The Holidays/I'm in Love With the Golden State

Hey there!

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year! I quite surely did. The holidays were pretty much the same old, same old for my family, but I'm so thankful for the blessing of the same old, same old. Who would have known that for so many years after the eldest sibling was grown and out of the house and the second eldest sibling was married and had a baby, that the entire family could still be together in bodily form for Christmas? Every year I try to soak up the memories and feelings in my heart because I know of the possibility that the blessing won't continue.

And by the way, the same old same old for the Hays family has changed quite a bit with the addition of Matt into the family AND Matt and Heather's baby girl, Georgie. These two people only added to the fun of the season. I'm so looking forward to next Christmas when Harrison gets to introduce Vika to her first Hays family Christmas! The growth of the family is such a blessing.

I plopped with a sigh onto our couch the other evening, causing one of my family's guests for the night to ask me if I was exhausted. "Yes!" I answered without a pause. Of course I was exhausted. It was the end of the holiday season, who wouldn't be exhausted? But it was such a different, much more gratefully accepted type of exhausted than that which comes with the school semester. It's such a relief to be exhausted because you have the time and privilege to set the table in extravagant Christmas-ware for the sixteenth family holiday dinner instead of the exhaustion you feel as you cram some nutrition into your mouth before finishing homework for four hours before bed. It's so special to be exhausted because of searching the home far and wide for a space, just a little space, to wrap Christmas presents in, a space where there is not already a family member hovering over his shopping bags and merrily barking at you to get away and not look inside his bags. Such fun to be exhausted because you can't sleep on Christmas Eve on account of all five siblings piled in the same room, keeping you awake with laughter. It's giddy fun to be exhausted because your dad wakes the whole family up at 6 am on Christmas morning to go open presents. And, of course, who in the entire world would miss the exhaustion associated with staying up way past your bedtime with friends and family just to ring in the new year with poppers and sparkling cider?

Yes, it's been a good holiday season.

And now I'm on a spontaneous road trip! (Ahem..I WAS on a spontaneous road trip when I started this post.)

When Matt and Heather's scheduled date of departure from LA quickly came into view, Hunter and I decided that we hadn't quite had enough of them and our niece, Georgie. I was so thankful when I remembered that my friend Andrew would be taking a roadtrip up to Washington for a wedding the same week that Matt and Heather were returning home by car. Hunter and I asked Matt and Heather for a ride up to Washington and we asked Andrew for a ride back. Both eagerly accepted.

I'm writing now from my little home-away-from-home (I WAS writing from there), the place in which I lived with Matt, Heather and the little bear cub for a month last summer. It's been two days of intense driving, but we made it and are all happy to finally stretch our legs again.

The ride up was really really fun. Probably the most special part about it was that every once in a while, when the cub was awake, I'd be looking out the window or reading a book or something and then would glance in her direction only to see her studying me with amazement and anticipation written on her face. When I would finally lock my eyes on hers and give her a smile she would smile back with utter glee as she kicked and waved her arms all around. Hunter had many similar experiences with little George. It got to the point where one of us would have to inform the other sometimes that, "Oh, Georgie wants you to smile at her." She appreciated our help because she always got the smile from us that she was seeking. Other times both me and George would be taking a nap, my elbow resting on the side of her car seat. I would wake up at the feel of her little hand placed decidedly on my elbow. I would look at her and she would just be looking at me with slightly grumpy wake up eyes. But that little hand on my elbow assured me that I was not the object of her grump. Also some of my favorite experiences of the drive were Georgie's serenades. She's got a beautiful voice.

So, I'm not exactly sure at what point in our drive Hunter and I crossed the line of "the farthest point north in California we've ever been," but we passed it before San Francisco. It was such a delight to visit and pass through the dreamy places I've always heard existed in my state. I'm telling you, I've never had much affection at all for Southern California. I appreciate my home's location because of the church, the beach, the proximity to camping-worthy mountains and the fun of Beverly Hills, but I've never quite gotten over the heat, the smog, the lack of greenery, the traffic, the busy-ness, etc. But man, when we crossed that Golden Gate Bridge on our way out of San Francisco, I felt like I had finally entered into the land where the stork SHOULD have dropped me. (And the rest of my family...couldn't survive without them.) Only about 30 minutes north of San Francisco Hunter gleefully hollered to us, "Yeah, look! Happy cows in California!!" We looked left and saw lots of cows contentedly grazing in wide open spaces of rolling green hills. The rest of the drive north we periodically saw cows and sheep living happy lives in green pasture lands, it gave me a lot of comfort for some reason. Like the poor animals that are cooped up in those cram-packed, smelly, uninteresting cow farms north of the Grapevine might hopefully take some comfort in the fact that many of their relatives are, in fact, enjoying the blissful lives of happy California cows (and sophisticated California lives at that...they're in CLOSE proximity to the rolling Napa Valley hills!) I greatly enjoyed putting down my gripping book in order to soak in the sights around me as we passed the happy cows, drove through romantic Napa Valley, and then meandered into the beautiful forest of the Redwoods. The beauty of the Redwoods increased exponentially as we approached the Humboldt area, where we were to stay with Matt's brother and sister-in-law. I'm so thankful for Spenc and Melody's hospitality that night...it was so comforting to have a real meal for dinner and a place to rest our heads for the night!

The next morning our drive quickly found us in Oregon. I loved the scenery from the highway. So so much scope for the imagination in the wide open fields, farms, great big old barns and farmhouses. And, of course, the limitless sheep.

Once we reached the city-ish part of Oregon, the metropolitan area didn't seem to end until we reached our final destination (home!), so I dived right back into my book. (About a climb of Everest. About the time that we crossed the Oregon/Washington border I had just finished acclimatizing at Base Camp.)

Man, it was so great to just chill with Matt and Heather that night. Matt cooked us some wicked good chicken and chili cheese rice, and we had homemade fresh apple cider for dessert. We also watched the video of this year's talent show. A few hours later my friends Andrew, Anton and Naomi arrived for the night (Anton and Naomi had come along just to see the sites up the coast.) We all got a restful night's sleep and then departed for home the next morning.

We took a minor detour in our route home to try to get a good look at Mt Rainier, but unfortunately the weather never allowed us to get a glimpse even though we were probably only a couple of miles away. Ugly-ish weather did not want us to get very far that day, so we didn't even end up making it to the Redding area until the following morning.

Okay, Sacramento. I'd been once before, but only as a very small girl when my family's one mission was to visit my great-grandmother where she was living. But this time me and my fellow travelers drove right through the heart of the city and saw enough of Old Town Sacramento from the freeway to whet our appetites for getting out and taking a look. First we deliberately found our way to the Governor's Mansion. Unfortunately, it was under rennovation so we didn't really get to see what it looked like (What's up with the 2000's and rennovations galore? It seems almost every major historical building I've visited in the past six years is under ugly major rennovation. Ugh.!), but I saw enough of Sacramento on that little detour to realize I wanted to come back for at least a weekend vacation. Preferably on a rainy weekend. The part we were in was just pretty and quaint and fun. And then Old Town Sacramento was a blast. Right on the water, there were old-fashioned cruise-liners that had been converted to swanky hotels. I REALLY wanted to explore the hotel rooms, but not enough time. We did visit an old-fashioned candy shop and got some yummy kettle corn.

The rest of the drive home was pretty much uneventful, though I felt like it was eventful because my book was just so enrapturing. We got home late that night, man it felt good to be out of the car for GOOD.

Thanks for all the fun, Heather, Matt, Georgie, Spencer, Melody, Andrew, Anton, and Naomi!