Praise His Mountains Majesty

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
 Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
 Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!

Praise Him, you heavens of heavens,
And you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For He commanded and they were created.

He also established them forever and ever;

He made a decree which shall not pass away.

Praise the Lord from the earth,

You great sea creatures and all the depths;

Fire and hail, snow and clouds;

Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;

Mountains and all hills;

Fruitful trees and all cedars;

Beasts and all cattle;

Creeping things and flying fowl;

Kings of the earth and all peoples;

Princes and all judges of the earth;

Both young men and maidens;

Old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For His name alone is exalted;

His glory is above the earth and heaven.

And He has exalted the horn of His people,

The praise of all His saints—

Of the children of Israel,

A people near to Him.

And He has exalted the horn of His people,

The praise of all His saints—

Of the children of Israel,

A people near to Him.

Praise the Lord! 

Psalm 148

Camping 2011

Looks like a picture postcard, doesn't it? This is where I spent the last four days with my family!

We've camped at this site five times in the last seven years. Whenever we're here, we take a family picture in front of this tree. I'll have to scan past years pics and post them for Grandma.

This is on the trail leading from our campsite. The smaller children hiked here over and over. Many adventures were played near this brook!

I love our forests. We can drive an hour from home and be in a whole different world!

One day, my Honey and I will have a little cabin somewhere up here, breathe fresh air all the time, fish every morning and see views like this from our front porch. I miss it already!

The Sequoias in August, Part Two

After getting our fill of the cave, we walked up the river for a short while. We came to the swimming hole, but there were other people there, so we just waded around for a while. It's almost as much fun as swimming!



Vic really was enjoying himself, despite his glum appearance in this picture. He didn't wade, but perched himself up on this boulder to take in the scenery and breathe the fresh air.



The younger Lambies made all sorts of castles out of the rich, silty mud in the river.



What a man! Thanks, Honey, for taking us to the forest! I sure do like it up there with everyone!

And, oh!, the BBQ dinner really tasted good after all that climbing around! I'm sure glad God turned it into a salad on the way down. ;)

The Sequoias in August, Part One

We went to the Sequoias for a daytrip last weekend. That's one of the best ways I can think of spending a day! We began the day in "our" cave. The water is pretty low this time of year, so we could get WAY in and explore places we can't other times of the year. We spied a young, 2 ft. long rattlesnake as we approached. He slithered off under a rock. I tried to get a picture of him, but he eluded my lens. We showed the Lambies his hiding place; some saw his tail before he pulled it in all the way. That area was off limits, just in case he decided to come out and play rather than hide away.



Fourteen year old EmBlem in the main cave. That 'roof rock' is indescribably enormous. Inside the cave are several boulders that were shattered when the big one came down. It's really incredible!



Jack, Polly, Trixie and Missy all enjoying the coolness of the cave.



Jack REALLY enjoying the coolness of the cave!

Troubles and Missy showing off Troubles' brand new backpack. He carried his own water, snacks and flashlight, as did all the other Lambies.

My Honey took me up to the Sequoias. I took this picture from the roadway where we were parked. It's hard to imagine the size of the rocks up there without a person for scale. See where the river narrows and flows into a little waterfall? We walked across that submerged rock and then quite far up the river. There was no shore on the left side.

We had the river to ourselves and were able to fish quietly, enjoying the land, the birds, the beautiful river and being with each other.

He taught me the roll cast and the forward cast, since this was my first time fly-fishing. It's quite different than bass fishing. It's fun,, but I will need more practice before being as comfortable tossing a fly as I am slinging a lure.

I sure do enjoy the mountains. I believe that the restored earth will be covered in forest, since it is the perfect expression of the grandeur of God.

To The Forest!

(originally posted on my other blog 9-23-09)

I love day-trips! Very little planning and preparation and a wonderful day ensues. We are blessed only have to drive less than an hour to get to this glorious place, full of new spots to explore every time we go.

Do you see what we saw?

Look at those studious Jr. Rangers.

Wading about was fun!

Why does he always look like BigFoot?

Daddy and Troubles during an apple break.

I hope to get up for another trip or two before the snow starts falling up there.

Hiking Together

(originally posted on my other blog 7-15-09)

We love hiking! We took a day and went on a new trail above Hospital Rock. We parked, then walked a mile or so to the trailhead (whew!). We met a couple of Rangers and they gave us an impromptu lesson on forest safety, the jobs and responsibilities of rangers, and plant identification.


We hiked for a while and found this beautiful grotto. The Lambies begged to wade around in the cool water. We let them remove their shoes and go for it. It was beautiful. If we come here again, we will add watershoes to our backpacks. A few people (including me) got scrapes and scratches on their feet. Tenderfoots!

Here's a pretty shot of the trail we followed.


We eventually got to a lovely place at the top of the river. My Honey took all the pictures there, though, so I have none. We relaxed on the rocks in the middle of the river for an hour or so, snacking and enjoying the beauty of our surroundings. There were so many water skippers! The Lambies had fun watching them and trying to catch them.

The hike back down sure seemed to go faster that the hike up! Poppa cooked up a picnic lunch for us at Hospital Rock. Some time to play around, relax a little more (see Missy in the background?) and then our wonderful day drew to a close.


I love having this lovely forest so close! We hope to hike Moro Rock in the next couple of weeks.

Blog Catch-up

(originally posted on my other blog 6-1-09)

Well, it's HAS been a while since I've blogged, huh? I have been using Facebook too much, I guess. I'll share a few pictures of what we've been up to lately.

This is the beautiful sight I was greeted with on Mother's Day:
My Lambies awoke early and made Applesauce Oat Breakfast cookies and sliced strawberries and OJ. What sweethearts!

We went to the zoo with the cousins. What a great time we had!


We went to the lovely Sequoia National Forest for the day:

We climbed around on the huge rocks near the river:

I guess all the pictures of the river must be on my Honey's camera! I'll try to get some on soon.

I ate the first red cherry tomato today. There are many more reddening up. I hope the recent rain won't lead to blight...we are expecting more thunderstorms on Wednesday. I hope to have bushels and bushels of tomatoes to can this summer.

School is wrapping up. We should be finished next week, if all goes as planned. We'll see!

I've been making lots and lots of jams and jellies. We went to a u-pick cherry orchard and got buckets of Royal Anne cherries. I've been buying strawberries by the flat and freezing the extras for later. There's a berry farms that is u-pick about 30 minutes away. I hope to get there before the season is over.

We participated in the annual homeschool fair. The older Lambies made a big pulley system with Dad, among other things. Look for pics to be added to this post soon. They are also in Dad's camera.

We have birthday parties, family visiting and a used curriculum fair coming up in the next weeks. June is always busy! I hope yours is going well!

Camping Pictures

(originally posted on my other blog 7-7-08)

As you may remember, we camped a little over a week ago. We went to our lovely Sequoia National Forest, which we SO enjoy visiting.

After setting camp, we explored, enjoyed and relaxed. We were blessed to be with our dear friends, R and E and their three kids. R is quite adventurous, and among other things, knows how to rock climb. He brought his equipment and all the children got to climb up and repel down!
I have many more pics, Grandma, if you want them. All the children made it up to Daddy, even Troubles! They had a great time.

We also fished in the pond, with a few little fish being caught. We hiked, enjoyed smores and learned that crushing fern and rubbing it on nettle burns makes the stinging stop.

I found a wonderful exoskeleton of a dragonfly nymph that had "made the change" while clinging to a blade of thick grass. I collected it, but it was accidentally crushed before I got a picture. We also got to see a newly emerged dragonfly resting on his discarded exoskeleton. Here is a photo essay on the process. We observed chipmunks, squirrels, birds of various kinds, water skimmers, trout, and lots of insects. We collected pond water and creek water for observation under the microscope.

At home, we found tiny plants and microscopic little worms in the pond water and had a discussion on why you always boil water from natural sources before drinking it! We haven't looked at the creek water yet, so we won't find anything living, I think.

Here is a picture of all of us in front of the Sequoia in our campsite. The 'cave' in the tree that is behind me was big enough for most of the children to fit inside, all at once. Sequoias often have these hollows.

To The Sequoias Again

(originally posted on my other blog 7-7-07)

Our pictures are now uploaded, so I will share about last Saturday's trip.

We live only about forty-five minutes from some of God's most beautiful mountains. We often go for day trips, and a couple of times a year we stay for three days and two nights. We love our camping trips!

Last Saturday, we had planned to go to one area, but found it closed due to fire danger, so we went all the way up to the Park and visited General Sherman. Before we went there, though, we stopped in an off-the-beaten-path picnic area and enjoyed linner (lunch/dinner). While there, I captured this great shot:

I think it could be an advertisement for Coke! Of course BabyJ doesn't get nearly the Coca-Cola he thinks he needs! It's a fairly rare treat for him.

My Honey played with the original photo in a great *free* photo program called Picasa. It's through Google. We've had a great time playing around with it.

After lunch, we went to the General and then took The Congress Trail, a short jaunt through the forest. We met a "tame" chipmunk who stood at attention, trying to avoid being seen, for several minutes about a foot away from us. Even BabyJ was quiet and studied him closely. Then I found a spider with all her spiderlings on her abdomen. I think she was a wolf spider, but I'm not certain. I'll be submitting the photo to www.whatsthatbug.com ,our favorite insect id-ing site.

Here's the entire family, courtesy of an Eastern European tourist:

It's amazing that almost every tourist you meet speaks English. He noticed My Honey taking a photo of everyone, and simply offered to take a family shot. How nice that he didn't run with the camera . We're standing by a century old slice of sequoia tree.

We left just before dusk, when the animals were getting active! On the way home we saw a lone bear, then a momma bear with two cubs crossing the road, a mule deer, a flock of wild turkeys with babies, a rattlesnake slithering across the road, and several moo-deer (cows). A wonderful day!