Family vs. California 'The Swing'

       Our spectators!!!




During my familys tour of Woodleaf (our backyard and Mikie's work place) my Dad and I, feeling couragous, put our life in Mikie's hands and went for a swing.

Thank you MOM for being an awesome photographer!



                                                         QUICK HIKE PHOTO

Two incredible people standing in front of you right now!!! I am so lucky that these men are in my life!!!

One morning we took my dad for a quick hike to the 'look out tower'. This awesome view is about 2 miles from our house, and on a clear day it is absolutely gorgeous. This day the fog was heavy, and the way it seemed to engulf the mountains and lake was truly magnificent. I would have never dreamed to live in a place like this, God is so good!!!

Family vs. California

My family came to visit us in California!!! Last week was busy, fun, crazy, fast pace, and exhausting all at the same time!! It was so wonderful to have them here and see my life here in Challenge, CA. My Mom, Josh, and Nan were here for 7 days, and my Dad joined them for the last 4days. The pictures above are from our visit to Empire Mines in Grass Valley, CA. Empire Mines was one of the most succesful Gold mines in America! The tour was super fun and it actually took us down into the abonandoned mines, Josh lasted about halfway through the tour so Nan, and I took him to sit in the car while Mikie and Mom finished the tour. I have so many more pictures and fun stories from their visit to share with you. Including, waking up at 4:30 am for coffee (because they couldn't ger used to the 3 hour time difference) all of my furniture is now completely re-arranged, and California wine :-) (I still have 4 bottles in my fridge). I am so blessed to have such a caring family that loves me so much. Stay tuned for more stories and pictures from my family taking on Norhtern California!!!

( I adore the picture of Josh and Mikie at the top of the page)

Where am I

OK, it's November 5th! Since when does it snow before thanksgiving!!! To all the people who are thinking, "wait, didn't she move to California" the answer is yes I did, and yes it snows here too. We live in northern California, I don't really feel like I'm in California at all. No, there are no valley girls, or movie stars or palm trees; here there are gigantic pine cones, bears, mountain lions, and right now, snow!  I think the snow is a little different here in the Sierra's, it looks fluffy but it supper heavy! The craziest part is we drove down the mountain this morning to go to church and not even 5 miles away from our house there was no snow! Living at sea level on the Chesapeake Bay all of my life has left me completely uneducated about elevation. Apparently the rain/snow line has everything to do with elevation, and I guess our elevation number 3,400 ft. just happens to be 5 miles above the snow line (lucky us). On a more positive note, today I bought avocados for 49cents, one of the few things California does right :-)

countdown: 7 days until the fam arrives, pray for no snow!!!!!

A visitor!

LIZZZ!

It was such a blessing to see a familiar face so far from home. Liz stopped by for a long weekend, and it was not long enough! We spent the first day just hanging out catching up and of course cooking and baking! The second day she was here we took a day trip to Lake Tahoe. The weather was amazing and thank goodness Tahoe has not seen any snow yet so we could enjoy the fall colors! Whenever I go to Tahoe City I can not pass up the town of Truckee. Truckee is a cute little town on the outskirts of Lake Tahoe, I love to walk through all the little shops there, I can't wait to bring my mom here I think she will love it! In Truckee there is an awesome burger place called, Burger Me, I had been there one time before and it was supper yummy! Burgers with avocados, sweet potato fries, and some Seirra Nevada beer mmmmmmmmmm! Liz's time here was so sweet, I have the best friends!!

The countdown: Mom, Dad, Nan and Josh are coming in 10 days!! (Nov. 14th)

lovee,bekahkane

Lessons Through Clay

Who knew polymer clay or sculpty and a couple of stamps could create such great earrings, beads, and buttons. Everyday when mikie goes to work the first thing I do, is continue my job search, but sometimes I need a break so lately I have been getting pretty crafty. Today, I found my old stash of polymer clay and decided to make some buttons. This clay is supper easy to use, you make your creation and then pop it into the oven. The only problem is, this house that we live in, the house full of "character" does not have an oven! Yes, you heard me no oven, can you believe it. It's really ok though because we have an oven right across the street, and we have this awesome toaster oven that we got as a wedding present. The whole oven thing has been pretty stressful, and I think when we do get one (which is going to be very soon, our kitchen renovation started on Monday) I will appreciate it so much!!!! I would have never thought an oven would have been a privilege; but, hey maybe this is a little lesson that our circumstances here in our little house in California is teaching me.

Is this real life?

This is the beginning of our story. I am hoping that I will not be the only narrator of this happy, fun, crazy, adventurous story; but we will see how often I can convince Mikie to sit down and write something. We have been married for almost 3 months now and boy has it been an adventure! In the last 7 months I have graduated college, driven across the country, planned a wedding, got married, went to Hawaii, and moved from Maryland to California! Not to mention the house we moved into here in California has A LOT of "character". What kind of character you ask? the kind of character only pictures can show. ( I will post some soon!) The best part of this story is I would not change one piece of it. My hopes for this blog are very high, and my blog attempts in the past have not been very successful. I hope that this is a place were we can share with you our journey, our creativity, and the humor that so often finds its way into our marriage (mostly due to my husband). With all that has happend in the last couple of month I often find myself wondering, "is this really my life"!

lovee.bekahkane