Summer

This Summer has been jam-packed with tons of things going on in the Sullivan household. Here are a few things that have been going on recently.

If you have ever been to our house, you know that we have cats, lots of them. And we are always having new litters of kittens. It seems like one cat with have a litter, and once we finally get those sold, another cat will give birth....

But the girls love them....

Recently, Mom and Dad celebrated their wedding anniversary...they are such wonderful parents and sacrifice so much of their lives for us. I thank God for such wonderful blessings God has bestowed on our family through these two wonderful people...

Ben was selected to the Little League All-Star team and they played in Del Mar a few weekends ago. Their team didn't do as well as was hoped, but they fought hard and gave it their all....Now the Sullivans are completely done with Little League, on to High School for Ben!

And Snoopy has been at it in the fields, mowing and weed-whipping, and more mowing....man we have alot of weeds... And no, my legs aren't really that long...

And then my family decided to drop one day while I was at work at Legoland. I even got to give them a tour  on my boat...

It's been an awesome summer so far, and we still have a month to go, can't wait to see what God has in store....

Snoopy

Some thoughts on life....

"In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone.... In solitude we discover that life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared." -- from Out of Solitude by Henri Nouwen

Mudcaving...

The adventures of Snoopy continue...From the jungle, now to the desert. The Anza-Borrego Desert. Me, Ben and a bunch of crazy college kids decided that it was time to live on the wild side and go spelunking and find a good cave to get lost in. Well, last Saturday was the day. We all piled into two cars and set out on the two hour drive with sack lunches and excitement in tow. We finally turned on a dirt road and drove another half hour on this crazy dirt road. Bumping along on that back road was almost half the fun. I have no idea how Daniel's car ever made it through that road without completely falling to pieces. But we did blow out his back tire shocks....bummer

All of a sudden we stopped next to this cliff and everyone got out. I turned around and go, "Where's the cave?" And Andrew points to a small shadow and goes, right there! I'm like, thats a gopher hole, there's no way we can every fit in. But I watch in amazement as I watch one of the guys disappear into the hole. When we finally got to the hole, we noticed that you might be able to squeeze in and so we follow the others. Once we were in we did find that it got a little wider, but not big enough to stand up straight in, we had to crawl some of the way, and in others we had to walk sideways to get through. And it was pitch black in there. Each one of us had brought headlamps and I was glad I had bought one instead of a flashlight, I was on my hands and knees for much of the time.

But one time we decided to turn off our lights all-together and see how dark it was. The blackness was beyond anything you can imagine. You couldn't even see the hand right in front of your face. Pitch darkness.

There were quite a few caves in the area and we explores most of them. Some were fairly short before it got so narrow that we couldn't go any farther; in others we would trek for an hour and a half before we finally came out through the other side of the mountain. There was even one cave that we had to climb a rappelling rope to climb a sheer cliff inside a large room of the tunnel. It was amazing to see how tall some of the chimneys inside the cave could be. One of the ones that we tried to climb up had to be 40 or more feet from the bottom of the cave floor.

Towards lunch time we brought our lunch in and ate in one of the larger rooms of the cave. The cave had a small shaft of light at the top, so we turned off our headlights and ate in the semi-darkness. It was really a neat experience.

After a long day of hiking, we decided it was time to return home. We were covered from head to toe in a fine brown dust that was caked on our arms and clothes. But it sure was a awesome time. This is Snoopy, signing out from the caves of the California Desert...

P.S. You can click on the photos and it will enlarge the photo to see it in more detail....;)

Happenings...

Wow, its been a long time since my last blog post. Things have been real busy down here in So Cal and I have been working a bunch. Not as free to laze around on the computer all day anymore.....Being an adult sucks....haha

Well there have been plenty of happenings here in the Sullivan Household. I'll start with the Fourth.

I guess from what I hear from certain {other} people, Canada really doesn't think too much about Their country's independence day. But we here in the USA go all out for good ole independences day. I guess the harder you fought to get it, the more you cherish it. [Btw here's a shout out to all those Military people's out there, both home and abroad...you guys are true heroes. And you are in our prayers.] But anyways, so we Sullivan's have a tradition that every year for the Fourth of July that we go up to the beach at San Clemente and watch the fireworks. They really know how to put on a show up there and we don't mind the drive up there to witness it. Also they have a nice family friendly beach up there by the pier and it makes for an awesome day every year. Well this year we decided to add some friends to the festivities and invited the Linstad family to join us for the fun.

Also, Jess, Ben, and Rachel had all entered things in the Creative Youth event at the Del Mar Fair this year and we had recently received notification that Jessica had won Best of Show for her entry in the Digital Works category. She had made a DVD slideshow presentation for my grandfathers 70th birthday party and so she entered that in the fair. It was really well done and we all are proud of her. So before we set off for Orange County we stopped at the Fair for the awards ceremony where Jessica was presented with her Best of Show ribbon. We then did a little touring around the fair for a couple hours. We even got to ride a double decker bus! That was def a highlight for us and it was a beautiful day in Del Mar. The theme for the fair this year is "Taste the Fun" and so they have all these vendors that are selling these crazy food dishes. Some of which include: Deep Fried Butter, Cheese Curls with Bacon drippings, and the {best one} the triple-gastric-bypass Burger.....mmmm Needless to say, we didn't try any. I mean if the name of the stand, "Heart Attack Cafe" doesn't make you worry, the picture of the nurse with a defibrillator right next to it surely does....

But anyways, we really enjoyed the Fourth and celebrating our wonderful nation's birthday!!!
Also, if you click on the photos, you can enlarge them to see them in more detail...;)

Happy Fourth Cake made my Rachel

Ben's Entry

Jess's Award winning entry

Her quilt entry

Rachel's Entry

HAPPY FOURTH!!!