NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Jules’ Journal: A Wonderful Mother’s Day!

By: Julianne Lillie, 5/15/23

Made it through last night’s midnight meds for Jett and woke up at 8:30am. We got ready for church and attended the 10:30am service at Bethel in Redding, CA.

Worship was ON FIRE! It was so so so good! They played one of my favorite worship songs. Something unique they did during worship was they had artists on either side of the stage. The worship band was in the middle (of course), then 3 dancers on the right and 2 artists painting on the left. I thought it was a neat idea to show different artists worshiping in their own element.

Finished paintings at the end of service:

The service was packed, though… we all 4 couldn’t sit together. Jaycie and I sat together and then Jason and Jett sate elsewhere together. So that was a bummer.

The message was by a “substitute teacher”, Dan Fairlee, and he found out just yesterday he was preaching. The head pastor was with his mom at the hospital who just had surgery and was needing the swelling on her brain to go down. We as a church prayed for her. But for only learning yesterday that he was preaching, Dan gave a great message! I ended up taking 2 pages of notes.

I was a bit disappointed, though, as there was nothing special for Mother’s except making us all stand up in service. Maybe I’m just spoiled with how awesome our Cedar Point Church is with our special events. There weren’t any special raffles, giveaways, or even photo booth backdrop to take photos by. But I found some pretty roses out front where we took family photos by.

After church we headed back to the camper to eat lunch and I opened my cards from the kids. They were super sweet… especially Jaycie’s! She wrote me a book!

We changed clothes and drove 8 minutes to Turtle Bay Exploration Park.

We walked across the famous Sundial Bridge and attempted to walk through the Botanical gardens, but it was nearly 100 degrees without a breeze. We were SO hot!

Here's our Bridge Photos:

Since it was so hot, we decided to hit up the Turtle Bay Museum instead. Which turned out to be pretty awesome! It was like a Nature Center meets a Science Museum with a small Zoo & art gallery!

Jett built a treehouse:

My favorite part was seeing the snakes and the parrot playhouse.

Beautiful King snake:

Inside the parrot playhouse we were given nectar cups to attract the parrots to us. I had 4 parrots on me at one point! It was so cool! I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve been in Butterfly & hummingbird houses, but never with Parrots!

After that, we came home and called our Moms (& Dads, too!) to check in and wish them a Happy Mother’s Day! That evening, Jason took me out on a Sushi date. It was so delicious!

After that I was on nurse duty for Jett to clean his finger, change his dressing, and bathe him. Thankfully his finger seems to be healing well and his pain is at a zero or one.

We had our nightly Sunset stroll and Jaycie decided to join us tonight.

The campgrounds flowers were all blooming and so fragrant. The Lord knew I am missing my roses at home so he gave me some here to enjoy! So thankful!

Overall I had a wonderful Mother’s Day and my tribe celebrated me in a special way!

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News: Whiskeytown National Rec Area

By: Jaycie Lillie, 5/16/23

We got Jr. Ranger booklets at the Visitor Center then asked about hikes. The park ranger told us about an “easy hike” to the most beautiful waterfall – one of her favorites. We set off!

Turns out her definition of “easy hike” is not that easy. There was a 700-foot elevation gain, and it was pretty much uphill the whole way!

But the waterfall was WORTH IT ALL! It was roaring with so much water!

We stayed a while and worked on our Jr Ranger booklets.

The return hike was a lot easier since it was mainly downhill. But it was still hard not to slip in the loose gravel during the steep spots. We saw some cool things along the way like curly moss on the trees and some tree sap seeping out of a stump.

And crossed over the stream on a pretty bridge.

We had finished our booklets at the waterfall, so we went to swear in and take our oath.

Our badge was pretty cool!

After that, we ate a picnic. Very yummy! We saw a dog get away from his owner and start swimming in the water to chase the geese. I don’t know what happened to the dog, but the water was really pretty!

Jett’s Wild Flight: Lassen Volcanic National Park

By: Jett Lillie, 5/17/23

We drove 1.5 hours to place called Lassen Volcanic National Park.

We arrived at the visitor center which they had dug out of the snow.

We learned about volcanoes and earned our 113th Jr. Ranger badge.

We had lots of fun exploring the visitor center and watching the park film, but we learned the road was closed and under 25 feet of snow. We couldn’t do anything there.

So, we drove 1 hour to the other entrance of the park called Manzanita Lake which was at a lower elevation and didn't have as much snow.

There we hiked around Reflection Lake and hiked to see Lily Pond.

We could see Broke Off Mountain (part of a volcano) in the reflection of the lake.

We could drive only 9 miles into the park and went as far as the “Devastated Area” but couldn’t see much there because of the snow.

We had a snowball fight, but throwing with my left hand was very difficult.

We did get to see the Chaos Crag and Jumbles. Weird names for an area that had all the big rocks and boulders land after one of the volcanoes erupted.

We did get to see some prairie dogs, ground squirrels, Stellar’s Jays, and even some Jack rabbits jumping in the meadow. Here's one of the Stellar's Jay we saw:

I was disappointed we couldn’t see the mud pots and steam vents at Sulphur Works. But we did everything we could at the park that was open!