Spring Break

Joshua and I had a wonderful time at The Ranch, what the France family calls the farm that is owned by my Uncle John, but was where my dad and his 8 siblings were raised in Porterville. It was a dairy farm way back when and now the farm is an organic fruit farm -- oranges, grapes, nectarines, walnuts (are they considered a fruit?) and more on other property. There aren't a lot of animals any more, but we enjoy the ones who do live there -- Fred the cat, Max the dog, Joe the donkey and three horses that recently came to live (Blue, Sancho and Rocky). Oh, yeah, and the Canadian geese who have been coming back to the pond year after year for a long time now. Here are few pictures of the animals we enjoyed visiting. Of course, that doesn't mean that we don't also enjoy John and Cindy. We had a great time celebrating John's birthday -- he's only about 7 years older than me, so I have often think of him as a big brother (not that my mother is old enough to be his mom). And Cindy is just a lot of fun to talk to. I've been enjoying conversations with her ever since she married into the crazy France clan right before I started college.


We were also able to get to the snow up at about 7,000 feet, 40 miles outside of Porterville on Tuesday. It was cold (for us) but I found a sled, took a few rides and then we had a snow ball fight until Joshua's hands were too wet and cold. All in all, a great part of our Spring Break.

Today was a first for both Joshua and me -- we marched and picketed over the issue of budget cuts to education. Joshua was so excited that even when we found out that the governor wasn't going to show up, so there might not be a march, he insisted we take our signs (that he helped make) and go anyways. Turned out the governor skipped his scheduled afternoon visit to a private school in San Juan but showed up for the fundraiser at local restaurant around 5:30. We were making signs, marching, waving our signs and adding to the traffic jam in San Juan with the other 300 or so people for about 3 hours. Quite an experience. Joshua was proud because he made a sign in Spanish "Salva las Escuelas" and said that next time we need more signs in Spanish. We'll be marching next Friday with the teachers from our school, so hopefully then I'll get some pictures. Although it is possible that Joshua's picture may be in the paper and on the local TV news. We'll see.

Tomorrow we're probably heading to the San Diego Zoo, one of our favorite places to spend a day. We'll be back to school and our busy schedules next week, so this week we are enjoying our Spring Break.

Sheryl