Oh how we LOVE Mount Hermon! It is the most wonderful, beautiful, uplifting, and refreshing place to be! While Mount Hermon is a "Christian conference center," it is also a tiny town unto itself nestled into the Santa Cruz Mountains amongst the glorious redwoods! And as we discovered, many of the people who live there work and volunteer at camp.
Mount Hermon has year-round events and activities and so there's always something going on there. Conferences, concerts, retreats, etc. How wonderful to live RIGHT THERE and get to pick and choose the events you'd like to attend year-round ... and simply walk to them! Since it's not too far from the coast, the winters are very mild. Such a perfect place to live!
Throughout the week, Jonathan and I kept remarking on how wonderful it would be to one day live in the little town of Mount Hermon and work (or volunteer there). The pipe dream was "one day." And the eventually Jonathan mentioned that he could just transfer with Pacific Gas & Electric and get a job in the area. Ooooooooohhhhh!
For now, Jonathan gets a good salary and an annual retention bonus, so it's not practical to move and switch jobs to a likely much lower paying job. But ... when that retention bonus comes to an end, we will seriously look into moving to Mount Hermon!
The schedule at Mount Hermon was so nice! In the morning, the kids (from toddlers to high school) had their own activities, while we parents had time with worship music, great messages from pastors, and seminars on a variety of topics. Then mid-day, we'd all get back together for an afternoon of free time and/or scheduled activities with our families. In the evenings, we'd gather together again - adults doing our thing, kids doing their thing. And then later in the evening, we'd all gather together for a big fun event for families.
Happily, Scarlett was good with doing the kids activities, even though she didn't know a soul. Unfortunately, Christian wasn't feeling that vibe at all and hung out with us. But then he was bored and we had to hear all about it. And he'd fall asleep during a pastor giving a message ... and we were seated right in front of the pastor. Ugh.
Train Day! There is one day that is dedicated to riding the train from Mount Hermon to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. It's a lovely ride among the Redwoods! The catch was that there were only two return trains, and one of them was much too late because Chloe was in her crate back at our cabin. So we were able to walk around the Boardwalk for only about an hour.
Mount Hermon Adventures! We had lots of fun activities to choose from and we picked the high ropes course. We sighed up too late to get the big course that is 80 feet off the ground, so we did a basic course. But next year, we're doing to big course!
Rock Climbing Wall: Scarlett also chose to do the rock climbing wall and really did a great job at it!
Breakfast at Pancake Ridge! For this event, we got to walk up the mountain on the paved road that winds through the Mount Hermon community (which really made us want to move there, seeing all the homes that are there), and meeting up with other families for a pancake breakfast. The kids got to do a pancake toss whereby they try to hit a target behind them by flinging a pancake from a spatula. Scarlett of course, participated! Her pancake didn't quite make it ... but it came awfully close!
Family Photos! Each family was provided with a photo session ... isn't that nice!!
What a wonderful week! We truly cannot wait to go back next summer!
