This is an update of the GS kids:

First steps and first day

So, with Lucy taking a few steps we thought it would be a good time to resurrect the blog...

Whilst we're at it, here's Danny's first day at All Saints School.

Latest family member pics 12 days ago...

Induction Service

It was a real delight to have Michael Lawrence join us for the weekend, and a particular privilege to have him preach at my induction service. You can listen to the excellent sermon, which would be very helpful for pastors and church members alike here
It was also very encouraging that various old friends joined us as well as new friends in other local gospel ministers.
Here's some pics...

Dirty Danny...

Here's Dan enjoying some spag bog...

Salt Lake City and Home... well I guess it's not home any more.

We finshed up our vacation with another few relaxed days up in the Salt Lake city area.

Leaving Cedar City on 17th May, we drove up to Salt Lake city along the edge of the mountains.

The next day was a day of Liberty: we attended Liberty church before having a fun time in Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, where there were a few fairground rides.

On Monday we went onto Antelope Island a couple of miles into the Great Salt Lake. One of the least pleasant moments of our trip was our attempt to take a walk on the beach there: within moments we were swarmed by tiny flies that got stuck in our hair and bit us - so we soon abandonned that walk. You could also feel the salt in the air.

The views of the mountains reflected in the Lake were stunning.

The island is supposedly home to a herd of some 700 bison.

We saw just one, as well as a few antelope.

Tuesday saw us flying back to DC, after what had been a holiday of a lifetime.

Justin Leighty kindly picked us up from the airport and took us to the Schmuckers who were putting us up. Driving onto Capitol Hill felt strange, because I think that four weeks away, thinking and praying about our move to London helped us to realise that this wasn't quite home any more. We were guests with old friends.

After only 36 hours in DC dealing with some Admin and seeing a few friends we were finally on board our plane to London.

Day 21-23: Ghost town to Cedar City

May 14-16

We continued on our way round the South of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on US 58 followed by I-15.

Having passed by Joshua Tree National Park when we'd intended to visit it earlier on the vacation, we were glad at least that much of our journey was through Joshua Tree forests. Joshua seemed rather unimpressed with meeting his trees!

For a lunchtime break we stopped off at a reconstructed mining town, Calico. It was rather touristy, but quite fun to go down an old silver mine and see the town reconstructed to some measure how it would have been.

After lunch we pressed on.

Having been in California for 10 days here is the Gilbart-Smith quick reflections on a great state.

It is VERY big.

It has huge numbers of incredibly beautiful places - and we didn't even go North of San Francisco or South of LA.

The climate is absolutely wonderful.

The people are very friendly.

People seem to care a great deal about their appearance.

It would be very tempting to live for this world if you were to live in such a beautiful part of it.

Finally, who did they get to construct their roads? Many of the highways, (particularly on the coast, and LA worst of all) were somewhat bumpier than many of the dirt roads through remote parts of Kenya. We speculated that Lightning McQueen must have been hired to surface all the roads when he was in a rush to get to his next race!

Driving through the Southern tip of Nevada, we passed through Las Vegas but without much inclination to stop. We arrived at our hotel in Cedar City in the evening. The kids were delighted that it had a heated swimming pool.

By this time we were all getting a little tired, and so decided to abandon our plans to head up to Yellowstone, and take things a little easier. We decided that with the 9 marks weekender happening at Capitol Hill Baptist Church this weekend, we should make the most of not having to keep to that kind of manic schedule, and instead enjoy each other in a more relaxed fashion!

So for the next couple of days, other than a trip out to Bryce Canyon, we pretty much stayed around the hotel, enjoyed the pool, the sun and each other.

Bryce Canyon is one of the most unusual places we have visited. We played fun games with Josh and Abi seeing what shapes we could find in the rocks. Can you see 3 wise men, a koala bear, Queen Victoria and Notre Dame Cathedral?

On the Road Back to Cedar City we passed through the beautiful Red Canyon, and then took Route 14 which took us to our highest point on the journey so far, a little under 10,000ft.

Day 19-20: Sequoia & the Great Western Divide.

May 12 & 13

The possibility of making up some time by taking the short cut over the Tioga Pass to Bryce and Zion was closed due to incomplete ploughing of the pass. So, we began the long route to the south of the High Sierra mountains. One of the bonuses of this route is the Sequoia National Park.

If Yosemite had a few Giant Sequoias, SNP has thousands. We made a latish start, drove through huge ranches, orange groves and vineyards before ascending the mountains again on Route 180. By the time we arrived in the park it was already early evening. So, after a quick stop at the General Grant Tree, we drove along the Generals Highway through the Sequoia National Forest. We pulled into Montecito Seqouia Lodge for the night. It was an amazing location, set at 7500 with views of several peaks of the High Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Sadly the altitude meant that Dan didn't sleep too well, but Abi & Josh slept beautifully! In the morning we had the fun of playing table tennis and table football. Dan made an excellent ball boy - well, he was great at fetching the balls at least, but would then take them off in any random direction!

We then visited some of the giant sequoias, including the incredible General Sherman Tree; The trees are truly vast (even bigger than Dan on Mike's shoulders!) and despite Josh & Abi's best efforts to push them over will probably stand for a few more centuries, or until Jesus comes back. Or are they sitting in front of one they managed to topple??

There was then the fun of driving through a fallen tree... Abi wanted to wave to her friend Anna whilst driving through a tree, so, "Hi Anna"!

After a picnic with deer and some very friendly chipmunks Mike also took a quick hike up Morro rock, where there is a remarkable view of the Great Western Divide - the reason that we were having to drive hundreds of miles to the South in order to get to Southern Utah. Actually, he took the hike a little too quickly, not taking into account the altitude, and ended up a little breathless!

From there we drove down route 198 through Three Rivers before joining up with I-99 where we stopped for the night.

Day 16-18: Yosemite

May 8-11 If the Grand Canyon is one of the most awestriking places on God's good Earth, then Yosemite has to be one of the most beautiful. In one valley there are 2 of the world's highest ten waterfalls, the world's largest granite monolith, some of the largest trees in the world. And all of it filled with life, water and greenery. I guess the pictures speak for themselves, but certainly don't do it justice. We were staying a little way west in Groveland, CA. It was great to be somewhere for 4 nights. We all had a bit of a rest from the road, and the kids enjoyed being able to have a chill-out day on Saturday when we just went down to the lake we were staying by. Even sitting on the deck of the house we were staying was fun to toast marshmallows and watch the deer walking below. Dan hasn't been allowed marshmallows yet, but Abi enjoys sharing her icecreams with him.
On Sunday we had the privilege of attending church at Groveland Evangelical Church, and were amazed that the preacher was none other than Flynn Cratty's father. They kindly invited us for lunch and we had a great time of fellowship together.
We then headed up to the Mariposa Grove to see some very large Giant Sequoia trees.

Day 15: San Franscico and old friends

Wednesday 7th May

After successfully dropping off the RV with no hitches we headed off heavy ladened over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco with flowers in our hair (only kidding about the flowers).

After a frantic search for our guide book (which was buried at the bottom of the trunk/boot) outside SF public library we decided to head off to do the sights of SF, first of all a pit stop at Ihop and then we carried on down the windiest street in the world!

We had fun driving up and down the amazingly steep roads and were grateful to be in a 4x4 and not a 30ft RV. It was just like it is in the movies except of course there were no cops chasing us - at least we hope there weren't because if so we must have been driving fast enough to get away, because we didn't notice them!

In order to recover we took tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens, enjoying the lovely Californian sunshine. This time there were flowers, but kind of over our heads rather than in our hair!

We couldn't visit SF without driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, so we took a slight detour on our way to visit the Hsu's for supper in Emeryville.

Actually we took rather more of a detour than we planned, as we were trying to follow the directions of our GPS that gave us 130 yards notice to move over 6 lanes of traffic. So we got to go over the Bay bridge for a second (and third!) time.

It was lovely to have a delicious homed cooked meal and to a have a great time of encouragement and fellowship with Kevin and Connie.

We got back on the road, narrowly avoiding getting sent back on the Bay Bridge for a 4th (and 5th) time and headed East, stopping at a hotel half way to Yosemite. The hotel room felt big compared to life in an RV!

Day 14: Pacific Coast Highway

Tuesday May 7th.
We left Morro Bay and drove one fo the most spectacular drives up Route 1 North along the Pacific Coast towards San Francisco. We had lunch at Big Sur, and along the way saw amazing coastal views as well as seeing seals and other wildlife.
We picked up our Car rental, and were amazed at what a great car and a great deal it was to go with Fox Rentals. We'd read loads of bad reviews of them on the web, but they were hundreds of dollars cheaper than anyone else. We were ready for hour long delays and ten year old clapped out vehicles. Well, 10 minutes after turning up at their Oakland rental centre we headed out with a brand new Jeep Commander. If any of you were at our wedding and remember Pete's best man's speech about Mike's disastrous money-saving tips, then, by God's kindness they seem to be doing OK this time what with Fox & Cruise America's one way deals!
We drove up into the mountains above San Francisco where we stayed in Anthony Chabot Regional Park with great views overlooking the Bay area for our last night in the RV. The kids loved tasting marshmallows under the stars while Hannah & Mike tried to squeeze the contents of an RV into a jeep!