California

As you may remember, my dear friend Jessie moved to California about four months ago. It was sad for me and you can read about it here. But the happy part of the story is that I love to travel and so last weekend I went out to California to see Jessie, Randy, and Jake.

I'm happy to report that they are doing well and they have an adorable house and Randy loves his job and Jake is just as spry as ever, even at his ripe old age of 13. We had an action packed weekend filled with In-N-Out, kayaking, playing cards, watching movies, playing Words with Friends on our phones with each other while sitting in the same room, a little drinking, a lot of Starbucks,  not to mention great conversations where Jessie and I conquered many of the world's problems such as orphans, poverty, religion, and politics. My weekend there had all of the components that I love about going to Canada, just condensed into 3 days.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let my pictures from the weekend do some talking.

Animal style extra toast

Kayaking at Half Moon Bay

Some other bay we found

We almost died trying to climb down this hillside. When we got to the bottom, we found stairs just to the left of where we emerged.

Here Jessie is remembering walking through a hard time and only seeing one set of footprints in the sand but that was when Jesus carried her through that hard time.

Seriously. It was amazing.

Randy picking lemons from their lemon tree.

Aren't they beautiful?

My buddy Jake.

My high school friend Ellen also lives in the Bay area with her husband and their two kids, so on Sunday evening I went to a Rosh Hashana service with them. This was actually the first time in my life I ever went to a Jewish service and I really loved it. Rosh Hashana is Jewish New Year and a time of celebrating what God has done in the previous year and preparing for the year ahead. Part of how you celebrate is by eating apples and honey. The next ten days after Rosh Hashana are a time of making amends and seeking forgiveness from anyone you've wronged in the year before. After this, Yom Kippur happens, which is the Day of Atonement.

Turner and I celebrating Rosh Hashana. He was mostly celebrating how good my thumb tasted.

Meira and I enjoying our Rosh Hashana apples.

So it was a great weekend and I will be back, probably many times. California is a little closer and cheaper to get to than Canada, so it will fill in the gaps nicely between Canada trips. It's also convenient that they can both be abbreviated to CA.

Finally, many of you have asked about Charlie over the past week. You all seem to be very concerned about his well being while forgetting that he was the one who attacked ME, not the other way around. For the record, he is fine and me and my face have recovered with minimal damage. As you can see, he is feeling cuddly and nice once again. Now would be the perfect time to adopt him into your home!