West of Home plays at the Nevada Interfaith Association Prayer Breakfast

 

The Silver Circuits at FIRST Worlds in Houston

 The Virginia City Silver Circuits did awesome at the Worlds Robotics Competition in 

Houston last week - they went further than the Silver Circuits have ever gone in the finals!

Carson and Coen were there as mentors.

The team at their booth in the pits

The team after their alliance won in the division finals - they continued on to 

the final playoffs with the other divisions. 

Keith and Carson were there to cheer them on. Their alliance did 

well in the finals, but did not continue on - Up a Creek Robotics from Colorado won. 

setting up the field in the hotel room for practice

Carson's home!

 

if you want to look at these in order, scroll to the end of this post and 

then look at them scrolling up through as

they posted backwards! 

all the siblings in blue

We all cheered when we first caught sight of him - 

we were all so happy to see him again!

 I made a couple of digital signs

It was SO great to have lots of cousins, friends and family that came to greet him

we went to greet Carson at the airport on Wednesday night around 9:30pm

as he came home from West Virginia. He will be continuing his mission

here in Reno. 

Brochures and maps from Lighthouse trip

 

Point Arena Lighthouse

 

 

We spent a couple of days at the Point Arena Lighthouse - they have cottages

right next to the lighthouse. 

The drive there was  pretty long and a little treacherous. 

I'm standing at the beginning of Mountain View Road - and the horror on my face and 

in my hands should show just how treacherous this road is. We were 

driving on the super windy road at night, and it goes right through the 

forested mountains right on the California coast. It seemed like it was never going to end, 

but we finally made it out of the forest and to the coast. 

This is the lighthouse cat named Mina - she was found near the 

lighthouse cottages a few years ago and was pretty much adopted by the 

lighthouse staff and is now the official lighthouse cat. 

We toured the lighthouse

and went up to the top

the view was really neat

This LED light still shines bright every 12 seconds

You can see the cottages to the left

some type of membranes we found on the beach, possibly from mussles?

There's a place called 'Rollerville Diner' right down the street from the Lighthouse

 - we ate some breakfast before leaving town. 

Their french toast and belgian waffle were super tasty. 

We tried to avoid the horrible Mountain View Road on the way home by 

driving on Highway 1, but there were parts of 

the PCH 1 that were just as treacherous, maybe more-so!

I couldn't look out the window as we drove up some super steep 

parts that had no guardrails

and jutted out over the ocean. It's definitely hard to get to these 

coastal locations, but it was worth 

it to spend some time right on the ocean.