The Jones Family

Shortly after we got back from Australia, my sister, Julie, invited me out for a little sister time in San Francisco! I knew it would be hard to leave Kaylen and Gregg, but I knew it would also be awesome to spend time with my sister and great for them to have some quality time with each other!

So, I headed out to San Francisco from Sep 17-20. Julie told me that she wanted us to do something I hadn't done out there yet. First, she planned a white water rafting trip... above my ability level! The night before I headed out there, she found out they weren't running the river anymore with the water levels, so she had to come with something else. She came up with spelunking!?! Caving! I'm rather claustrophobic, so needless to say, the idea was a little overwhelming! But I'm never one to want to disappoint, so I put my game face on!'

Friday night, when I got into town, we only had enough time to hang out, chat and look at some of the recent pictures from their adventures. Saturday morning, we visited some friends of theirs, then headed out of town. We stayed the night about 2.5 hours away in a little, tiny town called Mokelumne Hill. It was a pretty sad town and the only thing drawing anyone to the "town" was the "haunted" hotel that we were staying at! It's bar brought all the locals out that night and we had such a great time... hanging, playing pool and being silly... as it should be! Then, Sunday, our Middle Earth tour started at the California Cavers outside of San Andreas at 1:00 pm.

I had been pretty anxious just thinking about it, but ended up having such a BLAST! It was such a great experience! It was a 5-hour tour, but the time flew and I enjoyed... almost every minute! Below are some of the pictures to prove it!

Above is a picture of what they called the "birthing tunnel". I had a TON of anxiety about it! It wasn't something that we had to go through. It was just a little obstacle just a little off our route. The hole was so small that a fully inflated basketball couldn't fit through it. After watching Ron, the only other guy on our tour other than us (myself, Julie, and Doug) and the tour guides, go through it who was a pretty large man, I tried to pump myself up to go into it! You drop into a little room called "the womb". It took a lot of deliberation and a failed attempt, but I made it in! I was pretty proud of myself!

Going through the tunnel into "the womb"

Julie and Doug


Shimmy-ing through the walls

Julie and I

A gorgeous, clear lake in the middle of the gave

Our AFTER picture! We were a muddy mess!

What a FANTASTIC trip! It was so great to have such awesome time with Julie and Doug. We all missed out on having Gregg and Kaylen out so we made a point to plan some upcoming trips out there that would be some great family activities, too! They were definitely missed out there! Gregg and Kaylen spent time at the Zoo and outside enjoying the weather while we were gone. He did fabulously all by himself! He's such a great Daddy and such a wonderful husband for doing that so I could have some quality time with Julie!