Trip to California

We just returned from a trip to California for my mom's family reunion and her father's memorial service. The kids were WONDERFUL travelers! They like flying. We arrived in Seattle where Christy joined us, and were supposed to go straight through to Fresno, but our flight was cancelled! They could only get 2 of us on the next flight, so my mom and Christy went on to greet Katie who was ariving in Fresno from Mexico. The rest of us had an 8 hour lay-over! We spent a lot of time in the kids play room. Meadow makes friends very easily, and both of them were the most polite kids there! I was very proud of them! Meanwhile Katie arrived in Fresno.
We arrived that night exhausted. The next morning we went swimming before it got too hot. It was Brennen and Logan's first time in a pool! Fearless Brennen loved it! Logan took a while to enjoy it. Afterwards we began our journey up the winding road to Sequoia National Park for the reunion.

Beautiful Sequoia

Here are a few photos to show how beautiful Sequoia is! This is the largest tree in the world-in mass not height. Round Meadow with a nice trail around it that worked for a stroller.
Auntie Katie and Brennen (whom she met for the first time on this trip)
Beautiful scenery to see as we walk down the hill from the lodge.

Meadow loved climbing the big rocks. She was very brave. She seems to have grown up a lot on this trip. One major milestone is that she suddenly became totally potty trained! She stayed dry the whole trip -even on the flights and at night! Logan specialized in getting as dirty as possible! He loved throwing dirt, laying in dirt, and helping Meadow make "nests" (piles of dirt and pine needles). They both enjoyed collecting pine cones and rocks- and our bags came home full of them! (Although we probably weren't supposed to take them. Oh well..don't tell!) (OK Park Service blog spies, our bags weren't really full of pine cones...)

(At least we left the log that Meadow wanted to bring home!)

Memorial

Here's the whole group. Our family is huge! My grandpa has 8 kids (all married), 25 grand kids, (I'm the oldest!) and many great grand kids! All but a few came! We had a memorial service for him at a beautiful clearing in the woods where we had my grandma's service 3 years ago. Several people took turns sharing memories of him. My mom read a letter from his niece, and read the Bible verse that changed his thinking near the end of his life-something about God's word bringing understanding. I can't remember exactly. It was a nice service.

Then and Now

Each time we go to Sequoia I plan to take a picture of Meadow at a meadow! We tried to take it in the same spot at Round Meadow as last time.

Moro Rock

Matthew & I were able to do one hike without the kids. We got up early Sunday morning and climbed Moro Rock. It is a giant granite dome. The trail is only 1/4 mile and has about 400 stairs climbing 350 feet up. The sides drop off over 1000 feet. The mountains in the background form the Great Western Divide. The air was very hazy due to forest fires. (Not in Sequoia) Matthew standing by a sign at the top. The drop just goes on and on!
Me on the peak. Elevation 6725, but it seems higher than that! We were fortunate to be the only ones up there! It was beautiful! I last climbed this 22 years ago when I was 10.

Trip Back

Later on Sunday it was time to head back down the mountain to the scorching 105 degree heat of Fresno. Matthew was our brave driver. The road down has sharp turns and a steep drop-off on the side with no guardrail! I should have taken pictures of that part. Our passengers. The kids slept most of the drive and were happy the rest of the time! Logan excitedly pointed out EVERY palm tree!
Christy was the driver of our other car. We finally caught up to her.
Back in Seattle. Meadow named our "very friendly" jet Buster. She was excited to see more "Busters" when we landed.
After overnighting in Seattle, we were bumped off our morning flight, and since we were on mileage tickets, thanks to my parents, We now have 4 free tickets! We may be visiting Hawaii soon!

It was a wonderful trip!

Bears

A couple days before our trip, we went bear watching at Herring Cove with Grandpa Cooke, Paul Radford, his grand daughter Julia, and friend Adam. We saw three bears...and Meadow does look a lot like Goldilocks...she was asking if they were nice and wanted to pet one.Here they are viewing.

The Latest

Brennen making his moves with Lindsay, "I like long crawls on the beach, hugs & kisses..." Beautiful ballerinas, Meadow and Juliette
Logan is happy to now have a "big boy bed". So far he's done very well with not getting out.

4th of July

We had a fun day. We enjoyed the parade even though it rained a little. The kids collected lots of soggy, sticky candy!

Brennen had fun on his first 4th of July! He loved waving and chewing on his flag.
Logan was wearing his fireman raincoat, so he was excited when the firemen passed out hats, and went by on a smoking house float, which I think was the best one. It didn't look like a truck at all! The crowded street.
Meadow helped me make a flag cookie cake. She did a great job!
Grandpa John and Logan compared fireman suits.

We didn't go see the fireworks because it was too late, but we got our own show- our neighbors lit off tons of fireworks for about 2 hours! The kids had a great view out their bedroom window, and I worried about our trees and roof! I was glad it was raining!

Quintet

The Cooke Bird Quintet performed a few weeks ago. It was lovely! Brennen was the loudest.

The aunt comes marching...hurrah, hurrah

Auntie Christy is here for a visit! She'll be here till Monday. The kids were very excited to see her!