Visiting Grandma and Grandpa Swanson in CA

We visited the Redwoods National Park Sunday after church. Even though we have been there many times, the huge trees are always an amazing sight. Next we will head to Auntie Britt's and some friends from Alturas, then to visit two of my sisters and some Sitka friends. We will end up in Seattle at my niece's home. I'll send Pete, Karl and Kirsten back to AK and Claire and I will continue on to ID and then up the ALCAN highway. Tomorrow, while the kids and I head up the coast in CA and OR, Pete will be flying to D.C. for work. We all meet back for one short evening in Portland. We hope you are having a great adventure wherever you are as well.

The roots of these giants are huge. This tree fell and you are looking at the uprooted base.

Just a glimpse of how big these giants really are.

Grandma Swanson was getting pretty frustrated with the mystery in the garden. Something was eating all her vegetables and berries. Pete set a few traps (big and small) and came up with the mysterious thief. So far, he has caught 4 gophers and 1 unlucky mouse. Seems the mouse was hanging out with the wrong crowd yesterday.

Karl finally gets the hang of skim boarding. Here we are standing on the oldest suspension bridge in the United States. It is overlooking Lake Oroville.

This view is from the mid-mountain hillside on Grandpa and Grandpa's ranch.

Here Pete and Karl are visiting with Randy and Ann at the ForeBay at Lake Oroville.

Kirsten and Claire make a sandcastle at the lake. The sun was hot and the water was cold. Kate was happy to cool down in the lake.

Just like Havannah. Here we are getting ready to watch fireworks on the 4th of July at Greg and Sherry's porch.

Greg and Sherry have an amazing pool. We spent most of two days in the pool. This is actually the pool where Pete had his terrible accident 4 years ago. Thank God for his amazing recovery.

Karl is trying out a skim board at Del Mar Beach. It was much harder than it looks.

Pete and Karl on their way out to try some ocean tricks.

Kirsten poses by the car in Grandpa Stonoff's lot that she would like to own. And it still runs!

Kirsten and Claire join Jaime on the beach in Del Mar for a little sunbathing.

Kirsten and Grandma came along to cheer up the woodcutters.

This nifty 4-wheel drive rig is called a PUG. Karl drove it all over the ranch hauling loads of firewood to the shed.

Pete's sister Britt and her hubby Pat came over to Swansons ranch as well and we had group wood cutting. There were quite a few cords of wood left in the shed after the cutting was complete.

This was my creative shot of super fast motion. I had fun trying different setttings on my camera, and this was the end result.

Claire decided that she would try the sand burial after Kate did it first. She also got a little nervous when she realized she couldn't get out of the sand. She was a good sport though.

Kirsten, Karl and Claire buried Kate in the sand on the Eel River. She didn't mind, but got a little nervous when she realized she couldn't get out. She was a good sport though.

Claire and dad jumped into the Eel River, right along the avenue of the Giants (redwoods that is). We committed to swimming every day we were in Northern CA. So far, so good.

Claire and Kirsten loved the baby colt, "Sequoia" who was named after the huge redwoods on the property and in the area.

The owners of the Chapman ranch love animals and took Claire for a little bareback ride on "Charlie".

We had a great time at Salmon Creek. This swimming hole was on private property. The owners have a 2000 acre ranch and go to Grandpa and Grandma's church. We drove in as far as we could, then hiked in the rest of the way. Wow! What an amazing place this was.

Karl dove in from the rocks. We swam right up to the beautiful waterfall.

Grandpa and Grandma lounged around and threw the stick for the endless retrieving canine, Kate.
The girls enjoyed paddling around in the boat in the very cold water. Even cold for Alaskans.

Traveling through California

Karl had fun driving Dan Vandewarkers red convertible around the Escondido area.

We had a great week traveling from Phoneix to Northern California. We stopped along the way and visited many friends and family. We also had fun playing tourist. We drove across I-8 first to San Diego. Since Pete and I (Lenore) went to college in San Diego, we wanted to let our kids experience the area. Kirsten wanted to visit our Alma Mater Point Loma Nazarene University. We enjoyed visiting the campus and then headed to our old favorite Pizza place (dollar pizza). It was still there and the pizza was as good as we remembered. However, the slices were smaller, and they cost 2.99 instead of one dollar now. Sigh.

We stayed with friends from the Placerville area who have now moved to Escondido. Jaime cut Claire's hair and highlighted Kirsten's. She is in the process of finishing her certificate at the Paul Mitchell School. We went to the Del Mar beach with the Vanderwarkers and Pete's cousin Karen met us there for a brief beach catch up.

After that, we headed up to our old stompin' grounds in the foothills of the Sierra. We visited many friends there and went to church at our old church. After much too short of a visit, we traveled north to Oroville and spent a couple of days there with Randy and Ann Wise. Pete used to work with Randy in Alturas, and they were our next door neighbors when we lived in Alturas. We had twin log homes in Cal Pines. Randy is now an assistant Supt. of Butte County.

Our ventures brought us up to Grandpa and Grandma Swanson's next which I will write about next week. We miss all of you in Alaska and hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as we are.

Kirsten and Claire take a dip in the pool at the Oroville suburban area where the Wise's live. They don't miss ANY opportunities to swim. It is a nice respite to swim in warmer water and actually be able to stay in the water for a couple of hours.

At Greg and Sherry's, we helped strip the apricot tree. We ate quite a few during the picking, then had apricot crisp, and dried several planks full.

At the Siemens, we played around with camera settings. We had a great time swimming and enjoyed dining outdoors with abalone appetizers. We miss hanging out with our old pals.

Magic Mountain was one of the highlights for Karl (and the rest of us). There are now 18 rollercoasters. It has changed a fair bit from college days. The very hot day was rewarded with multiple water rides where some of us were entirely soaked! We took our cousin Molly with us as well.

Some of the roller coasters were SCARY! Of course they couldn't get enough. The crowds were small and we were thankful.

Here is our gang about to go upside down (again!)

Lenore's first cousin Karen, and her family live in LaVern, a suburb of L.A. Their girls and our 3 kids really connected and hit it off. They had not seen each other in about 6 years. We are trying to talk the girls into coming to AK for Christmas break. (And the parents too!) Keith (dad) teachers Bible at Azusa, so we got the tour of Azusa as well.

All the cousins on the front porch. (The oldest Megan was in Africa leading a team from Azusa). Here is Karl, Kirsten, Melanie, Molly and Claire. The 5 kids stayed up until 4:00 a.m. playing games...Twister to card games...talk about a riot!

Azusa Pacific University tour!

A very scary Claire monkey at the San Diego Zoo.

We took the tram across the San Diego Zoo.

We spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. We had to pose next to the polar bears. We were a little amazed that the zoo was feeding them CARROTS! They were chewing them up and then spitting them out.

"You Tarzan, Me Jane". Kirsten blends in with the jungle them of the San Diego Zoo.

Claire couldn't decide which animals she liked the best. The Zebra was one of her favorites.

Vacation in Arizona

Yeah! We finally made it to our vacation time. We are all excited to visit our family and friends. Our first stop is, Tempe, AZ. Then off to Flagstaff for a couple days before tubing the Salt River and heading to CA. We hope you are having a good summer as well.Just a little friendly pose from a gecko we found in Arizona.
Boy's State was held at a beautiful camp setting outside of Wasilla, Alaska.
Karl was elected 'senator' at Boy's State. He had a good time. Right after graduation (in Wasilla) we headed to the airport to get on a flight to Arizona.
We cooled off in Auntie Lurinda's pool the very first night we were in Arizona. Whew! We were thankful.
Karl and I (Lenore) arrived in Phoenix on Father's Day. We celebrated Father's Day, and cousin Jeremy and Karl's birthdays as well.

Our cousins Robert and Shelley Miller in Flagstaff, enjoying breakfast (sourdough pancakes) al la fresca.

Claire had a blast playing with the kids on the wiggle cars.

After a brief rest and recover, we drove to Flagstaff on Monday and Tuesday. We went to check out NAU (Karl was interested in the college), and visit our nephew and family, Robert and Shelley Miller. We sure had a good time with them. Robert gave us the tour of his new business venture, fed us sourdough pancakes and the kids got to play with their cousins. After we left on Tuesday, we drove out to Wuptaki Indian Ruins. They date all the way back to the 1100's. It was very interesting. (And hot of course).

When we got back to Tempe, we went to saw the new Star Trek movie. It was great.

Wednesday we spent shopping all day long at outlet stores. We went to IKEA, and Trader Joe's. In the evening, we made it for opening night of "Transformers 2". Wow. The kids loved that one, but the shows were all very crowded and sold out, so we were lucky to make it.
Thursday we spent at Sun Splash. We all had a terrific time. It was overcast so most of the locals skipped out. We didn't have any lines. We tried all the waterslides.
Friday night, Kirsten's recital dance show was a traveling show that showed off different things around the museum. The dance traveled around the building while the audience followed.
Earlier yesterday (Friday) we had a fun day. We did a bunch of school shopping. Then, we got to see Kirsten during her dance recital. She spent the past two weeks on a dance scholarship from the Homer dance organization. She took the interpretive dance and video class at ASU. After the show was done, Nephew J.R. and Sarah, and the 4 of us went to 'UP' 3D. Fun movie.

Today, we tubed down the Salt River. A pretty nice thing to do considering it was 110 degrees outside. We all got a little burned. Some more than others. My sister Lurinda went with us and nephew J.R. and his friend Sara. We all had a great time and enjoyed the cold water in the Salt River. Mom made our favorite Mexican food for dinner (flauta and chile rellenos) followed by lots of laughter and cracking up the rest of the evening. There are no photos because cameras cannot stay dry on the river. Sad.