Unlike many of our handbell friends, we didn’t make it to this year’s National Seminar – Pinnacle – in Dallas, Texas. We read lots of news about this exciting event on Facebook. The whole thing was so awesome that it even had its own hashtag on social media – #Pinnacle15.

We’re not the kind of people to sit around and sulk because we were missing out on all the fun in Texas. Instead, we decided to have a handbell adventure of our own here in California. We packed our bells and equipment into the car, and away we went!

Here we are at our destination – PINNACLES!

Our very own handbell event

We checked in at a hotel in the nearby town of Soledad, and our handbell event – #Pinnacles15 – began.

Here’s a picture of the church where we held our Friday evening duet session. We played through some new and unpublished music outside the church of Our Lady of Solitude.

And here’s our opening night dinner. Hey, put your phone away, Larry!

Here’s Larry wearing our event t-shirt:

Here are some of our bells in the hotel room:

Here’s Carla wearing her “Hug Larry if you love Tico Tico” shirt:

Larry held a handbell polishing session:

Wait. Handbell polishing? THAT’S not how you do it, Larry!

Here’s Larry wearing his “Kiss me if you love Tico Tico” shirt. These shirts were worn by handbell musicians from Area 12 at Distinctly Bronze West in February 2015.

Here’s Carla, showing her skills at multi-tasking as she works on music for the Bay View Week of Handbells while drinking coffee!

We enjoyed the opportunity to do some sightseeing in the area too. Here’s a picture of the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, where we played some of our duets inside and outside the chapel on Saturday morning:

And here we are at the Mission San Juan Bautista, which we visited on Saturday afternoon:

Our handbell event was over far too quickly, because we had to be home on Sunday morning, to play duets in a church service in San Jose. But we had a fun couple of days – and you can see more photos from our trip on our Facebook page!