Miss us?

We're back.  One crazy busy month of May, one broken laptop, and one wonderfully hectic start to our summer make for, yes, three months of absolutely no blogging.  That's all about to change, however.

Shall we work our way backwards?  Or forwards?  What do you think?  The man next to me on the couch says backwards, so blame him if you wanted otherwise.

We just got back from Redding tonight, where we gathered on Friday with Stephen's family to remember and celebrate the life of his Aunt Kathy, who recently passed away from cancer.  Stephen's dad conducted the service for his youngest sister/sibling and did a beautiful job of bringing their childhood to life.  What a remarkable woman Kathy was.  And how many people she influenced for good. 

Stephen got to reunite and catch up with cousins, uncles, and family he hadn't seen in years, while I enjoyed meeting many of them for the first time and getting to hear them reminisce.  At one point, our kids were playing Uno on the floor of his grandma's house with some of his cousin's kids, and all the adult cousins laughed as they remembered doing the exact same thing years and years ago.  Awesome.  Although, sadly we were too busy having fun to take any pictures.

We decided to stay a few more days and see a little bit of the Redding that Kathy loved and Stephen grew up visiting.  We figured we'd start with something kid-friendly, so we hit the Sacramento River Trail, the Sundial Bridge, and Turtle Bay Exploration Park.



Starting across Sundial Bridge with the boys





Millie and the Sacramento River

 



Searching out the best skipping rocks they can find

 



Stephen and Millie heading back

 



Can you tell our kids are not used to the Redding heat?  They're looking hot and sweaty.

 



Stunning views of the mountains and river

 



Many of Stephen's Redding memories involve fishing with his grandpa

 

Then we headed over to Turtle Bay for some highly-entertaining fun at the Parrot Playhouse.




Stephen jumped right in

 



Bennett's turn for some bird love

 



Not so sure about all this bird business

 



Man, those birds love their nectar

 



This is about as close as Mills wanted to be to the parrots.  Do you like how she squawks right back at them?

 
After the very interactive parrot playhouse, we headed over to the butterfly tent and then a fantastic animal show, where we met a live vulture, porcupine, badger, hawk, fox, owl, cockatoo, etc.

The main museum had some lots of great exhibitions and interactive fun for the kiddos.




The boys racing to pack their saddlebags for the Gold Rush

 



Back at Great Grandma's house for some Racko, another nostalgic game

 



I'm pretty sure this is the same table Stephen played on as a kid