This last weekend I received a wonderful surprise Mother's Day gift. Our oldest son came home for a surprise visit. He lives out-of-state. All of my family knew about him coming home but me. I was totally surprised when he walked into the house. What an awesome Mother's Day gift!
He came in holding the bouquet of flowers on the right. The other flowers are from our daughter and son-in-law, and our youngest son and his wife. So sweet!
My husband and I had the opportunity to go to Provo, Utah to watch the BYU Homecoming game in October. One of our sons is a member of the BYU Cougar Marching Band and this was our first time watching him march in that band. It was awesome!
While we were in Utah, we went to Provo Canyon and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors. I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took while we were there.
I hope you enjoyed my photos of Provo Canyon, Utah. The fall colors really were spectacular!
Earlier this month my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a trip to the California's Central Coast. Our anniversary was actually last month, but we were very busy with our third-oldest son's wedding.
During our trip to the coast, we went to Morro Bay and kayaked in the Morro Bay Estuary. We paddled around a bit and then headed to the Morro Bay Sand Spit that separates the bay from the Pacific Ocean.
Kayaking Selfie
We parked the kayak on the sand and walked from the bay side of the dunes to the Pacific Ocean side.
This Google Map shows Morro Bay, the Estuary and the sand spit where we went. We rented our kayak from Kayak Horizons in Morro Bay. That red star on the map shows approximately where the shop is located. The blue arrow is pointing to the spot where we parked the kayak and the red arrow is the beach area of the sand spit where we ended up.
See that yellow double kayak on the left in the photo below? That's the one we rented from Kayak Horizons. We parked it there and then walked over the dunes to the Pacific Ocean side of the sand spit.
There's a roped-off path leading to the beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the sand spit.
That's my husband up ahead of me.
And there he is at the shoreline.
This stretch of beach is so pretty and quite secluded. We were the only people here at the time we visited. This isn't the first time we've been here. We've come here with our kids in the past.
My husband and I enjoyed walking along the beach, getting our feet wet, and picking up sea shells.
While we were enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean, I recorded a short video using my cell phone. I hope you enjoy it.
We had the wonderful opportunity to attend the wedding of our third-oldest son about a week ago in Utah. It was a beautiful wedding and we're so happy for our son and new daughter-in-law.
While we were there in Utah, we took the opportunity to visit Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon.
We have visited the Falls in the past. They are beautiful and there's a great paved trail that leads to and beyond the Falls called Provo River Parkway Trail.
Here's a picture of the Provo River along the trail.
The scenery along the trail was really pretty.
While we were walking along the trail, we saw a few people that had stopped and were looking at something. It was this baby rattlesnake! Whoa!
Yes, we stayed away from that little guy for sure. Scary!
In December of last year, our family visited the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. They have added some amazing new exhibits since the last time we visited many years ago.
We didn't have a lot of time, so we didn't see everything. We'll have to go back some time so we can see more of the zoo.
One of the places we went to is the zoo's Tropical Rainforest exhibit. So cool! It's an enclosed area with two sloths, birds, and other animals.
Here are some photos from our visit.
I don't know what these are. Any guesses?
One of the birds in the exhibit.
One of the sloths.
Such a pretty orange color!
Just a sloth hanging out by the window.
Yep. That's a sloth too.
More birds.
I'll share more pictures from our visit to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo in future posts.
In a previous post I shared photos from our walk along historic Christmas Tree Lane in Fresno, California. During our walk, I recorded a short video of the amazing display near the end of the Lane. I uploaded the video to YouTube today and thought I'd share it here on my blog.
On Christmas night last month, our family went for a walk along historic Christmas Tree Lane. I say "historic" because Christmas Tree Lane celebrated its 93rd anniversary last year (2015).
Christmas Tree Lane is a well-known and popular destination in Fresno. And it even made the pages of Sunset Magazine! To read that article, click HERE.
Our family actually started walking along Christmas Tree Lane at the end of the lane. And we didn't walk the whole length of Christmas Tree Lane, which means we only saw part of it. But what we did see was really pretty.
Without further ado, here are some photos from our walk along Christmas Tree Lane.
This amazing display is what we saw first, which is actually at the end of Christmas Tree Lane.
It was so fun spending time together as a family at Christmas. And it was a treat to be together as we walked along Christmas Tree Lane on Christmas night.
