The kids had fun with their friends, with a hike on up in the Briones with the Berhens. The weather has been perfect, with the hills in beautiful emerald green and mustard yellow.
One of the highlights of the Briones for the kids are the salamanders and newts. This hike was no exception, with the hills alive with the amphibians. Of course they found the typical California newts; however, they also came across tiger salamanders, which have florescent green eyes.Our rain pattern here for the last few weeks has been one day of rain a week. For the Briones, this means some pretty muddy trails. The Berehens wanted to have our kids see some pretty awesome single track trails that were created for some mountain bikes. Needless to say, they had a pretty hard time keeping upright, but they certainly had fun playing in the mud.
On Wednesday, the kids went for a hike with a family in our hall, the Hash's. They are new to the area (from Ohio) and we have been showing them of the fun things we like to do. A couple of weeks ago we took them through Castle Rock Regional Park. This time, Beth met them at the Lafayette Reservoir. The kids had a great time on the loop, which ends at the awesome play area.
On Thursday, my sister Melissa flew in for a visit with her friend Lisa in Napa. We picked her up at the Oakland Airport and took the long way around to Napa. First stop was at Ghiradelli for coffee and hot cocoa. Next, we took a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to have lunch in Sausilito. There is a nice deli we discovered a couple years back and they have awesome sandwiches. Melissa also bought some Smarties (the English style M&M's) and I was tempted to buy some Coffee Crisp but resisted.
After Sausilito, with a brief stop at a new running store where we bought some bread (longer story here) in Mill Valley, we drove up to Sonoma. Emma had visited the mission here for 4th grade California state history, but Beth and I have never been. It is a really nice town, and I can say that I prefer it much better than Napa. |
| All people prior to the 1900's were this tall! Except Abe Lincoln and Wyatt Erpp, no one believed me! |
We visited some of the historical buildings, like the mission, the barracks, and looked at some of the shops. It is a really quaint town and worth a trip up.
After Sonoma, we dropped my sister in Napa with her friend Lisa. Thank you Lisa for arranging this for her. It really means a lot, giving her some time to decompress. Thanks again.
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| I took a pretty good face-plant, good times. |
On Saturday, after field service, we took the kids on a hike nearby up to Eagle Peak. After hiking through the meadows of Clayton and past a new pond we discovered, we begin our climb up through the pine and the chaparral. This is a single track that leads up along to the ridge that overlooks Mitchell Canyon, Back Creek Canyon, and Clayton and Concord. It is a beautiful hike.
Once we got to the top, we decided to come down the Mitchell Peak trail, which was pretty awesome. For the kids any hike up a mountain means running down, and this was definitely a fun trail to run down.
The wild flowers are in full bloom on the mountain, with reds, purples, oranges, yellows popping everywhere. The meadows are so green, contrasted by the flowers, and topped off by the red rock. It is certainly awesome country.
Once we got home, we watched Old Yeller. Emma recently finished reading it and I had told her about the movie. It has been nice that free -on-demand have been adding some of the old classics. It was also fun to see how much of the country shown in the movie looked exactly like what we had just hiked through.
The kids made it through tear free, and I removed myself from the climax of the movie. Oh well.What an awesome spring break, now back to school and work!
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