Yes, it's been awhile...

We've had a lovely Fall this year, fairly calm, yet punctuated with interesting weekends and events.

For example, we met our friend Matt in San Francisco and went camping at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, a place of wonderful memories for Michael. He spent two summers working there as a park aide, and the redwood trees and ocean hold a special place in his heart. We try and visit every once in awhile. Here we are standing in front of the Pioneer Tree. I honestly could not see the top of it.

Matt and Michael standing in front of the tree. The camera lens cooperated a bit better, and it is at least in better focus.

One of our projects of great satisfaction was to to replace the carpet in the two living rooms in this house. Michael and I installed the first room together. Enjoy them in reverse order! Above: the finished product, minus a few furniture pieces we've got on order.

3 1/2 rows from the finish line!

The carpet! Bye bye.

We took a little adventure and stayed overnight in a hostel near Drake's Bay near San Francisco. This is the beach we walked to from the hostel. A lovely day!

I like this photo, but I do not know that man or his dog. :-)

And if you see any photos of me, you're also getting a sneak preview of Baby Hanes, as we are having a baby in May! If you are lucky, I may post belly shots, but no guarantees; I'm not too into publishing ALL my business. We'll see... ;-)

Birthday Surprise!

Michael organized a great surprise for my birthday back in August. He flew my friend Tristan down to Chico, AND we spent the weekend in San Francisco all together! How fun was it to have my good friend come to see me and go to such a great city.

Laundry hanging out to dry in Chinatown

I like this guy.

Beautiful city!

Chinatown

A fisherman at Stinson Beach.

We spent the morning at the top of Mount Tamalpais and then down at the bottom of the mountain on Stinson Beach.

Tristan and I have been friends since baby swim.

Beautiful San Francisco Bay

The Best Way to Spend Saturday

Chico really has the best weekly farmer's market I've ever been to. When I'm there, I just want to buy everything!

I don't think words can add much more to how cool this market is, but come to Chico and check it out!

Salmon Hole and Castle Crags--A Weekend Outdoors

We had a few friends stop through Chico on their ways north or south through California, so it was really nice to have a few visitors to liven things up here. Our friend, Bill, and his kids and niece stayed a night with us, and we enjoyed a fun day swimming and hiking with all of them.

We had to take them to one of the best places in Chico (in our opinion), Salmon Hole. An awesome place to swim, it takes a short little hike down the cliff to this clean, calm, and most important, COOL place to swim. Michael and I love it!

Salmon Hole

After we finished swimming, we got our visitors loaded up in their car, and we followed them up I-5 to a great state park called Castle Crags. A 5-mile round-trip hike took us up to the Crag pinnacles that the park is named for. As you can see from this picture, Michael was feeling more adventurous than a mere 5-mile hike. Which trail do you think he took?

Don't you think Michael could be related to them?

Mount Shasta

View from almost the top

And here's some proof that I was on this hike, too. :-)

Dallas! Time to Cowboy Up!

Alright, it's been quite awhile since I updated the old blog, so here's some of what we've done this summer...

Our good friends, Ernie and Jennie, got married in Dallas at the end of June. We flew out to Texas to see them get married, and aside from the intense heat and humidity, had a great time. Ernie and Jennie are good friends of ours who we met in South Korea, and they became extended family to us in many ways. Naturally, we miss them a lot, now that we are on opposite sides of the world. Congratulations again, you guys!

Michael, Eryn, Jennie, Ernie, Dr. Terry Casino (our old pastor from Korea--he's Filipino, though, not Korean). Note that Michael's shirt is wet from sweat, not a spilled drink. Aside from attending weddings, sweating was our number two activity of the weekend.

Our short stay afforded us minimal sight-seeing, but we did go to Forth Worth to see the Stockyards, which was the end of the line when it came to the old cattle drives. In the picture above, you can see a genuine long-horned cow.

So that was Dallas, but the summer's activities aren't over yet, so stay tuned!

Feather Falls

We have been hearing about the famous Feather Falls for quite some time, since we have been in Chico, so we took advantage of a cool, late spring day and tackled the 9-mile hike to see it. What a lovely hike! A wide, mostly level trail meandered through pines, Douglas Fir, and the occasional redwood tree. A creek kept things even cooler and provided a nice background noise. Even though the hike was pretty long, we didn't feel exhausted, which made it very pleasant.

Feather Falls is the 4th tallest waterfall in California, so it was quite impressive. Enjoy the pictures, and if you're ever in Chico to visit us, we'll have to make time for this great hike!

For much of our hike, we got a view of this beautiful creek.

And here are the falls! I think they're about 400 feet high!

Luckily, a nice observation deck had been built, since there were lots of signs warning hikers of the danger of death, should they do something stupid. We were able to get a great view and stay quite alive. :-)

A Visual Tour

Since living in Chico, we've taken lots of opportunities to go hiking and explore the natural areas around where we live.  One of my favorite places is out east of town (10 minutes from our house) called Bidwell Park.  There's lots of trails, swimming holes, a creek, and these interesting, narrow canyons called slot canyons.  I hope you enjoy the scenery!

My apologies on the sideways photo...  In this picture is Big Chico Creek.

Big Chico Creek from the bottom of the canyon.

Upper Bidwell Park

One Sunday afternoon, we took a drive into the Sierra Nevada foothills and discovered Paradise Lake.  We were able to walk around one side of it.  We enjoyed the piney woods and even saw a grouse!

In other news, Michael and I are both employed full time now!  We were not expecting to have jobs so soon into our transition here, and we are very pleased and grateful to have regular income in a town that has a 12% unemployment rate.  This is yet another reminder of how fully we can trust God to look after us.  So, we are settling into life here and enjoying it.

We've had and will have a few out of town guests, which have been bright spots in our lives.  We got to lend a night's sleep to one of our good friends we met in Korea, and next month, we'll have a few more visitors pass through.  I'm just glad that our friends don't forget us, even though we moved away from them.  We always miss them and are happy when they can come visit.  It's extra special because it's so far.

So, that's it for now!  The pictures and stories aren't so exotic anymore, but I've had a few requests to keep this blog up, so I will, just not so frequently. :-)

At Home in California

We have made our final move to Chico, CA!  Chico is in Northern CA, about 1 hour south of Redding and 2 hours north of Sacramento.  We sit right up against the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, so although we are not in the mountains, we can take a 30 minute drive and enjoy a taste of the alpine.  I find it quite beautiful here.  I've been able to experiment with our SLR film camera, so at some point when I get the photos developed and scanned, you can see some of the pretty sights of the place we live.

Some of the things we've enjoyed about Chico so far are Bidwell Park, which consists of a huge trans-city park and bike path, as well as Upper Bidwell Park, which has hiking trails, swimming holes, and a great creek for wading.  We ride bikes around town, hike, and visit the weekly farmers market (which is huge!).  I've put in a vegetable garden, which amazes me because it had to be done in April.  In Washington, that's hard to do.  I  remember planting lettuce in April and having to cover it a few nights so it wouldn't freeze!  Here, I would have been behind if I waited any longer.  

We're also looking for work pretty vigilantly.  The teaching scene in California is sad and dismal, so both of us are branching out into the more "diversified" portions of our resumes. We've both managed to pick up some part time work (I am subbing and Michael is working with kids with disabilities), but we haven't abandoned the search for something full time!  

We're beginning to meet a few people here, too.  It's the first time in a long time that I have moved somewhere and not known a soul.  It's kind of boring!  We need to make some friends so we can focus some of our energy on something other than ourselves. :-)

So here are a few pictures of our house (we are borrowing it from Grandma, since she's been relocated to my mom's house).  We're busy moving our stuff into it and reorganizing it.

Home sweet home!

Ahhh, Hawaii. And it's only the beginning...

And finally, the moment Michael and I have been waiting for... Kaua'i.  Since we are experiencing jet lag, our first morning was an early one, but I was excited to get some great light for these photos of the beach.  We've been here 2 days, and both of them have been equally wonderful.

The beach, a 5 minute walk from our condo.

Poipu beach, known for being sunny.  No complaints!

Michael is very happy.

Later in the day, we took a drive to Waimea Canyon.  The second biggest canyon in the Pacific--#1 is the Grand Canyon.  We enjoyed the blue, blue ocean and the golden fields as we drove.

An amazing waterfall that we hiked to.  I found the view was better from across the canyon because when we hiked to the top of it, I couldn't actually see the waterfall, just hear it.

It's warm, the air is clean and sweet, and we're not in winter clothes.  Whoo-hoo!

Waimea Canyon

More to come!