God Bless America, Land That I Love!

If ever we needed our hearts to turn to God with gratitude for this nation, it was in 2020.  July was a good reminder of our dependence upon Him for our liberty and our lives.  We celebrated America's Independence Day with Stephanie's family at their home, foregoing the larger community fireworks displays from cars parked at the mall.  Michael's family joined the fun as well. Games, swimming, prayers, food, and, of course, a few fireworks were all that we needed.

Cousin Jen stopped by to see Stephanie while she was in Texas visiting her in-laws.  We love having family visit!

Ben and Stephanie had planned a trip out west to visit his family in July.  They planned to hike the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming, while they could leave their kids with grandparents in Idaho for a few days.  Bobby and Bob decided to join them for the arduous 4-day, three night back-backing trip.  From the sounds of it, each day was a challenging dawn to dusk hike, with sore feet, aching backs and one night of hail.  The trail was a 35-mile loop which ascended and descended several times from around 9,000 feet to about 12,500 feet in altitude. But the spectacular scenery and good company rewarded their painstaking efforts. Bob said it may have been the last of his many relentless grueling hikes. Maybe he'll cut back to a more manageable pace that would allow me to joy being by his side.  Just maybe!

While Bob was off hiking, I went down to spend a day with Michael's family.  I took supplies to let Eve and Brady create a T-shirt.  They did a great job - with just a little help from Grandma and Mom!

Our family has lots of birthday's which occur from the end of July through August.  So on August 15, the Texas kids came to our home for a big birthday bash.  We spent the day swimming in our pool and then food and presents followed.  Our birthday honorees were Grandpa, Chelsea, Emma, Bennett, Tanner, and Eve.

Happy Birthday to Bennett, Bob, Tanner, Emma, Chelsea, and Eve!

The deadly and destructive category 4 Hurricane Laura hit the Texas Gulf the end of July 2020. The area near the Texas-Louisiana border was hardest hit, and dad joined a church work crew to go help with clean up efforts in September. Scenes like these sure make me realize our vulnerability and leaves me extremely grateful for our many blessings!

Michael and Kristin decided to "cash in" on an offer we made to all of our children that we would take their family on a week-long vacation using RCI exchange weeks.  Not fond of traveling far with their two young children, they wanted to go spend some time in Texas Hill Country.  I found a nice Holiday Inn Resort on Canyon Lake that had a couple of units available the week of September 4-11, 2020.  It had several swimming pools, mini-golf, tennis, and other activities which we enjoyed. We were happy to see a few resorts re-opening after Covid 19 shut-downs since March. It was a much needed break to get-away and spend some time enjoying this great land that I love!

The first weekend, we visited the charming little town of Wimberly where we hiked along the riverbed, explored the shops, enjoyed lunch, and "hiked" Mount Baldy - all 220 steps up the slope!

 

Natural Bridge Caverns was our destination on Monday, September 7.  We had tickets to 2 different caverns and in the first one, there were lots of fragile little straw-like stalactites which made a pretty "chandelier" - a sign that there are no bats in the cave. In the second caves, Brady didn't like the "lights out" experience and was more than happy to leave the caverns! 

We noticed a drive-through safari on our way out and decided that would be a fun thing for the kids to experience.

The following day, we drove to Enchanted Rock State Park and had a wonderful time hiking and scrambling on the rocks.  The recent rain must have refreshed the beautiful wildflowers and cactus which were growing from cracks and crevices everywhere. Eve was our "guide" and loved finding all the guideposts and leading the way like a Billy goat!  Mike and Kristin crawled through the "secret caves" while the rest of us played on top of the big rock. We love E-rock!

We had a pretty heavy downpour of rain on Wednesday, so we just played games and watched movies in our rooms at the resort.  On Thursday, we hiked around Canyon Lake and along the beautiful turquoise Guadalupe River.

We finished out our week in Hill Country on Friday, with Michael and Kristin going on a Canyon Lake Gorge geological tour in the morning. Then, we met Chelsea and her kids at Canyon Lake Beach for an afternoon of swimming in the lake and playing on the rocky beach.

What a fun week and some great outdoor adventures.  May God continue to bless America, land that I love!