Kayaking on Shaver Lake

I went Kayaking yesterday with my buddy Joe, and a group of people from the Fresno Kayak & Canoe Club. Click this link to go to the Fresno Kayak & Canoe Club website to see pictures that Joe took. His pictures from yesterday start with #16. Joe took a lot of pictures of the people, I took pictures of the landscape.

It was cold and frosty when we arrived at about 8:15 AM. There was an erie mist hovering over the water -




After paddling for a couple of miles, we pulled over for a break. We had pumpkin pie and cheese cake. Is this a Kayaking club, or just a front for eating sweets?




Jeter brought along Anne. She just jumped in the back of his Kayak and came along for the ride! She loved to play fetch.




It was a beautiful day.




Kayak parking lot -




We paddled for 6.5 miles (Matt brought a GPS). The clouds came in full force when we got back to the parking lot.




Then it got really cold.




Anne went for one last swim before we all loaded up and headed out. Here she is after being dried off.

Malawi 2009

The Northside Christian Church Youth Group went on a short-term missions trip to Malawi Africa this summer. Nick decided he would go along! They left on July 21st, and traveled for about 36 hours to get to Malawi. They had a 12 hour lay-over in Frankfurt, Germany. The plane out of Frankfurt had problems. They waited an hour on the plane, then got off the plane and waited 2 hours in the terminal, then got another plane and waited another hour. Their next stop was Johannesburg, Africa. Because they had plane troubles in Frankfurt, they barely made their connecting flight in Johannesburg.


Here they are in Frankfurt -

In the Airport -

This is John (the one on the right), he is the Youth Pastor at Northside. He coordinated the trip -

They got to play with and encourage a lot of kids in Malawi -







They got to see some amazing scenery -






One night, they had a chicken dinner. It may have been the freshest chicken they have ever eaten (considering they had to slaughter, pluck and the cook the chicken themselves) -


They had to walk a half a mile (round trip) to get their drinking water -

Occasionally they would travel, and they usually rode on these small buses (standing room only) -



They painted a church while they were there -

They also went on a safari. Here's their group picture that day -

Nick reports that it was all very "amazing!". He is starting to save his money so he can go again in the summer of 2011!

They arrived home on Thursday, August 6th (after about 48 hours of traveling).

You can view a lot more pictures from the trip at this PhotoBucket site.

Of course I haven't even touched on the amazing details of the trip. To know more, you'll have to talk with Nick!