Thanksgiving

We had a two wonderful Thanksgivings this year. On Thursday Kimmy hosted us to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at her new apartment in Modesto. We are happy to have Kimmy back in California and able to celebrate Thanksgiving with her. After our wonderful dinner we headed home to get the kids and Jenny to bed early for a busy day on Friday. Jenny started her day at 2:30am to get to Wal-Mart by 3:00am for Black Friday shopping. She was able to get everything she wanted and a few extra things and be out the door by 5:15am. We then packed the kids up and started our drive to Truckee to spend Friday with the Halstead’s at a cabin that Greg and Denise had rented. As always Steve had to put chains on the van. Each time he does it he gets faster. I think he did it this time in about 20minutes. Once we got to Truckee we found the house the Greg and Denise had rented for the week and got settled in. We got everyone dressed in their snow gear and headed out to play in the snow. Austin, Reagan, Kaitlyn, Steve and Scott had a great time sledding. Sydney and Lucas didn’t like anything about the snow or the clothes. We took some good family pictures and went back in the warm house to get ready for another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we were able to sit and watch it snow all night and have all the kids playing together. Dinner was wonderful and the dessert was great. We had a fun couple of days with lots of memories made. We can’t wait until next year when all the kids will be a year older.

http://picasaweb.google.com/steve00000000/Thanksgiving2009#

Austin’s 2nd Grade Picture

Here is Austin’s 2nd grade picture. He is growing up so fast.

Halloween Video

Pumpkin Patch

It is October and we thought we would spend our first Friday off at Bishop Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland. Despite being Fall it was still 88degrees outside, but we made the trip anyways. I looked everywhere to find cute short sleeve Halloween shirts for the kids but had no luck. So we rolled up the sleeves and put shorts on them. Not very festive but kept the kids cooler. We learned from last year that just because it is October doesn’t mean that it will be cool. We like to go this weekend because there are lots of great pumpkins and less crowds. The kids had a great time looking at all the animals at the petting zoo. Lucas got really excited about the cow that he could look at up close. Sydney liked all the animals but not the dirt. After we visited the animals we walked around the big pumpkins in hope of getting some cute pictures of the kids. But the only one who would sit long enough was Austin. Trying to get two 2 1/2 year olds to both look at the camera and smile is impossible. Once I gave up on my mission of getting a cute picture we took the hay ride out to the pumpkin fields and picked our pumpkins. When I say pick our pumpkins I mean it. We got to pick all of our pumpkins right off the vine. It was very cool. Again Sydney was not happy because it was dirty. So she stayed back with Emily and me while the boys and Kaitlyn went off to find the perfect pumpkin.  I think that everyone was happy with their pumpkin choose and they all look forward to carving them in a few weeks.

Hawaii: Visiting the Kilauea Volcano

On Thursday Sept. 24th we started our day early so we could go explore Kilauea Volcano. It is about a 2.5 hour drive from the hotel but was a nice drive. We went through more the middle of the island over to Hilo by way of the Saddle Back road. This road was an old military road during WWII and until recently most rental car companies did not allow you to drive it. It has been worked on and repaved quite a bit so we were able to drive it. It was a very windy road but the landscape was wonderful. It kept changing as we went across the road. We saw some pretty interesting plants.

We arrived at the park and was pretty amazed at everything we saw. We took lots of pictures but it is really hard to capture what we are seeing. We drove over many lava flows from the 1970’s where there are lots of trees and then a distinct tree line where the flow came through and then maybe a couple 100 yards the tree line starts again. Thick black lava flows go down the mountains out to the ocean. You can hike most of the park but we drove through most of it. The actual crater was amazing to see but again is something you have to see in person to really get an understanding of the size and depth.

Steam vents which were pretty smelly…

The crater…

Smaller but still huge crater…

Nice picture of how the lava folds over and ripples as it dries…

Older lava flow…

Walking along a lava flow from the 80’s…

Lava tube we were able to walk through…around the lava tube it was very tropical but a few minutes in either direction it became very dry and really a completely different environment.

There used to be a road that went along the water but a flow in the 80’s went right over the road out to the ocean. We hiked a little ways out onto the flow. It was amazing to see the road just go right under the lava.

At the end of the day we went out of the park to a viewing area where we were able to see the lava flowing into the ocean. It was about a half mile (we think longer but they said only a half) from the viewing area. We stayed until it got dark. There was a constant large amount of smoke and as waves crashed up we could see lava rocks flying around like small explosions. During light we could see some bright orange flows going into the water but at night the orange glow was really great to see. The pictures below are from the half mile, zoomed all the way in with my zoom lens and then zoomed in more on the computer and cropped to try and show what we were seeing. At night I could not get a fast enough shutter speed with the lack of light so they get more blurry but there was not much I could do. I had the camera on my tripod with a remote so I never touched the camera which would have added shake and blur to the pics even more….

After we watched the lava for some time, we headed back for the long drive on very dark windy roads. We got back to the hotel pretty late and exhausted but so well worth it. Again…something you really have to go see in person if you get the chance. Truly amazing…