Everyone is now here

Goodbye Kim.. Safe travels back





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Alice has arrived

The boys are looking somber, just told them off for giving Alice bunny ears on my first attempt of a photo.... Ahhhhh. Anyway, we are all having lunch.. Outside but not for long as Hurricane alex is making his presence felt.. Meant to hit land at 8 pm tonight. Of course my Alex is very excited about a hurricane named after him. Lunch is a goodbye one to Kim who leaves us today, but worry not Cara is driving to Houston later today to collect Vicki and Gemma.. House full for the summer... What a great welcome .. Hurricane Alex


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Heading home via the Grand Canyon

We are in the Mojave desert, crossing east California . Temperature is 104f in the shade and we are glad the A/C is working. The boys are happy watching their DVD's and have had enough of sand, cactus, miles of nothing and are very content.


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Last night.. Making smores

Making smores on the grill.. Sorry no flash on my iPhone.. But wanted to catch the moment...








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Off to see the statue of marshall..the person who first found gold

The person who first found gold and started the gold rush, was James Marshall, he found a piece when they were building a mill in Coloma, to get more timber to build Sacremento..and then he found that first piece which started the California dream, although he died in poverty..did not handle the gold, money and enjoyed the liquor too much.

He is now honoured in the village of Coloma, and they have put a statue up which we got the boys to all hike to from our picnic spot..Victoria and I cleared down the lunch and drove up..which i would have to say there were groans and moans about..but Allan led the way and exercise they had.

We panned for gold....

So went to the visitors centre, learnt a lot about the native Americans who were displaced by the gold rush..but are almost back to there original numbers...saw a film in the theatre, bought our pans and spoons to get us started..and off we went..Aaron was the first to find gold, and then Jordan and Alex became experts at finding the flakes..and really got into the whole 'gold' we will be rich...but the sparkling flakes were hard to catch and the nuggets were nowhere to be found...better luck next time!!

The men removing a dead tree

The boys had to stay on the decking..out of the way..good reason to eat brownies( Cara makes the best) and cheer the older generations on..we now have more logs for our fire place and no worries about the tree coming down at an inopportune moment.