visit from mama foley

my mom was able to come out to california for ten days at the end of the october. my goal for her for the trip was rest. she had carpel tunnel surgery at the beginning of the month and had since been raking piles and piles and piles of leaves. not the best thing for healing, in my opinion! so we did lots of activities that required little wrist movement, including lots of hiking and sight-seeing. 

 monarch butterflies congregating for the winter at natural bridges

 hearst castle! i've been wanting to visit since i moved to
california, so my mom's visit was the perfect excuse to go!

 so out of place, but crazy cool...

 the view is pretty spectacular!

 a few yearling elephant seals were hauled out at piedras

 the weather was amazingly beautiful - piedras blancas

 we toured the piedras blancas lighthouse

had a very nice hike out to my old field site along the big sur river

a little beach time at natural bridges

we also squeezed in a trip to the san francisco to hear lang lang (an amazing pianist) play with the san francisco symphony and evensong at grace cathedral. a work trip took us to sacramento. in exchange for seven hours in the car, we decided to treat ourselves to a tour of the california state capitol. it is a really beautiful building, so i'm glad we got the chance to check it out. 

thanks for visiting, mom!