Today at Ballard First Lutheran we celebrated the Festival of St Francis, and for the second year in a row people were invited to bring their pets into the church for worship. There were a few more exotic pets last year, but certainly plenty of animals this year. Here is the choir in the narthex before the service.

First the Sunday School children sang "All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir." Étienne is on the far left, with his stuffed dinosaur Rover, and our friend Maddie is next to him. Maddie's mom was out of town this weekend so we took her to church with us. Carlton is still technically a Sunday School child, but he towers over the first and second graders so I don't make him go up and sing. He will start confirmation classes next year.

Pastor Laurie then invited everyone who had brought a pet to go back to the narthex and process in. Here you can see Pastor Laurie, Rover, and Étienne. Also, there was a Burnese Mountain Dog sitting in front of us. She barked enthusiastically after the choir sang!

Before the final hymn, everyone with a pet came forward for a blessing. You can see Pastor Erik is blessing all the pets. Everyone received a certificate attesting that their pet had been officially blessed!

Guess what instrument Carlton decided to play for 5th grade band?

Today was the Issaquah Glider Miler, the first cross-country meet of the season. Veronica and Étienne have been training since Labor Day. Yesterday's practice gave them some experience in the mud!

Click on any picture so see it larger, and then hit "back" to get back to the post. Also, forgive any lens fogging, it was pretty wet out!

Étienne ran with the 7-8 year old boys. The Sub-Bantams still get a rabbit (a teenager wearing rabbit ears for them to follow.)

Moving out at the start.

Running down the finish chute, and crossing the finish line. (credit: Godmother Jane, Thanks)

Covered in mud! He ran his mile in 9:29, which is awesome!

Veronica and her friend Emma at the start. I realized too late that Veronica didn't have a hair tie. At the halfway point she was in 2nd place!

Went over to the finish, and saw her rounding the final corner in FIRST PLACE!!!

First place in youth girls!

Final time, 6:35 mile.

Veronica will miss next week's meet because she has a confirmation retreat. The rest of the meets she will do the standard 4k, so more than twice this week's distance.

After a slow start, we now have Veronica's favorite yellow pear tomatoes growing like crazy! While the smaller, early varieties are more prolific (this year I grew Oregon Spring, Seattle's Best, and Yellow Taxi) I also did an heirloom pink beefsteak, "Julia Child" and yesterday I picked the largest one yet.

Remember, kids, you can't grow tomatoes in Seattle.

On this Disneyland trip, each child got a gift card to spend as they wished. Étienne was not allowed to bring his favorite stuffed animal, Rover the triceratops, (or his second-favorite stuffed animal, Black And White Piranha the bunny) and was on the lookout for another soft stuffed animal. Judy took him by a display of pillow pets and Pluto caught his eye. Étienne said he really did not want the pillow style, just Pluto. Judy encouraged him to wait till we found the perfect Pluto. Sure enough, another store had just what Étienne was looking for.

On our last morning at the hotel, we ate breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen. The first character to visit was Pluto! Étienne explained how Pluto was his favorite cast member this trip. Pluto immediately patted Étienne's head and attempted to lick his cowlick down.

Note: This is my first post using Xanga 2.0 and we are still learning the ins and outs. SR

One of the first rides we took was Space Mountain. I love the thrill of not seeing the track and having the exhilarating rush of air through my hair. We persuaded Étienne three years ago to ride with us and realized that may have been a mistake. This time around we talked about it for two days and agreed that he would sit next to mom with dad right behind him. Not surprising, Étienne got off the ride in tears. I thought that was the end of the story.

Disney Day 1, Space Mountain. Étienne is hidden by Veronica's hair.

Two days later, Étienne surprised us with a request to ride Space Mountain again! Like last time, we placed him next to mom and dad rode right behind him. This time I asked Étienne to scream the fear right out of himself. Would you believe he got of the ride and promptly broke down in tears?

Disney Day 3, Space Mountain. Étienne is hidden by Carl's hair. Also, note the face Carl chose to make for the camera.

The point of all this is that after all the drama, Space Mountain was Étienne's both worst and best experience. Yes, it was his favorite ride of the trip. We are so proud of our seven year old.

Typical of a family outing to Disneyland, the kids wanted to ride a coaster and at the last second, I am left holding the bag!

California Screamin is a fast coaster with big drops. I usually carry my camera and a lanyard with our tickets. Here I also have Carl's lanyard and moneybag. Veronica also handed me her lanyard, fanny pack, and video camera. Of course they hand this all over in one tangled mess and take off running for the coaster. See how happy I am!

Thursday a week ago was dinner at Lawry's Prime Rib House Beverly Hills. We met Judy's dad, Ron Pletsch, for dinner. After three days of minimal red meat, the kids were ready for dinner. Since our last visit, the cream spinach recipe was modernized with bacon bits. Nothing like a little pork to amp up an already very rich recipe.

The boys enjoyed seeing grandpa. Carl is glowing at the sight of his Lawry cut. Judy is holding the grocery bag size leftovers. We feasted on those for another two days.

Sorry about the eyes closed on this one but I had to get Veronica with grandpa. This night I traveled light and used my Galaxy S3. The flash was way too bright. A shout out to grandma Kathy, we are all thinking about you and look forward to talking to you soon.

Even the "Child's Cut" that Étienne got was huge! Although nobody cleared their plate (see leftover bags above), we all had room for ice cream. Lawry's is a great place for a special occasion dinner!

Watch the blog, we are posting several events out of order. With cell phone, D90, Sony Video Cam, and a pocket Nikon, we do not always download everything in order.

We began our Huntington Beach weekend visiting friends. Bill and Irene run a shop in Old World.

Carl, Judy, Veronica, Irene, Étienne, and Bill. Bill's sign above his shop.

After seeing Tchaikovsky's famous 1812 Overture at the Hollywood Bowl, I asked Bill where all the Russian soldiers were. He said they were down to a partial set and had more on order. Étienne went bananas in the shop, reaching out for everything and wanting to set up his own battle scenes! We escaped with no breakage or damage.

Like a true Bavarian town, sheepherders in Lederhosen and busty wenches peppered the street. These two were very happy to see us.

I had to see my hand carved door on our old house in Huntington Beach that I coated with about 12 coats of marine spar. The varnish is wearing but the door is holding up great with the salt air from the Pacific.

Liliane and Chris Harvey offered a relaxing afternoon before the "Disney till you Drop" adventure. We enjoyed a calm sunny afternoon with games, conversation and great food.

The Disney Magic started with a walk through Downtown Disney. We always check out the latest Lego sculptures. With hotel room keys, we get to enter the park through the Grand Californian hotel. Security lines are much shorter and our entry is painless. We started with Soarin' over California. I think they spray aromas during the flight. Sunday crowds were light. The third shot is taken from Disneyland Main Street.

Our second ride had a major mod since our last visit. Star Tours now includes hundreds of variations. Out of three rides, we crash landed twice, met Lord Vader, and visited two different planets.

The submarines are another favorite. We rode on Explorer 607.

Over the years I learned to appreciate the Disney staff photographers. This year they upgraded to the Nikon D90. The shots are always clear, well composed, and fun. Watch future blog entries for some of the pictures, I bought all 80 pictures.

I thought this picture captures the inner spirit of my boys. We are taking the ferry to Tom Sawyer Island. With all the sun, I bought a new hat!

I love this picture and always shoot it on each visit. We are walking back to our hotel room. The magical hat marks the end of Downtown Disney and is right next to our hotel. The three kids were very ready to get some rest after walking six miles and watching the fireworks from our room window.

Today we started our vacation for real. Leaving Fresno at 7 AM, we got to the Sequoia National Forest with time to spare before our 10 AM guided tour. It is a good thing too, because our Nav unit used a major intersection inside the park as a destination. At the gate, we showed fifteen minutes to our destination. When the ranger heard we were staying at Wuksachi lodge, she commented that it was an hour and fifteen minutes up the road. I do mean up. We drove up 5,000 feet to get there.

In the end, we got to the lodge with twenty minutes to spare before our tour started.

Moro Rock sits in the valley with great views of the surrounding mountains. Our tour guide Stephanie used to free climb the rock. Here you can see a few people atop the rock on the far right edge.

Little did I know this was our next destination. The short trail is .3 miles and climbs 300 feet. There is a solid trail, steps and railing along the whole climb.

See, there really are steps! Check out that railing. Many visitors turned back at the sight of the granite rail.

At the point of the granite rail, this is the view!

That is Veronica at the far end, just like the first picture in this entry.

We saw a mother bear and her two cubs cross the road (only one cub is in this photo.)

In back of the General Sherman tree (too many people at the front!)

Stay tuned for more adventures!