This and That in February!

Lots of good things in February including Grandpa's jokes which Nathaniel was excited about!

Bethany left this note on her parents' bed.

She and Aubrey have been rehearsing their parts for the school play:  Aladdin!

Peter was ordained a Priest.

David did this difficult puzzle:

We went to the 80th birthday party for Bob Telford

which included seeing many old friends from the 7th ward.

We saw Bev and Bob McAdam who are both in their 90's! 

Here are Bob and Wendy, and Christine is in the picture below.  

We substituted for Presidency members in the temple for 3 days and had wonderful experiences!

I took this picture when we were leaving on our last day at 2:30 in the afternoon, wrapping up about 31 hours in the temple that week.

We hosted Phyllis Lee for a Sunday afternoon.  Phyllis is suffering from Alzheimer's and enjoys the social interaction.  She especially enjoyed being around the Perry family who joined us for dinner, a Family Home Evening and some games.

While Heidi was out in Utah, she and Elizabeth went to the Payson temple grounds.

Concurrently, Sarah was working at home on this paint by number of the Payson temple!

Heidi and Elizabeth also got to go to a BYU basketball game, shop at the bookstore and eat at the Cougareat along with attending the Mark Pope basketball show.

Speaking of BYU, these two kindergarten buddies

both got accepted to BYU!

The Melanchuks loved the Vocal Point concert in Chico

As Amanda said:  We met the incredible beatboxer Alex Brown afterward. The Alex from Signing Time with Alex and Leah! That show is how Nathaniel learned sign language! They noticed Nathaniel signing and he came to meet us and take a picture!

Jeff and Suzie got a new stove and oven!

Eleanor bought a car!

And Julia bought a car!

She has already driven it to Illinois!

We got to see Hannah in another play. 

It was lots of fun!

And she did a great job as the Aristocat kitten: Marie

Elizabeth is super excited to find out where she will be serving her mission!

Ben and a friend made this cradle for Caleb, and Courtney made the quilt when she was in high school.

Caleb is back on oxygen but he's doing very well from his Grandma McClellan's reports!

Sam is still going strong on his mission now serving as a district leader

 in the Cache Valley town of Hyde Park.

I celebrated my half birthday by going out to lunch at a new place in Folsom:

And later Grandpa and I played some games.

One of the games was Phase 10 but we used these Phase ideas we found on the internet. 

They were hard!

The next morning Grandpa reminded me that the 24th of February was his 2/3 birthday!

Lookin' good as he creeps up on 3/4 of a century!

At this age we are into fractions!!

Welcome, Caleb!

Here are a few pictures of Caleb's first two weeks.

The night he was born:

From Courtney:

Caleb William Shafer
Born Feb 7 @ 10:07 pm
6 lbs 2 oz
33 weeks
And cute as can be
Enjoying family time ❤️

Courtney giving him his first bath:

The NICU set up:

We need a good caption for this one!

He must be looking at his adoring Mom or Grandma!

Will he be a thumb sucker?

His oxygen tube is out and guess what?

He's coming  home this week!

Outing #2: Half Moon Bay!

We enjoyed our second outing of the year to Half Moon Bay, the red star on the map below.

We actually rented a home in Pacifica right on the ocean marked below with the blue arrow.

There were lots of big waves to watch just steps away!

And we could see the pier and enjoyed walking down to it a couple of times and one day at sunset.

Here I am on the pier our first night.

We headed towards Half Moon Bay on our first full day.  Unfortunately we learned that several of the beach and tidepool trails we were interested in were still closed due to the storms earlier in the year.

Fortunately we found the Marsh Preserve Loop at Pescadero Beach.  It took us down from Highway 1 to this beach...

...and then looped around through this marshy area.

Way off in the distance in the picture below you can see a bridge.  That is Highway 1 and on the other side of it is the beach in the first picture at Pescadero.

You can tell it was a beautiful sunny day!

Then we went to see the Pigeon Point lighthouse.

It was built in 1871 to guide ships on the Pacific coast of California.  It is the tallest lighthouse on the west coast of the U.S.  It is still an active Coast Guard aid to navigation.  It is 115 feet tall.

Then we drove north from there to Pillor Point Harbor...

...and had lunch here.  The clam chowder was so yummy we came back another day and got take out.

Every day we saw these beautiful patches of yellow flowers.  The color was amazing.  We took a lot of pictures trying to capture it all and here are a couple of them.

Another day we ventured away from the coast to visit Pirisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.  That's a mouthful!  We enjoyed two beautiful hikes in the area.  These pictures are from the first hike.

Fun to see a redwood tree right along the path.

These are the tall, thin coastal redwoods.

And now for the second hike.  This is not an old-growth forest because it was logged back in the day.  But many of the redwood trees we saw were 100 years old or more.  The coastal redwoods grow together in groups.

The next two pictures show stumps from the logging days and how redwood trees are springing up around them.  Don't you love nature?!

On our last day we found a hike at Burleigh H. Murray Ranch State Park--another mouthful.

We followed the old ranch trail along Mills Creek.

Heading back I took this picture.  You can see our car in the parking lot beyond the gate.  I wanted to remind myself that we were the only people there and that is an amazing feeling in our modern age.

I understand this whole area of Half Moon Bay is bursting with stop and go traffic on weekends and all summer as Bay Area residents head to the coast.  But today it was all serenity and peace!

The main feature to see on the hike is this Bank Barn.  Here is what we learned:

"Originally 200 feet in length and capable of housing 100 dairy cows, the Mills Barn is one of two known examples of a bank barn in California. Bank barns are named based on their construction, typically built into the side of a hill or a bank which allows the two-story structure to be accessed via the bank. The foundation of the barn and other buildings, including an unreinforced arched stone bridge, rely on Italian masonry techniques dating back to Roman times."

I love this picture Grandpa took!

We also spent some time at the many beaches.  This is Poplar Beach.

You can see the beach extends for miles and has other names.

We could see the Ritz-Carlton Hotel off in the distance perched on an outcropping.

This is Three Rocks Beach near the hotel which we drove to see.

It has some nice stairs down.

And we crossed a bridge over the creek that flows to the ocean in the above picture and this picture below shows it cascading down.

Another beautiful beach at Half Moon Bay.

Montara Beach always had surfers.  

It's hard to get a photo of them when they are up on their boards but very fun to watch them as they try to "catch a wave!"

The sun setting from the patio of our rental home and we finish Outing #2.  It was great!

Just our shadows!