorado river.

Looking down at the dam.  This makes me dizzy.

Oh and here's me with my left hand in Arizona and the rest of me in Nevada.  I'm in two places at once.  What movie is that referencing?  Anyone?

When we left the Hoover Dam, we started heading for the Grand Canyon. We had a nice eight hour drive ahead of us, but onward we went.