Sonoma Coast

 I have always loved an ocean view!  But although they are much closer, I am not as fond of the southeast or Gulf coast, as I really like lots of cliffs and rocks.  California's coast did not disappoint!

This was a nice place to nap!

Have Breakfast With Me

On our first morning at the beach, I woke up early and walked down to the shore.  It had been dark when we arrived the night before, so I really did not know what to expect.  I took a chair, some hot tea, and my Bible.  When I arrived, I saw this table and felt the Lord say to me in an almost audible voice "Come have breakfast with me."  I guess I was thinking of John 21:12 when Jesus fed his disciples breakfast on the beach.  Anyway, it was a very special moment, and I had a wonderful time of prayer that morning.  

Somehow after that experience, I started noticing tables almost everywhere we went.  Each one reminded me of that first day and reminded me of how much the Lord wants to spend time with us. 

 

Here is a quote I had written in the first page of my travel journal.  I tried to really put it in to practice on this trip.  

"To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Nowhere (a combination of NOW and HERE).  We encounter God in the NOW.  Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life."  

30th Anniversary Road Trip: First Stop, San Francisco

 

For many years, we had talked about going to New Zealand for our 30th anniversary.  Then Rebecca decided to have a baby due on that exact day!  Terry thought we could probably still make the trip, but I said "No way!  Maybe we can go later in the year."  Ha!  2020 was not the year to be traveling out of the country.  We decided to tackle another item on our bucket list - seeing the west coast in a camper van.  

Why a camper van?  Well, we love camping, but dragging our pop-up all the way to the west coast just wastes too much driving time.  And we'd always wanted to try out a camper van (though I went back and forth between being excited and being nervous about 3 weeks of togetherness without a bathroom!).  Google searches led me to Traveller's Autobarn.  I highly recommend renting with them!  We had a van for 3 weeks for about $1500 with unlimited miles.  We weren't sure everything would work out with Covid and almost cancelled plans several times.  But we decided to go for it, first flying to San Francisco where we picked up the van.  

It ended up being a beautiful day to tour the city.  The traffic was non-existent and the skies were blue.  A friend had recommended some restaurants that we visited for pick-up.  We spent all day in the city and then drove to our first campsite at Wright's Beach.  

Fall Creek Falls

 After Caleb's wedding, we went camping for a few days at Fall Creek Falls with Carol and John.  Ann and David were supposed to join us but got called back to Fayetteville. 

It was a good time to just relax and decompress.  Carol and John have a new trailer.  This was the first time we had used our trailer in over a year.  The campsite was pretty full in spite of Covid.  

Caleb and Meredith

What a challenging year to have a wedding!  A seemingly exponential amount of flexibility was required.  I am so proud of Meredith and Caleb that they persevered through all the decisions and numerous reconsiderations of all previous decisions and ended up with a beautiful wedding that we can all remember fondly.  And of course, the wedding is just an event - but the marriage is the beautiful thing! I'm praying that God blesses Caleb and Meredith with a fantastic marriage!

There are so many great photos that it's hard to know where to start and definitely hard to know where to stop as well.  I'll be happy to show a huge album to whoever wants to stop by and see it.  Here are a favorites:

One of my favorite moments was the mother/son dance to "Baby Mine," which I used to sing as a lullaby to Caleb.  

Missing Man Formation

This is a tough post to write, and the story belongs to others more than me, but I couldn't NOT write about something so significant to our family.

My brother-in-law Scott was diagnosed with stomach cancer in January.  We knew it was very serious, but we didn't think our time together was so short.  And though due to Covid, his kids had extra time with him, the rest of us were keeping our distance for his safety, so the time seemed even shorter.  Scott told us all at a family meeting that he wanted the time to be "sweet, " not "sad."  

The times we did share together were indeed very sweet.  He was feeling good enough to come over for the Super Bowl and even enjoyed some of the party food like he hadn't in weeks.

Scott had a birthday on May 1st and was in the hospital with some respiratory issues.  We were able to gather outside the hospital and sing and pray for him.   I didn't know that it would be the last time I would see him smile on this earth.

Scott went to be with the Lord on May 20th.  I will always remember how we ALL got to be in his ICU with him (in spite of all Covid rules and even regular rules!).  It was a very tough but sweet goodbye.  

Then we were very blessed when Scott's skiing friends put together a "missing man ceremony" for him.  We gathered at the dock as the ski boats went by in formation.  

Here are some special videos of the event: