Weekend of Woods, Water, and Will

This last weekend Will came to visit us for a test he had to take. We had a fun weekend exploring some new sites with him.

On Saturday we traveled north of S.F. to a national monument called Muir Woods. This was awesome! It's just north of the Golden Gate, and is one of the few remaining redwood forests. The trees were so tall, and so beautiful. We took a long hike through the woods, and I must admit, it felt good to be back in something akin to mountains.

Along the way, we discovered that at certain parts there were millions and millions of ladybugs all gathered for mating season. It was amazing to see so many ladybugs!

Will, of course, couldn't come to California without visiting the ocean. After a day of hiking we went to the beach, and Will talked Jon into doing some wave swimming in the freeeeeeeezing water. Not only was it super cold, but we found out too that we were at a frequent shark attack beach . . . nice, huh. But as Jon and Will's wise scout leader used to say: the amount of brainpower is inversely proportional to the number of boys (aka 2 boys=1/2 brain), and these two boys were not going to be deterred by a little thing like cold or threat of sharks! They jumped in enthusiastically, and were shivering all the way home (I'm pretty sure because of the cold -- not fear of sharks :)

All in all, it was great to have Will around for a few days, and we had a great time!