Brian Head Reunion

The Sedgwick family got together over President’s Day weekend in Brian Head, Utah for a reunion.  It was a beautiful place surrounded by tons of snow and lots of fun family times.  Unfortunately, I was feeling too sick to even go outside, much less ski, and it was pretty blizzard-y (is that a word?) to ski more than one day, at least for our fair-weathered family (that would be our own immediate family–others in the group braved the storm and said the snow was awesome!).  The good news is I almost finished my book “Nurture Shock”, and I enjoyed a little bit of R&R when I was able to tune out all the noise.   40 people in one big cabin=fun times, but not a lot of peace and quiet.  It was a memorable trip, and we’re so grateful for Grandma Sedgwick for putting it all together, especially the daily “President’s Day” devotionals  and the mini American Flags/swords that the kids used to spear each other :).

Dressed up for church

Lucy and Hannah havin’ fun!

Madi throwing snowballs!

Cousin Pyramid

Ammon and Jess ventured out once

Grandma in the snow tunnel made by Dave

Another cave

Caleb and Mary, the neighborhood dog

Spring Break in Utah

We had such a great time in Sundance, Utah, for our spring break this year.  We got really lucky and had lots of fresh powder to play in!  We especially loved having our friends, the Walkers, join us for the week.  They are moving in 2 days and we’ll really miss them, so it was nice to have some time to play together before they leave.  As you can see, we are camera happy…enjoy!

San Diego New Year

We decided to plan a little family getaway for New Year’s, since we were home for the entire holiday vacation.  We took an Amtrak train down to San Diego (a beautiful ride), then walked a mile to our “swank” hotel in the gaslamp quarter (I think we were the only “family” staying there that day).  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

After checking in, we walked to the USS Midway aircraft carrier and took the self-guided headphone tour.  The kids loved all the fighter jets and having their very own headphone set.  We’d highly recommend visiting the USS Midway next time you’re in San Diego.  After the aircraft carrier we strolled along the “boardwalk” in Seaport Village and enjoyed a variety of street performers–a rock balancer (truly amazing), parrot entertainer, guitar-playing homeless people, etc.  The best performance was by Lucy and Dave, though.  They got down and danced hard to a live band.  Lucy’s sweet moves brought that band to life!  I loved it and got it all on video.

After a quick stop at a cupcake shop, we found a place for dinner–Sloppy Joey’s–then visited the Ghiradelli Ice Cream shop.  The reason for all the sweets is this…Madison and Caleb are going dessert-free in 2010.  Madison, Dave, and I are candy-free.  We had forgotten to “prepare” ourselves on Dec. 31st and didn’t realize that it was already 2010 until our train ride down.  So we decided to postpone our goal for a day and really stock up.  And we did.

After a less-than-completely-restful night, we woke up and walked to Richard Walker’s Pancake House.  If you’ve never been there, it’s worth a trip to San Diego just eat there.  I got the cinnamon baked pancake and it was a winner!  My only regret is that we didn’t take pictures.  We took the rest of the morning easy, played at the park, swam in the hotel pool, then took the train back home.  Super fun time!

One of my favorite things …

Yosemite is one of our favorite places in the world. In high school, I almost died there during a spring break with a few of my closest friends. We got stuck in the snow up above on the panorama trail during an all day hike that turned into an all day and night adventure – including about 11 hours in our skivvies on top of each other for body heat surrounded by snow. I’ll have to share that story sometime …

Most recently, we’ve had a family tradition of camping there during the summers. This is a beautiful time lapse video of the park. Not really shown is my favorite part outside the valley itself … Toulemne Meadows. This is one video you need to see in full screen mode.

Out of Africa

Our trip to Southern Africa was like a dream.  We drove along the southern coast of S. Africa along what they call the garden route.  Flew in Johannesburg.  Stayed at the home of new friends Odette & Frans (relatives of new friends here in San Juan) in Joburg.  Flew down the next day to Port Elizabeth on the coast.  Drove to and stayed the night in Jeffrey’s Bay, Knysna, Stilbaai, Stellenbosch, and finally Cape Town for 2 nights.

Then off to Botswana for safaris.  Mechenge safari lodge on the Chobe River for 2 nights followed by 3 nights at the Mapula Safari lodge in the Okavango Delta (we had Mapula to ourselves for 2 of the 3 nights and truly felt as unplugged/relaxed as you can).

Finished with 2 nights at Victoria Falls.  The good part of being there when the water is low is that there is a spot on the lip of the falls that forms a small pool where the current is weak enough to sit on the ledge.  That got the heart pumping …

We drove, saw, talked, learned, photographed, ate, relaxed, thought, discovered, remembered, missed, read, flew … A LOT.  We felt grateful.  We’re grateful to Troy Bourne who let me borrow his telephoto lens.  We were especially grateful to Mom and Dad Jewkes for watching the kids the whole time (their ability/willingness to do that made this trip happen)!  We can’t thank them enough.  Also to Emily and Claire for helping out with them.  We also felt blessed that our kids had the chance to deepen their relationship with their grandparents in GA and some of their cousins there too.  They came home, it seems, more grown up/developed/united than 3 weeks ago.

Some of the memories that will stay with us …

- Learning about the Apartheid struggle in S. Africa from our Cape guide, Norman who was a police office fighting against the ‘terrorists’ like Mandela.
- The kindness & generosity of S. Africans
- Each new town we stayed in along the garden route
- ‘Hunting’ and finally finding the lions in Mapula
- Forming new friendships with Odette, Frans, Dereen, Joseph (and having Joseph accurately interpret my dream), Dudu
- Sharing the gospel/representing the church to so many as the ‘first real mormons they’ve ever met’ :)
- Swimming in the ‘devil’s arm chair’ on top of victoria falls
- Meeting such interesting people at the safari lodges (other guests)

Click on HERE to go to our gallery of pictures from this trip …