Merry Christmas

   We try to be creative on our family Christmas picture we send out each year with our Christmas cards. It's tricky as we are a large family the majority of which are small children who have a hard time sitting still.
   I've always been a fan of Norman Rockwell's art, painting American life in all it's flaws and normality. I asked Brent to make a Norman Rockwell family photo for us this Christmas. We wouldn't aim for perfect, just us hanging out in our family room as we like to do. So here's the result, an imperfect, perfectly normal Peak family portrait. I love it.

Merry Christmas!

Apple Hill Orchards

I'm trying to catch up on my sorely neglected blog and show some of the fabulous places we've visited in Northern CA. We live in America's Fruit Basket and something is always in season. There are farmers markets here all year long. which I happily take advantage of. Last weekend we visited the Apple Orchards of Apple Hill. It's a concentration of Apple orchards east of Sacramento and during peak Apple season it is a festival atmosphere as all the orchards put out there best. Each orchard begs to be visited for their fruit, baked goods, corn mazes, petting zoos and craft vendors. It's hard to do in one day with around 50 Orchards participating in the festivities. We spent most of the day there and visited 5 orchards I think. It was a beautiful day with glorious fall colors showing off. It was cold enough to enjoy a hot apple cider as we sampled and bought our way through the different novelties at the orchards. I wish I had bought that Banana Honey butter!

The apples here fall from the trees and roll into the flower beds.

Flat Stanley was visiting us from Oklahoma. Here he is in a pile of persimmons. 

Flat Stanley and a lot of apple goodness.

Natural Bridge State Beach

We had a couple days off from school so on one of those days we took a day trip to the Santa Cruz. Natural Bridge State Beach is one of the 4 places in America that monarch butterflies migrate to for the winter and we wanted to see them. It was cold and cloudy, so it was very hard to see them high up in the giant Eucalyptus trees, but they were there. We could see them fluttering around up high and what looked like leaves on the branches were actually clusters of butterflies.  The butterflies like this Eucalyptus grove because it's in a valley and the trees and the cliffs shelter them from winds and rain.

The grove is right on the beach and at the edge of the grove is a sandy beach with a natural bridge carved out of the mudrock cliffs. There used to be 3 bridges but time and erosion has carved away all but one of the bridges. The beach also had some fun tide pools to explore.

We spent a few hours with the monarchs and the beach, but the cloudy day just made it increasingly cold there so we left the beach and spent a little time walking up and down the historic Santa Cruz boardwalk. The boardwalk has the first and oldest beach amusement park, it was closed for the season, but it was still fun to explore without the crowds.

Fall trip to Lake Tahoe

Almost a year from our last goodbye trip to Flagstaff in the Fall we took a day trip to Lake Tahoe. the colors were gorgeous and all the pine trees reminded us of Flagstaff and made us a bit homesick. We visited Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe, one of the most photographed parts of Lake Tahoe and it's gorgeous emerald waters. a steep hike down to the shore is rewarded with a walk around Vikingsholm Castle. Built in the 1920s in honor of their Viking ancestors, some American millionaires made it their summer home.

Look at how clear and blue that water is! The bottom is probably 30 feet down from our feet.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

On Labor Day, we broke our own rule of not doing any trails that have the word Hell or Devil in it (family joke because they've always been hot, long, miserable hikes). And we descended into Bumpass Hell trail to see the active steam vents and boiling mud pots. If you are a lady like me, I'd advise pronouncing it Bumpus Hell. :-D We've been to hell and back again and smell like sulfur to prove it!  

yes, he is THAT strong!

the whole park is surrounded by a volcano that has exploded and most of the park is in the inside of the volcano.

There are several small lakes within the volcano and they all have this astonishing blue color.

Sulphur pits. Very hot, very smelly.

Gorgeous views and beautiful day for a hike.