Trish and Andrew, from the East Coast, flew into San Francisco this past week and we met up in Redding for a few days of fun and hugs. Grandma Marie the twins and I drove down to meet them at a hotel and from there we had a couple of busy days.
That first afternoon we walked around
Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay. It’s an actual sundial and a bridge. Beautiful. We walked across the bridge and under it, then took a walk on some trials looking at the plants and bugs. We didn’t see any turtles but in the creek we saw lots and lots of frogs that were easy to catch.
I like this photo of Mom and the sundial, I laid down on the ground looking up through the hole of the dial with Mom leaning over me.
The next day we drove up to Shasta Lake and toured the
Shasta Caverns, a first time for all of us. We had a boat ride and a bus ride before the hour walk in the caverns, it reminded Mom (Grandma) and myself quite a bit of the
Oregon Caves but I don’t think the tour of the Oregon Caves are quite as long. At one point on the tour the floor lights (guide lights) went out and it was clear why they were needed. All forward movement from the tourists (us) stopped and we waited till we had light again. I don’t ever remember being in that dark of darks like this before…neat!
The last day we played at a water park with some water slides before we all had to part ways. The sun was out but the water was dang COLD. Cole and Jo got a little sliding in at the kids play area while Trish, Andrew and I hit all the water slides…at least once.
This is Andrew dropping into the tallest slide. It’s a “V” shape and you leave your stomach at the top when you drop in. I swear that you are not actually touching even the water with the first little drop at the beginning and when you hit the bottom the first time you about loose your breath with the sharp upward turn. Andrew went first and he slide to the other side stopping about 10’ to 15’ from the top…Then I went and I really thought I was going to shoot off the other side of the slide as my feet almost touched the top. (you sure get a better ride the larger you are) Then Trish went but not before wanting to head back down the stairs after seeing how close I came to the edge of the slide. Trish managed to overcome her fear and did it…once was good for her! Or was it bad?
We all had a good time and as for me…I’m still a little tired. But it sure was GREAT to spend time with Trish and Andrew. Andrew has gotten so tall (and buff, he would want me to say that) and though I have thought he was always a good looking boy he is turning into a very handsome young man.
Our pool is filled and the kids could not wait to take a dip in the water…brrrrrr. They have been in a few times now and lasted about ten minutes each time because the water is quite cool yet. Cole is now going under the water and picking things up from the bottom of the pool. This is probably the next step for swimming without life jackets, we think this free pool will help their progress along.
After swimming the other day Jo laid down on the warm porch to dry off and feel asleep quickly. Sure didn’t look very comfortable to me but she crashed hard so we let her stay there for about a half hour. I can understand being that tired, I slept standing up while waiting for crab to butcher in Alaska.
We put a squirrel feeder up by the bird feeders and it didn’t take long for the first one to find the food and hang out. If we didn’t have our neighbors cat hanging out under all the plants hoping for a meal I think we would have even more birds and squirrels. It’s been fun watching all the animals, even fun watching that cat.
