Weekend on the Coast

 We drove along the coast this past weekend on our

way to San Juan, where we were going to stay on

Saturday night before we traveled on to our next

destination.  We took our time to stop along the

way to take pictures :-)  Here we stopped to see

some Elephant Seals.  They were huge (probably why

they're called "Elephant") & they sounded like pigs! :-)

 Some visitors were trying to feed this squirrel!

I realized later that there all these signs around

talking about not feeding the wildlife... 

Oh well, guess the squirrel appreciated it! :-)

 "Mmm... gotta stretch!" :-)

 "Oh, you're definitely more comfortable than the sand!"

(Can you tell we had a little fun talking for the seals

as to what we thought they might be saying?! :-))

 Aw look at those "puppy eyes"!

 Waving goodbye!  They've had enough gawkers! ;-)

 We drove most of the way on the edge of these cliffs :-)

Mom, you would've loved it! ;-)  And I'm sure that

Dr. Jim was dying most of the way!

 Can you see the road along the way??

 It really was beautiful, although it was a bit foggy!

 We stopped to take some pics on the edge...

 Here's looking over the cliff... just for you, Mom! ;-)

The guys looked over first and said, "Oh!  It's not

too bad!  You'd just bounce around some!" :-)

 The sun finally peaked through the 

clouds at the end of our trip.

Oh!  And we think we might've seen a whale!!!

We were driving by and there was a lady who

was pointing to something in the water.

We tried looking as we drove by, and I saw

a dark object come out of the water!

I guess it's the time for whales to come closer

to the shore, so someone had told Dr. Jim to

keep an eye out for them.  Well, then I thought

I saw it!  We all kept looking (well, hopefully

not the driver ;-)) and then we saw something

off in the distance... a dark object going up

and down out of the water!  Poor Ariel, though...

she couldn't see it... maybe next time? :-)

 On the way to our hotel

 The guys entertained themselves by watching

"Andy Griffith" some of the way :-)

 Here we are!  Home sweet home... for the night! :-)

 The view from our window

 Ariel pointed this out to me!  We'd never even heard

of a hotel doing this!  We were planning to have them

come "turn down our bed and freshen our room" for

us later, but then we told the guys about it and DJ

didn't think that'd be the safest and wisest idea for

some stranger to come into our room. I'm sure he's 

probably right.  Oh well!  The thought was fun at least! :-)

 We went to a Mexican place for dinner.

DJ helped teach Aquila how to eat Mexican :-)

 Do you think Thomas liked the Mango Salsa?! ;-)

 We went to North Valley Baptist Church on Sunday

morning.  This is also the home of Golden State

Baptist College.  It was an interesting experience! :-)

It was a HUGE church with a definite passion

for the lost!  It was so neat to see Tyler there, 

a guy who we'd met out traveling in Michigan!

He's going to college there now... small world!

 The pastor asked Ariel to play for him, and so

she got to play on this amazing, expensive

grand piano!  They had four pianos in the

auditorium (two full grands and two mini grands)

and they had someone playing on each of them for the

congregational singing!  Yeah... it was a big place :-)

 We took some pictures outdoor of the team that

will be traveling for Revival meetings next semester.

 And Aquila even got to visit the Statue of Liberty! ;-)

 After Sunday morning services, we went to Thomas'

house for lunch before going on to our final destination

for the evening and this coming week.

Rebekah, Thomas' sister as pictured above, had fun

showing the girls their pet birds :-)

Rebekah even got Ariel to hold the bird

for a few seconds!!!  Now, any of you

that know Ariel know that that is a

miracle! :-)  Didn't last long, though! ;-)