20th Anniversary Trip

I'm finally getting around to blogging about our anniversary trip last weekend! We had a fabulous time! We left Friday right around noon, and started our drive up the coast. We drove up Highway 1, which is a very WINDY road (and I was glad I was not driving!). The views were beautiful! There were several places that we stopped to take pictures and walk on trails that led right to the cliffs overlooking the sea. Breathtaking!

We spent Friday and Saturday nights in the little town of Gualala, which is a bit south from the Point Arena lighthouse. Our Bed and Breakfast, The North Coast Country Inn, was wonderful...we highly recommend it to anyone traveling up that way. We enjoyed the area sights, drove up to the Point Arena Lighthouse, visited the Gualala Regional Park which included a few miles of trials and a nice walk on the beach. We'd love to go back up there someday.

Sunday we headed back down the coast, and cut over to spend the night in Sebastopol. We spent Monday in the Sonoma Valley, where we visited three different wineries to taste wine. The vines were all loaded with grapes, as their harvest is very close. We took a great tour at our first stop, The Benziger Family Winery. Again, we'd highly recommend their tour; it was well worth the money! We also visited the oldest winery in Sonoma, Gundlach Bundschu and one other called Viansa, where we enjoyed walking around the grounds and tasted the wines there. Very fun!

God blessed our time with perfect weather - unseasonably warm on the coast and unseasonably cool in the valley. We really had a great time relaxing and just hanging out together.

And...the kids did great at home! :)

20 years ago...

Today (August 12) is our 20th anniversary! It's hard to believe that it's been 20 YEARS since we got married. How the time has flown by...and now, four kids later, we can thank God for His blessings and mercy to us!

We've lived in four different states in our 20 years...Idaho, South Carolina, Washington and California. We've moved 6 times and owned two homes. We've had a total of 4 cats, 2 dogs, a few fish and 2 hermit crabs. :)

We'll be celebrating in style in a little over one week, when we take a little getaway trip to the north coast of California...stay tuned! :)

Back home...

We just got home last night from a week spent in southern CA with my parents. We had a nice time, even though it went by really fast! That was the first time I had made the drive without Kenny...and it was much easier than I thought it would be. God was good to bring us down and back safely!

We did a lot of swimming while we were there, thanks to a friend of my parents letting us use her pool every day. We also went to a fun new pizza place, called John's Incredible Pizza, in Buena Park. The kids had a fabulous time there! I met up with some old friends, and did some scrapbooking too.

Our dog had an accident in my parents' backyard; she jumped up onto a brick wall and gashed open her leg, requiring stitches! That was a bloody mess...and an expensive vet bill.

Now I need to get my focus back on starting school...the first day of school going to come quicker than I'd like it to! :)