In Which We Go on a Grand Adventure

Home. How heart-warming that word sounds to someone who has been away for twelve days. Late Monday evening, four of us returned to our home from our vacation to California and Arizona. Even though the trip was agreed upon as one of the best times our family has ever had together, there is something about coming back to a familiar and dear place with all the little comforts often taken for granted. For instance, sleeping in ones own bed with as many blankets as desired, or not having to dig in a suitcase for wrinkled clothes and finding that you didn't pack what thing you are searching for.

Now that that has been said, let me also say what a special blessed time we had. Throughout our traveling (which included a first-time plane trip for us three girls), we saw God's divine intervention in our lives again and again. We were able to go many places and see many extraordinary sights. We also took over six hundred pictures (!). Here are a few of our favorites.

Arizona is so different from Pennsylvania! We saw scenery like this while driving to Sedona, AZ.




Sedona was voted "The Most Beautiful Place in America". We did some hiking here. It was much warmer than PA!

We thought that the top of this rock looked like a face...

The next place we visited was the Grand Canyon. It was so big it was overwhelming!


We were originally planning to walk down to the bottom (or at least part way) of the canyon. However, we decided against that plan when we saw the snow and ice on the trail which always followed a very steep edge! We contented ourselves with walking around the rim.

The beauty of creation caused us to think on the majesty of the Creator...

One of the best parts of being at the Grand Canyon was seeing about twenty elk on the second day. We were able to stand pretty close to some of them.


We were able to see the sun set twice on the canyon. Beautiful, but extremely cold!

After the Grand Canyon, we drove to the Sequoia National Park. It was a ten-hour trip and took us an hour after we entered the park to drive up the mountain to the lodge. While there was no snow at the bottom of the mountain, we were greeted by eight feet at the top!


We went snow-shoeing through the Giant Forest. The Sequoia trees were humongous, much bigger than I had imagined. They looked so stately and majestic.

The General Sherman Tree is the largest tree in the world!

We spent my sixteenth birthday at the Sequoias and it was, without a doubt, the most eventful day of our vacation.

For the first time in the lives of Jenny, Elizabeth, and I, we went cross-country skiing. I surprised myself by actually really enjoying it.





Elizabeth was the best skier out of all of us. It came naturally for her and soon she was heading up and down hills like it was nothing. One area that Mom, Jenny, and Elizabeth were skiing in was a snow covered parking lot. It actually was very nice and smooth and seemed the perfect spot, until Elizabeth skied over what ended up being a snow-covered cement wall and fell, twisting her knee! It was very frightening, but thankfully we were at a place where things like this happen all the time. The lodge immediately sent out some paramedics with a sled to bring her back. Praise the Lord, she didn't break anything and nothing serious was injured, but she is now wearing a knee brace and using crutches, proof to all you doubters that we did indeed try skiing!

And so, it was an adventurous birthday, but it ended with thanksgiving to God who protects us and loves us exceedingly.

After all that, we were not exactly sure how much more excitement we could handle, but we continued on our journey anyway which took us to the coast of California.

Our first stop along the coast was a lovely little town, Monterey CA. Here we were greeted with springtime weather flowers blooming everywhere!

We watched the sunset on the beach. . .
And looked for seashells. . .

The next day, we drove to Arizona to fly home.

The view from the plane window.

We came home feeling blessed and assured of God's goodness, sovreignty and love.

~ Becky for the rest of us