The Blog Revolution

This blog is now being taken over by the girls. As in the girls who are not Jill.



She tells me that the last day she blogged was Saturday morning so we shall start with Saturday's activities. There is a group of families from FMC Reedley who own cabins at Cedarbrook Picnic Area in a national park/forest in the area. (There really are quite a few parks close together. It's not our fault for not remembering) They have an annual Fourth of July picnic and we received an exclusive invitation courtesy of Barbara and Allen Ewy and family. Apparently not just everyone is invited, so we felt blessed to be able to join them.



After a fairly silent drive up the mountain (because we didn't want to break Jill's concentration on the windy road) we arrived in a beautiful little mountain getaway with around 7 cabins. The picnic was hosted at the Krehbiel cabin with about 50 people on the porch and area. We were expecting to be the outsiders by far, but many people didn't know each other there. Jill did a fabulous job BBQing with the men.



We didn't stay at the picnic too long because we wanted to make it up the mountain to see the big trees at Kings Canyon National Park. The area we visited, Grant's Grove, is home to the General Grant Tree, which was named America's Christmas Tree by some president in the 1920s.



We arrived home earlier than expected so we decided to patronize a local business, Uncle Harry's restaurant. After a BBQ for lunch we wanted nothing but a light salad for dinner. They were quite delicious. Uncle Harry's, as we found out, serves ice cream with every dinner. They let us choose from strawberry, chocolate, or spumoni. Rosy had been talking about the spumoni from Spaghetti Warehouse, so we decided to try it. Turns out the spumoni flavors can change in different establishments. We were not fans.



Moving on. Sunday morning we went to a hybrid of church services. We wanted to experience the worship service in Spanish at Primera Iglesia Menonita, but wanted to see the testimonial at the beginning of the English service and needed to sing with the VBS band at the end of the English service. We solved this by going to the beginning of the English service, leaving after the testimonial, and Jill came to get us before the song in the English service.



After church we went out to eat with Cathy and her friends. They get together every Sunday afternoon at a restaurant or at one of their homes and have a great time. We love talking with them and they all seem to have a connection to Newton.



For the evening on the Fourth we went to Steve and Glenna Penner's house for a BBQ. It was great to see where Jill has been staying and they made some pretty darn tasty lemonade. We have turned into quite the lemonade connoisseurs with our exposure to fresh lemons. They also treated us to homemade ice cream made with Jill's recipe from the dairy farm back in Kansas.



We went for the cheap route in terms of fireworks and drove around watching other people's fireworks. This included parking outside of the city firework show and watching it from down the block.



Monday, our first day of the Summer Learning Experience (SLE), was also Cathy's last full day at home. She left to see her grandkids in Washington state on Tuesday. We took her out to the downtown Mainstreet Cafe for lunch. This served a double purpose because the cafe also happens to serve verenike, a German Mennonite food that Jill and I are big fans of and thought that Calla and Rosy needed to try. Lucky for us, they liked it! That could have been awkward.



We had about the same number of kids for SLE as we did for VBS, only with half the adults. The Kids in Conflict curriculum allows for longer centers and more discussion so we get to keep the kids for twice the time with half the help. It's been interesting so far, and we'll see how we adapt to the new circumstances. Tuesday things definitely went smoother than the first day and if that pattern continues we'll be great.

Tuesday night's activity was another BBQ picnic, this time with the Boldt family and other church and community members. They have connections that got us to a private beach on the river. Now, one would imagine that in hot, dry California a dip in the river would be quite nice. This river is melted snow from the mountains, so it was more like a get-in-can't-feel-my-toes-and-get-out kind of dip. Still pretty awesome though.

We're going to miss having Cathy around. I think she really enjoyed the younger crowd at her house, even though we stay up late and forget to close the door. I just hope we can take good care of her house until she returns. Jill is now the adult in the house and we're pretty confident in her. She doesn't have her iron grip on the blog anymore, though!

-Megan, with some help from Calla and Rosy
*Any facts that are wrong are my fault and my fault only. Please comment and take credit for correcting me.