Land of electricity and showers

I'm temporarily back in the land of showers and electricity. And food I don't have to cook. I swear I had the best slice of Costco pizza the day we came back into town!

Since I've been back in town, I've ironed a half a million tablecloths, done laundry, had my phone hard wiped and reloaded, attended a wedding and a myriad of other things. Truly, it's been both a busy and a happy time. My cousin, once or twice removed or second or something, got married today. I was so happy to see her walk down the aisle with her father into the arms of her loving, new husband. I cried. The kids looked at me funny as the tears streamed down my face, but I just couldn't help it. The wedding was beautiful, the bride was beautiful, the vows were beautiful. I missed my own husband something fierce today. I'm a little bit sad and missing him more than I care to admit.

I'm not sure I have the time or energy to update all we've been doing. The short story is we went from Lake Tahoe to Lassen National Park. There the kids earned their Volcano Club patch, a Junior Firefighter patch, a Green Junior Ranger patch and their Junior Ranger badges. From there, we headed up north to Lava Beds National Monument. Again, they earned their Junior Ranger badges, but also earned a Night Sky Junior Ranger patch.

In Lassen we learned a lot about volcanoes. We even walked through an enormous lava tube called Subway Cave. After getting to hike a cinder cone, learning the four major types of volcanoes and otherwise whetting our appetites for volcanoes, we just had to learn more! So off we went to Lava Beds National Monument, where there are more than 750 lava tube caves to explore. We also learned a lot about the only California Indian War...the Modoc Indian War. Our hike was lead by a Modoc indian who detailed the war and all it entailed. It was fascinating and eye-opening.

In general, we've been learning oh-so-much and having so much fun! We've seen hot days, and snow and everything in between. We've seen wildlife (coyotes, deer, elk), and learned the difference between a ground squirrel, a golden mantled ground squirrel, a chipmonk and a chiccory. And we've had pine cones chucked at us from high up in trees! Some of those squirrels can be pretty darn aggressive!

In any case, please don't let the lack of posting trick you into thinking we aren't having much fun. We are! I just so rarely have the chance to sit and write about our day. This is an entirely different trip from my last long trip with the kids...oh-so different!

Loving hugs to those who read! And for my sweetheart...a picture of me. :o)

Dead Sea Scrolls

If you ever have a chance to go see the Dead Sea Scrolls in any kind of exhibition, do.

We expected to spend maybe a couple of hours looking at some old parchment that documented some of the formative writings of Judaism and Christianity. What I didn't expect was that the two youngest would be attentive for 3 hours and that we would spend about 5 hours total exploring, learning about and viewing the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It was an incredible experience. Not only was it incredible from a personal religious standpoint, but it was unfathomable from an historical standpoint.

Part of what we saw was a copy from Deuteronomy, specifically, the passages containing the 10 Commandments. The portion of the scroll on display was maybe three inches across and perhaps 10 inches long. It contained the 10 commandments written twice (two different copies...hard to explain) including interpretive text in the original paleo-Hebrew. The writing was positively minuscule and perfect. The condition of the parchment was impeccable. It just blew me away to see such a beautiful example of writing from so long ago.

Really, I'm struggling to put into words how much this affected me. I expected to be wowed by our visit today. I didn't expect to be so deeply moved. This was well worth every penny we spent today. I'm so glad we went.