Ten Year Anniversary Celebration!!

So Joel and I had a fabulous time out west in Northern CA. How refreshing it was to spend eight days together without children, away from home, exploring new sights, sounds and smells. We took well over 600 pictures but here are just a few to give you an idea of the great time we had together and the beautiful things we saw.

Just a little windy, but what a sight the Golden Gate bridge was!

Welcome to YWAM Mendocino! Formerly a hippie commune, now a place where Jesus' love is manifested on bible verses carved out of wood and placed on giant redwood stumps.

One of the cabins on the YWAM base, the Raccoon cabin is where we stayed. Wood heat, very rustic and a bible verse from our wedding psalm carved on the window box!

Ah, the redwoods!

It's hard to capture the enormity of these old trees. This one was almost 20 ft. across and over 350 ft tall.

We did see some wildlife while we hiked.

Driving our Kia Soul (rental) through a 2500 year old tree!

Driving through the redwoods. This is a rare piece of straight road. We averaged about 30 miles an hour driving on the curvy roads of Northern CA. (the speed limit was 45 mph, but we hardly made it up to that!)

Here is a pygmy forest. This is an 80-90 year old tree, still alive, but just taller than Joel. What a contrast to the redwoods!

The coast was just beautiful. 

The smells of the wildflowers, salt and wild wind were magical.

Sunset.

Sand dunes! (yes this picture is genuine)

I (Renee) loved the variety of flowers here. (About 25% of our pictures were of flowers!)

After Mendocino, we drove down to Napa Valley and visited one winery. Since we are not big wine people, we decided to make the winery a good one: We went to a genuine castle! The Castle of Love!

The views, the beauty of the valley, the castle itself, all of it was amazing.

The courtyard of the castle.

This trip was full of memories that will be treasured forever! Joel and I had a wonderful time together and left feeling refreshed and ready to plunge back into "real" life. 

Random Recent Family Pictures

Ceylon Lagoon, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 6:30am

We spent 4 days at YWAM Conference in Lake Geneva, interspersed with visiting a lot of Renee's family. 

We didn't see much of Rachel and Joshua during the conference because spent so much of their time with new friends.  

It's a family tradition to take pictures at the pink elephant in DeForest, WI, but it was too windy and cold at the front end,  so this is what you get.  

A Sunday Science Outing

or, An Outing Whereby We Unknowingly Collect Ticks.  

Joshua the Experimenter building a boat.

Rachel the Artist illustrating our outing.

Madelynn the Inquisitive

Hudson the Handsome (that's not a booger, it's rug burn)

Bros.  

Mommy's been having us all drink activated charcoal in cherry juice.  

Charydyn and Rachel and the Children's Shelter of Cebu banquet.  Charydyn was one of the kids in the Philippines our church sponsored before she got adopted by a family in the Minneapolis area.  

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Hey a "Pike" cabin at YMCA Camp Ihduhapi where we had a 2-day planning retreat for Missions Adventures this summer!  

He'll grow into it.  

Our first nature hike of the season.  

Oliver!  Best buddies since birth.  Practically.  And still. 

Oliver and Joshua made breakfast of their own initiative with no adult supervision while wearing footies.  

Daddy grills for his birthday in a snowstorm.  I think that's getting to be a tradition too.  

Thanks for checking in on us.  Tomorrow morning Renee and are off to stay here: 

Which is here:

For our ten year anniversary.

Tootaloo.