Holidays

Holidays always incredible taking Maggie for a walk --

Ashley and I made a Gingerbread House

Ashley and I had a great time making our first Gingerbread House from scratch. It's amazing!

Sunrise over Lake Tahoe

Unbelievable beauty this morning. Brennan Manning writes that the sunrise speaks to him of the the Lord's love. This morning, he must really love us.

From the top of High Camp, Squaw Peak

We spent the day at Squaw Peak - the Home of the 1960 Winter Olympics. Took the cable car up to High Camp and enjoyed the views. At sunset, the mountains across the lake turned brilliant hot pink for just a few minutes. A wonderful close to a beautiful day.

The Beauty of Winter

As we sat watching the sun come up, four flocks of Canadian geese flew over the lake - joining into one new formation. They reminded me of a huge marching band -- I think they were flying back in forth, warming up in the early rays of the sun. And then a bald eagle flew across the lake and right by our window. Beautiful.

Lake Tahoe - Sunrise

We drove through quite a snow storm last night to get to Lake Tahoe...but this morning the clouds had moved on and the sunrise was incredible. We enjoyed a fire and a cup of coffee and watched.

Thanksgiving 2009

Delightful chaos ensued for 4 days while all of our family (except Jason) enjoyed the holiday at our house. We had a great time.

Walk to the Beach House

We decided to take a long walk down the beach and the blues and greens were just spectacular. And then it happened....I had seen a picture of a beautiful water lily in a coffee table book of Kauai, and I talked Kevin into going into the Plantation Gardens to see if they still had water lilies. Not only did they have lily pad ponds, but they had hundreds of orchids, and heliconia, and an entire cactus garden that must have been 100 years old. It was then, that I fell in love with the flower of Kaua'i. Oh my goodness...and me with a new camera!

Snorkeling and finding Sea Turtles

We love to walk along the coast, looking for sea turtles. They were everywhere, this year. Not hard to find at all. This is our favorite snorkeling beach. We walk over the hill from the condo and watch the sunset from here most evenings -- and almost always there are sea turtles right along the beach.

Pihea Lookout

We decided on a whim to go to Pu'u'o Kila Lookout where you can see the NaPali Coast and Mt. Wai'ale'ale (5148'). I've always wanted to see the top of the mountain (which you can see from many places on the island), but it has always been covered in clouds. We've gone to Pu'u'o Kila Lookout several times before, and it's always been misty and cloudy. And quite naturally so, since it's just on the other side of Mt. Wai'ale'ale, the wettest spot on earth. With 440 inches of rain a year, it rains all of the time. But I wanted to go on a hike -- and I had brought my hiking boots for just a time as this.

When we got there, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky - the whole day. It was amazing. "A one in the million kind of day" according to the woman at the Ke'e Museum.

So we took her advice and decided to hike to Pihea Lookout...a moderately strenuous hike mind you -- which means that at some points you are climbing hand over hand up the "trail," holding onto the the roots and trying to find a place to put your foot. What fun! Seriously fun! I was glad that I'd been getting a little exercise climbing the stairs at work.

The only bummer was that my camera broke. So there we are on and absolutely gorgeous day with no camera...but my phone. So we decided to live in the "now" and just enjoy it. We'd have to record the memory in our minds. Until a nice couple from Spokane volunteered to take our photo and email it to us. So here we are at Pihea Lookout, standing in front of Mt. Wai'ale'ale -- where is the mountain you might ask? Yes, where is the mountain. The top is flat. Unbelievable. I'd been imagining Mt. Rainier -- and it's more like Table Mountain.

Kauai

We had a great time in Hawaii. Every morning I loved watching the sunrise. It truly is new every morning. And almost every evening we watched the sunset. The weather was perfect. We kind of got into a routine of watching the sunrise, then having a little breakfast, taking a couple of hours to read and journal and pray on our own. Then we'd talk for a couple of hours about things that really mattered to us. We had time to talk about "us" and share deeply with one another. The we'd go for along walk along the beach, come home for dinner. It was fabulous!

Said Good-bye to Jeff and Wendy

We went out for dinner last night to officially celebrate the time we've had here in San Jose with Jeff and Wendy. It's been such a blessing to have them sharing with us in the ministry in San Jose. New Life wouldn't be New Life if it weren't for their sacrifices over the years. I am very sad that this chapter in our lives is over. I know that the relationship will change as distance means we won't know their friends and what they're thinking about and we can't just pop in for a bit to see the kiddos. But instead of focusing on the hard parts of the changes that are coming, I can be extremely grateful for the years that we've had with them. What a blessing it has been.

Walking along the coast

The weather was perfect, the sunset gorgeous, the otters and pelicans plentiful -- what a great evening to be walking along the coast in Santa Cruz.

Prayer Retreat

Kevin led us on a wonderful prayer retreat. We met at John and Judy's cabin at Mission Springs and thoroughly enjoyed the day with the Lord.

Hugging Cousins

Fun times in Seattle and Portland

An Afternoon n the City

Mireille, Romeo, Kevin and I enjoyed watching (and listening to) the California seals and pups at Pier 39. I don't think Mireille could quite believe it. She'd never seen anything like our seals.

San Francisco

We took Mireille and Romeo to San Francisco to celebrate Romeo's new job and drivers license.

We had to check out the Pacific Ocean -- a gorgeous day and warm!

And a trip to Pier 39 -- tons of people and music!

After the Financial District and the Civic Center we headed across the Golden Gate. And enjoyed a fabulous view of the City,

And the Golden Gate bridge. Then had a sunset dinner in Sausilletto. A really wonderful day celebrating the goodness of God to all of us.