if you can make it next year, i suggest you all come by our house for easter morning. if you haven’t seen four grown men on an easter egg hunt, it’s more of an easter egg beatdown. next year i’ll have to youtube some of the action for you.
this year zack helped ’stuff’ the eggs. he conveniently placed quarters, movie tickets, and other high-ticket items, in eggs he would remember by color. this is him laughing as we repetitively opened those filled with 14 pennies.
and ryan about to unleash the the furry of his make-shift jellybean launcher ( constructed solely of items found in his easter basket ) and the inevitable 2008 easter sugar crash.
after the nap, we got coffee’d up and ready for round two at the winters’ house!
ummm, you tell me…
elliott had a well developed ‘team’ approach, where he harvested the eggs and the other collected. the strategy seemed to work.
of course, you can’t leave temecula without stoppin’ by pinkberry.
we finished the evening off with a fantastic dinner at the kraatz’ house and rocked yet another hunt! i’m not sure what uncovering eggs has to do with the resurrection of Jesus but we had no shortage of celebrating today!
Happy Easter!
‘what,’ you might ask, could be so engaging, so magnetic, so exhilarating, that it would bring us off course to the curiously quaint city of redding?
… the RED ROBIN of course! well, that and a persuasive blonde that offered us cookies.
the last 2 days were absolutely stunning! with only a handful of things that we really wanted to see on the oregon coast, we to decided to book it down highway 1 and spend some more time in san francisco!
first thing on the docket was to check out this really cool shipwreck. truth be told, i have no idea which of the oregon shipwrecks it was. if one of you wikipedia buffs want to figure it out, i’m sure that someone would be glad that you did. ;)
you can still see the skeletal outline of the entire ship. it was a bit creepy.
traveling through some farm country and lovin’ me some big empty silo action.
yes, that’s a 2!
if you’re traveling on the 1, let me give you a friendly piece of advice. they take the speed limit vary seriously. because towns just magically appear every 20 miles, the speed limit will drop by 30 mph without you realizing it, and they’re quick to enforce it. as we noted before, people from oregon are some of the nicest we’ve meet. now, nellie’s has charmed her way out of a number of tickets but blowin’ through a 35 zone at 65 requires a lot more than good looks and quick wit. ( of which she undoubtedly has both ;) ).
the next day we stopped by to see paul bunion and his magical blue ox. this was a ‘mind-blowing’ experience…
of course. what babe lacked in brain, he made up elsewhere.
most thrilling $4 bucks i ever spent. i’m tempted to call six flags and tell them they wasted their money.
arcata is one of those places i’ll probably drive on by next time i’m really desperate for a tank of gas.
yesterday we spent 11+ hours in the car. i’m not excited to do that again but the scenery was well worth it!
with a car full of shattered glass and a snow entrenched botanical garden on the docket, we decided that it was time to make our way back across the border. so, we made the 2 hour trek home, in the rain + snow, without a window. the worst part is that we didn’t even get a picture of it!
however, despite all of this turmoil, God is faithful. we had friends that we had desperately wanted to visit in mt. vernon, and they were gracious enough to let us intrude a day early. not only that, but they had a replacement window all lined up and ready to go by the time that we got there, put us up for the night, and treated us to some FABULOUS gorgonzola topped pizza!
we were so blessed to have a couple days with the maas family. daryl and christianna have a beautiful son, johann, and a baby girl on the way.
i love taking pictures of little kids. here are a few of johann.
johann is one of the cutest kids in the world. he’s engaging. we all had a good laugh when we asked him how old he was. he very confidently responded ‘big’. ‘why, yes you are big,’ we responded ‘but how many years old are you?’ and being the young existentialist that he is, very assuredly, answered ‘johann’.
when asked ‘the question,’ daryl wished that he had the ability to fly, christianna desired to be completely immersed in the love and power of the Holy Spirit, and johann seemed pretty content just to be him ( thought we’re pretty sure ‘bob the builder’ would have been a close second ).
daryl, christiana, and johann, thank you for making us feel so welcome and ‘at home’ with you. we hope to have the opportunity to treat you with as much hospitality as you have shown us. of course, under more pleasant circumstances ;)