As I mentioned, Nana had her MOHS surgery this past Friday. (Yes, one week after Emily's surgery). MOHS is the surgery to remove melanoma cancer where they keep you all day while they remove one layer of skin at a time, test it, then remove the next layer, until they have removed all of the affected skin. Nana has done this once before and did NOT want to drive down to Sacramento, do the surgery and drive back all in one day (5hrs driving), so we got a hotel and went along to make sure she was not alone.
Fort Sutter was just down the street (literally a block and a half) so when Nana went in the first time, we took off to check it out. This is a fort built before the gold rush and is famous for the rescue of the Donner party. They have done a marvelous job of setting it up how it must have looked and showing all of the jobs that took place inside its walls. This was perfect because our social studies topic for this week is workers and the jobs they do. We took our "Jobs" book and started to make pictures of different jobs. There were over twenty so we didn't tackle them all.
The gate to the fort was pretty big...
Which lead to trying to climb it and then trying to open it.
We spent a week reading the story of Lentil, which is about a boy who learns to play the harmonica. I wanted to get them harmonicas but never did so when I saw them at the fort, I had to get them. They have spent the last week playing them constantly. At least that sound doesn't bother me at all!
I just thought the contrast between the background and the foreground was too much.
The girls got to feel all sorts of animal hides and guess what animal they came from and what they were going to be used for.
It was a good couple of hours and we learned a lot about the history of Sacramento and the billions of floods they used to get from the rivers that flow through it.
After Nana was completely done, she felt good enough to tackle Old Sacramento...well, she said we could go for dinner until the pain meds started to wear off and then we were done. My girls were tired already so thankfully we were all in the same boat.
Em wanted a picture with Hello Kitty.
Old Sacramento is really neat...the old train depot with still functioning trains, paddle boats that go up and down the river, boardwalks everywhere, old buildings, cobblestone streets and even horse and carriage rides.
All that and the candy shop was the favorite. Well, that and the Christmas store - I barely made it out alive!
The place we ate was really neat and had all sorts of stuff to look at. Speaking of looking at, Emily's eyes are most definitely lining up and working together. Praise God! Besides her looking at you with two eyes instead of one, which is a daily miracle I just LOVE, she is starting to try to look at things further away - something she has never tried before. Before, we would describe something even ten feet away, she would listen and go, 'oh', but never even try to look. What she has started to do is listen as we talk about something and then say, "Where?"and try to find it. I never really noticed she didn't even try until she started trying. I was so shocked the first time she did it, it stopped me in my tracks. Now I am excited to see just how much she gains.
The next morning, we went for a walk along the Sacramento River. This was an old PGE building.
A pier we could not walk out on because it was inexplicably closed. I like the creativity of the design though.
Our walk took us to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. It was a beautiful sight and in the early morning light could not have been more peaceful. As I watched my mom and my daughters walk along the shore, I couldn't help but see the parallel to our lives. My parents life and our family life are about to merge into one (yes, we are still planning to move them in downstairs - thus all the remodeling to our home right now). Sure, there is lots of potential for flooding, but that is why there are levees and dykes and the like built up around the edges. There will be times when the water flows heavily and it tests those barriers, but if they are constructed correctly, the waters will still stay in their boundaries. But then, in the peaceful times, even more so in the drought, the rivers will peacefully merge to create a beautiful scene. I pray our merging looks more like this.
Yep, harmonicas went everywhere.
M finally found the deal he was looking for on his tractor.
We now own a ranch and a tractor...what's next???
It was GREAT to finally get out and do something fun and relaxing. Our lives have been nothing but work since we moved in. I even asked M the other day when his training was going to level off so he would get a long weekend and his response was, "It has. I've already had two." I hadn't even noticed. We have been working right through his weekends and now I am realizing it has been too much. We really need to find a balance between rest and work...and make ourselves take rest...to enjoy the north state we so desperately wanted to move back to. There will always be something that needs to be done around here so we need to learn how prioritize all these new tasks and tackle at a reasonable rate, not a knock-it-out rate.
Thank you for your prayers and keep them coming. God Bless!!!
