Carters Come to Cali

My parents got to come see us last October, which was great, but they only got to stay for a few days.  With my mom out of school for the summer, this time they got to stay for ten days!

They got here last Thursday night & we left Friday to spend the weekend at Yosemite.  Grayson & I had been wanting to go back every since we went last fall.  I got a new camera lens for my birthday in January & that made me want to go back even more.  And my parents hadn't been & wanted to go, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity!

Five minutes in Yosemite & you feel so small.  In a good way.

I should also mention that ever since a Reader's Digest article about 10 years ago that left my mom scarred, she has been terrified of bears.  An unnatural fear since most of the time she would only ever even see a bear at the zoo.  And I had told her about how when we went, I looked for bears the whole time & didn't see a single one.

And then when we'd been in the park for less than an hour, we run into this guy.

Thanks, bear.  Great start to this trip.  You just had to go for that snack that some not-so-bright campers left for you.

Our initial reactions were funny to me though.

me: With shaky hands I changed to my zoom lens & started taking his picture, of course.

Grayson: Ran back to the car to store the pop tarts he was eating.  Because the real catastrophe would be if the bear got his beloved pop tarts.

Mama: Ran back to the car & got irritated with Grayson for not unlocking it fast enough.

Daddy: Walk closer to the bear.  The apparently hungry bear.  Good idea.

Thankfully there were no more bear encounters after that.  A few almost-encounters when we came to an area that a bear had just left, but we didn't ever see any more.  I asked my mom if she felt like now she'd conquered her fear & was a better person.  Her answer: NO.

My brother got my dad some binoculars for Father's Day, & they were definitely put to good use all weekend.

Squirrel with a view :)  While we're on the topic of squirrels, I should say that it was a squirrel that alerted us of the bear.

Last time, we didn't get to go see the giant sequoias so it was great to get to go to that part of the park this time.

Snow in June!

After we got back from Yosemite, the week was pretty relaxed.  A day in Santa Cruz, a short trip to San Francisco (basically couldn't see anything because of the fog), a lot of trips to the pool & hot tub, a few games, & losing at putt-putt, as always.

Great visit with my family!  Grayson's dad & stepmom come in a week or so & then his mom & stepdad in September.  Then we'll be making the trip home for Christmas this year!

Now we've just got to get these people out here so I can meet Everly before she's grown!  She's 2 months old...about time she sees some of the world.

P.S. Our shop is having a little sale this week to celebrate our one month birthday!  Use the code ONEMONTH for 20% off through Friday!

San Francisco Ferry Building

This past Saturday was the first Saturday that I've been off all day in months, & it was perfect!  I slept in for a bit, & then had big plans for the day.  We still hadn't been to the Farmers Market in San Francisco, so that was our first stop.

 

The farmers market is right on the water by the Bay Bridge...great food & beautiful view!

Once the farmers market closed, we explored the Ferry Building.  

I don't know how we hadn't been here before.  I loved that this part of the city wasn't as touristy as the areas near the Golden Gate, Pier 39, Chinatown, etc...though we've enjoyed those places, too.  I think it'll be a great place that we'll take visitors because you can get a taste of everything California...& you should always go there hungry!

beignets | olive oil

Grayson is a donut lover but had never had beignets, so I was excited to find those there.  And we tried almost every olive oil at Stonehouse California, & bought a bottle of the rosemary one. 

We've been wanting to go to Cowgirl Creamery for awhile, so we finally made it there, too!  If there's one food I would never want to live without, its cheese, so any place that sells that much cheese is a winner in my book.  We tried lots of kinds, & went home with four.  We may have just had cheese that night for dinner...

Cowgirl Creamery also has a restaurant right next door, Sidekick Cafe & Milk Bar, so we had lunch there.  Everything on the menu looked good (since it all included cheese...), but we both tried the grilled cheese.  I just don't feel like you can ever go wrong with grilled cheese, & I've had some really good ones lately.

After lunch, we went outside & walked down to the Pier 7 boardwalk.

 

{Last week I had a gift card I'd been trying to use for awhile, & finally settled on these Keds.  Apparently Keds are no longer the painfully boring white shoes I had as a kid.  I thought they were cute, but didn't really expect them to be as comfortable as they were.  I wore them around the city all day & they were perfect...already picking my next pair!}

Perfect Saturday in the City!

Embracing the Mess

Every time we drive through San Francisco, I think "this street would make such a pretty picture without all those cables & power lines."  All the colorful houses, busy streets, & cloudy skies are so pretty...& then there's all that mess of cables.  I've even wondered if I could possibly edit them out...

As I was beginning to have the same thoughts yesterday, it hit me.  This is what we do with our lives.  We try to hide what's not pretty.  We try to cover it up & pretend it's not there.  If we don't think about it, don't talk about it, & certainly don't draw attention to it, maybe it will go away.  But that's not how life works.  We have to embrace the mess.

Life is messy.  It's full of mistakes & brash words & missed appointments & spilled coffee & bad hair days.  But then there's grace.  And that grace opens our eyes to such undeniable beauty.  Life is full of mistakes, but then there's forgiveness.  And brash words, with time, can be replaced by encouraging ones.  Missed appointments can be made up.  And as for spilled coffee & bad hair days, sometimes those just happen & there's nothing you can do about it.  But why do we try to hide these things instead of just embracing the fact that life is messy?

I took these pictures, & then bumped up the contrast.  Instead of trying to hide the mess, I made it stand out.  It's real, it's there, it's true...why not just embrace it? 

As a culture, in trying to present the best part of ourselves, we often present something that's false.  The Church is just as guilty of this as anyone else, maybe even more so.  Just because we have Jesus does not mean we go through each day as if it's a musical.  Be real with people.  Let them see the mess.  We might just find that embracing our own mess, we find others with the same messes, & there we build community.  Instead of trying to hide what's not pretty, why not just accept the grace that covers it?

The beauty of the Gospel is not that God overlooked our sin because we hid it so well.  It's that He saw our sin & He made provision for that.  He put on skin & came down into the mess we made.  To me, that's like Jesus picking up a pile of dirty laundry & putting it on, & saying "that's okay, I'll take care of this."

Carrs + Carters in Cali

My parents flew in late Friday & stayed until yesterday afternoon...their first trip to Cali!  :)

We left Saturday morning & drove down to Carmel for lunch.  Drove a little longer down to Big Sur, & then meandered back up the Pacific Coast Highway...a necessity when you visit California.

And a stop in Santa Cruz on the way back to see the surfers...& get ice cream, of course.  My dad is a true ice cream lover like we are.

Sunday was church & then an afternoon in San Francisco.  

We even took a boat tour of the bay so we got to see the Golden Gate & Alcatraz up close.  Grayson & I had been wanting to do that, so it was good to get to do it with my parents.

Monday morning I had iPhone tutorials for my parents who just got new phones (!!!)...& then we had lunch at my favorite pizza place, Blue Line Pizza, in downtown Campbell.  Grayson hadn't been there yet, but he got to leave work to come have lunch with us.  Tuesday we spent the afternoon walking around downtown Los Gatos & then went to the Google campus & Shoreline Park once Grayson got off work.

Come back soon!