Helping Haiti

This week there was a terrible 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, and when we told the girls about it the other day, I. started crying and saying "I feel so spoiled." We affirmed that yes, we are very spoiled, and we should do something to help. We decided that this Sunday we would have a bake sale to raise money to send to aid Haitian earthquake victims. When we woke up to rain this morning, we felt a little discouraged, but decided to just bake our cookies anyway and go door to door in our neighborhood to sell them. It was great, actually, because we met some new neighbors and the girls made $85 that we then donated to Mercy Corps when we got home.

Jack London State Historic Park

On Sunday, January 10 we drove north to Sonoma County and enjoyed the Jack London State Historic Park. We hiked 1.5 miles out from the museum to the ruins of his old estate that burned down a century ago. It was beautiful! On our hike back we heard a "peck, peck, peck" sound and saw the bright red feathers of an Acorn Woodpecker (luckily we had our bird guide with us so we could identify him!) We watched and listened to him for several minutes before he flew away. You just don't see that in the city!

We had read some signs warning us about mountan lions, so A. used his handy interweb-google-machine-phone thingy to read about how to scare off a mountain lion should we see one. The idea is to get really big and loud to show your dominance, apparently.

Church of Nature

We found a great avenue of trees in what appeared to be a driveway in a bygone era because nearby we had found home old housing ruins. A couple of trees had been felled so we did a little climbing. What a beautiful way to spend a Sunday morning! On the way home I found myself singing:

Whenever I hear the song of a bird

Or look at the blue, blue sky,

Whenever I feel the rain on my face

Or the wind as it rushes by,

Whenever I touch a velvet rose

Or walk by a lilac tree,

I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world

Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see

The color of butterfly wings.

He gave my ears that I might hear

The magical sound of things.

He gave me my life, mind, my heart;

I thank Him rev’rently

For all his creations, of which I’m a part.

Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me.

"My Heavenly Father Loves Me," The Children’s Songbook, p. 228

The Church of Nature

For our first Sunday Sabbatical, while we are still a bit jet lagged and just need a day to lay low before heading back to school and work tomorrow, we decided our worship services would be out in nature. We headed south to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at Moss Beach. It's a great place to observe tide pools when it is low tide, but today's low tides were at 6am and 6pm so that wasn't going to work for us. The tide was pretty high so we didn't spend much time on the beach; instead we took a lovely ridge trail above the beach. We were delighted to find a pod of seals resting on what was left of the beach at high tide.