Field Trip Fun, Mountain Biking and Pismo Beach

 We started the month off with a field trip to the Sugar Pine Yosemite Railroad.  It was a fun steam train ride through the forest right next to Yosemite National Park.  Before the train ride, Zane got to pan for gold and even ended up with a few flakes of gold

Panning for gold

A few flakes of gold left in the bottom

Headed into the trees

Checking out the steam engine

The benches were made from one giant log

After the train ride we headed into Yosemite National Park and hiked to the top of Sentinel Dome.  It was a couple mile hike and we were across the valley from Half Dome.  It's elevation was 8,127 feet, just a couple of hundred feet short of Half Dome.

At the top with Half Dome in the background

What's left of the famous Jeffery Pine at the top of Sentinel Dome

Zane's favorite pose

El Capitan

Hiking back down

From Yosemite, we headed up to Arnold to spend a day up at Zac's cabin for some mountain biking fun.  The next day I dropped the guys off at Lake Alpine so they could mountain bike over to Utica Reservoir.  It was a pretty gnarly trail, Zane ended up crashing and denting his one week old helmet(we had just replaced his old one due to dents and old age).  He was just fine but earned a new helmet later in the day.  After the ride Zane and Uncle Zac decided to take a swim in the reservoir.  It was a very chilly swim!

Warming up for the ride

Uncle Zac, Zane and Casey

A chilly swim to the rock island

Warming up on the rock for the swim back

From there we headed back to Arnold so the guys could ride some more trails, especially Zane's favorite- Yaba Daba Doo.  

Uncle Zac

Zane

Casey catching some air

Next we headed over to the coast to spend some time with our friends Eric and Amber.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures of us together.  We enjoyed some mountain biking, thrift store shopping, playing an epic round of mini golf and Zane got to play in the ocean.

Fun at the beach

Zane had a few more soccer games this month.  He is getting better each game.  He really enjoys being the goalie.

Goalie

Towards the end of the month was quilt retreat at Hartland.  I worked on a quilt kit that had gorgeous colors and finished piecing it all together.

We also celebrated Casey's birthday with a cake that Zane made some special chocolate fishes for the top.

Happy Birthday Casey!!

Next up was another school field trip to Vossler Farms Pumpkin Patch.  Zane was excited to go with friends and find the best pumpkin.

Zane, Jesse and Sawyer at the top of the hay bale mountain

Zane

Jesse, Zane, Sawyer and Parker

Zane's Pumpkin

Getting the guts out

All carved

We finished up October with our annual staff retreat at Pismo Beach.  We are continually blessed by our job and life here at Hartland Christian Camp.  The retreat is such a great time to spend with our Hartland Family and be blessed by the ministry.

The kids enjoying ice cream with Auntie Amber

Zane, Sawyer, Henry and Jesse planning their afternoon at the beach

Casey and Zane catching a big wave

giving a hi five

Evie, Sawyer and Zane

catching another wave with Pop

That's a wrap for the month of October.  See you again in November.