Adventures in Coleland: Where has July gone??

That seems to be the theme on our blog lately - a month in between posts. Bad blogger. Bad. Here are some photos from our recent road trip to California. We powered through on the first day and arrived a little after midnight on Monday. We swam and enjoyed Grammie's house on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday we took off about noon for Mendocino, with a brief stop in San Francisco. Emma really wanted to drive over the Golden Gate bridge, and we thought, "hey - we're on vacation - why not?" It turned out to be one of the most splendid days I've ever seen in SF - and I've been there a LOT! We all decided we would love to fly down for a weekend of exploration in the next year or so. Stayed in a bed-n-breakfast Thursday night that was pet-friendly, then headed through the Redwoods all day Friday. We stopped at the Eel River for a dip, watched some kayakers, and gave Coop his first dip in water. He did NOT like it. My pictures are in a bit of reverse order, but this first one of Carl holding Cooper is in Crescent City after a brief stop at the shore.

We cleaned out my mom's rafters in her garage while we were there - brought everything down, went through it all, and made a huge donation to goodwill. Along the way we found some childhood things that brought back a lot of memories. Emma of course was into everything, and decided to pair up my last pair of tap shoes with a ukelele that I got in Hawaii in 5th grade.

We had to do it. Had to go to the drive-through tree. It was $5 but it's just one of those things you gotta do, right?? Of course our truck wouldn't fit through, or at least we weren't willing to try after seeing a minivan squeek by. But we managed a picture: